PetGroomBossPro Blog — Billing, Tips & Payments

Monthly Statements for Grooming Accounts: One Bill for Every Visit in the Month

Most mobile grooming customers are households. One home, a couple of pets, an invoice after each visit. But a growing grooming business often picks up a different kind of customer: an organization that hosts the van regularly and wants to be billed like a business, not like a household. For those customers, an invoice after every visit is more paperwork than help. They want one statement a month.

A Different Kind of Customer

Household tipping and thank-yous were covered in More Grooming Tips Without Asking at the Door. Accounts work differently, and the bill is the first place that shows.

The accounts mobile groomers most often see are senior living communities that hold a pet day for residents, doggy daycares that bring in a groomer for a bath day, and apartment communities that offer grooming as a resident perk. Each one has a person who pays the bills, and that person usually wants one clean statement per month, not a stream of individual invoices.

How Monthly Account Billing Works

In PetGroomBossPro, an account can be set to Monthly. Once it is, the account gets one statement each month covering every visit, rather than an invoice after each one. The visits still happen exactly as they would for anyone else: they are on the schedule, they show on the groomer app with their set times and van notes, the groomer works through the checklist and taps Complete.

The difference is only in billing. Instead of each completed visit producing a separate bill to pay right away, the visits are gathered onto the month's statement.

Why Accounts Prefer One Statement

An organization paying for grooming has its own process for paying bills. Someone has to approve each one, match it to a budget, and file it. Four separate invoices in a month mean four times through that process. One statement means once.

For you, it means fewer invoices to chase and a predictable payment from a steady customer. It also looks professional. An account manager at a senior living community is more comfortable with a vendor who sends a tidy monthly statement than with one who sends a text after every pet day.

Setting the Visits Up

Most accounts come on a regular schedule, which fits the repeat-appointment tools well. With Add Recurring Grooming, the office can book the account on the same weekday, time and van every week, every 2, 3 or 4 weeks, monthly or on custom days. Each visit is written up front and waits on Pending Jobs until the office confirms it.

Van notes matter at accounts too: where to park, which entrance to use, where the outlet or water hookup is, and who to check in with. Those live on the job and carry forward to the next visit. The details of setting up each type of account are in Senior Living, Doggy Daycare and Apartment Pet Days: Billing Grooming Accounts Monthly.

Keep Each Visit Accurate

A monthly statement is only as good as the visits on it. Each visit should reflect what was actually done that day: the services, the add-ons, and the pets where that applies. When the groomer taps Complete with an accurate job, the visit goes onto the statement correctly.

That matters even more for accounts than for households, because a monthly statement covers several visits at once. A mistake on one visit can make the whole statement look wrong to the person approving it. It is worth a quick review before each month's statement goes out, especially in the first few months of a new account.

What About the Pet Owners?

At some accounts, the organization pays for everything. At others, such as an apartment community offering grooming as a perk, the residents may pay for their own pets while the community hosts the van. Those are different arrangements.

If the organization pays, set the account to Monthly and it gets the statement. If residents pay for their own pets, they are usually better set up as their own clients, with their own invoices and cards on file, so each household gets its own bill. Decide which arrangement you have before the first visit, and write it down so the office handles it the same way every month.

Getting Paid on Accounts

Accounts often pay on their own schedule, so monthly statements tend to be paid by the account rather than charged to a card at the van. Agree on payment terms when you sign the account, and follow up the same way you would any open invoice if a statement runs late. The approach in Past-Due Grooming Invoices: Following Up Without Losing a Good Client works just as well, with a slightly more formal tone.

Reports show what was billed, what was paid and what is still outstanding, so it is easy to see where each account stands. To see monthly statements alongside invoices, card on file and tips, visit the pet grooming invoicing software page.