PetGroomBossPro Blog — Billing, Tips & Payments

Grooming Tips in the Customer App: $10, $20, $30 or Other on a Paid Invoice

In a salon, tipping happens at the counter. The customer pays, adds a few dollars, and that is that. In mobile grooming, the customer often is not there at the end. They were at work, on a call, or the dog was handed to a neighbor. A lot of customers who would happily tip simply never get the chance. App tipping gives them one.

Tips Happen After the Bill Is Settled

Past-due invoices, covered in Past-Due Grooming Invoices: Following Up Without Losing a Good Client, are about getting the bill paid. Tips come after that, once the invoice is paid.

In PetGroomBossPro, the customer can leave a tip on a paid invoice in the customer app. That might be an invoice paid automatically by the card on file when the groomer tapped Complete, or one the customer paid online themselves. Either way, once it shows as paid, the tip option is there.

$10, $20, $30 or Other

The tip choices are simple: $10, $20, $30, or another amount the customer types in. Preset buttons make it quick. A customer who is opening the app between meetings can tap one button and be done. The “other” option covers the customer who wants to give more for a tough de-matting job, or a little less for a quick nail trim.

Because tipping is on a paid invoice, it never gets mixed up with the bill itself. The customer pays for the groom, then chooses whether to say thanks.

When Customers Open the App

Customers open the customer app for a lot of reasons, and each one is a chance to see the paid invoice. On grooming day they watch the live route map (“You're stop 12 of 20 — the groomer is 5 stops away”). After the groom they get the invoice by email and may open it in the app. Later they might request service, check their next visit, or update their card.

The most natural moment for a tip is right after the groom, when the customer sees their freshly groomed dog and the paid invoice arrives. That is also when a note from the groomer on the grooming checklist — “Biscuit was a star today” — lands best.

What It Means for the Groomer

For a groomer working a mobile route, app tips can make a real difference over a season, especially from the customers who are never home during the groom. Those customers often appreciate the work as much as anyone, and they finally have a way to show it.

It also takes the awkwardness out of tipping. The groomer never has to hover or hint. The customer decides on their own time, in private, with no one watching. Some groomers find that more comfortable than cash at the door. More on that in More Grooming Tips Without Asking at the Door.

Where the Tips Go: The Tips Report

Every tip left in the customer app shows up on the tips report. That gives the owner one place to see what came in, instead of piecing it together from invoices.

The report is what you use to pay tips out to your groomers, and to settle up if you share tips between a groomer and a bather. That sharing is an office practice you decide on; the software reports tips, it does not split them. Both topics have their own articles: The Grooming Tips Report: Every App Tip in One Place and Splitting Grooming Tips Between Groomer and Bather: An Office Practice, Not a Software Setting.

Keep the tip separate from any price talk. A tip is never part of the invoice and should never be expected. Customers who feel free to skip it are often the ones who come back to it later, on a groom they were especially happy with.

Cash Tips Still Happen

App tipping does not replace cash. Some customers will always hand the groomer a few dollars at the van door, and that is fine. Those tips are outside the software, so they will not be on the tips report. If your business pools tips, decide how cash tips fit into that and tell your team.

What app tips add is a way to tip for the customers who could not hand anything over. Mention it once in your welcome message — “If you'd ever like to tip your groomer, you can do it on a paid invoice in the app” — and let the customers take it from there.

Tipping in the app is one small piece of how PetGroomBossPro handles grooming billing. To see it alongside invoices, card on file and monthly statements, visit the pet grooming invoicing software page.