PetGroomBossPro Blog — Pet Grooming Software

Monthly Accounts in Pet Grooming Software: Senior Living, Daycare and Apartment Pet Days

Most of a mobile groomer's book is households: one address, a couple of pets, a card on file. But many groomers also have a few bigger accounts. A senior living community that hosts a pet day for residents. A doggy daycare that brings in a groomer for bath days. An apartment community that offers grooming as an amenity. Those accounts work differently, and the billing should too.

Beyond Visit-by-Visit Billing

Card on File for Mobile Pet Grooming: Paid Before the Van Pulls Away covered how a household gets charged the moment the groom is done. Monthly accounts take a different path: one statement at the end of the month.

Set the Account to Monthly

In PetGroomBossPro, any account can be set to Monthly billing. Once it is, visits for that account do not each get charged separately. Instead, the account gets one statement each month covering every visit.

For the account contact, usually a community manager or a daycare owner, that is a lot easier to handle than a stack of separate invoices. For you, it means one thing to send and one payment to track per account per month.

Senior Living Pet Days

A pet day at a senior living community might mean grooming several residents' pets in one visit. Each visit holds up to four pets, each with its own name, breed, size, coat and notes, and each with its own checklist on the groomer app. A bigger pet day can be booked as more than one visit at the community, all on the same monthly statement. The office can print a Grooming Report from the job if the community wants a record.

Book the pet day as a repeat appointment, for example the first Wednesday of every month, and it comes up on Pending Jobs like any other visit.

Doggy Daycare Bath Days

A doggy daycare might want a groomer on site for bath days on a regular schedule. Book the visits as a repeat series at a set time and van, and set the account to Monthly. Every bath day that month rolls into one statement for the daycare.

Because the frequency is picked per client from one service list, you can use the same Bath & Brush service you use for households, priced for the account.

Apartment Communities

Apartment communities sometimes offer mobile grooming to residents. How you set it up depends on the arrangement. If the community pays, set the community account to Monthly and bill it once a month. If residents pay for their own grooms, each resident can be their own client with their own card on file, and the community address and van notes, like which visitor spot to use, live on each resident's record.

One client can have many addresses, which helps when a property management company has several communities on your schedule.

Pricing Monthly Accounts

Bigger accounts often need a quote before they start. An estimate built from your service list lays out what a pet day or bath day will include. The account approves it online, and the approved estimate becomes the job. That process is covered in Estimates in Pet Grooming Software: Quoting a Multi-Pet Home and Turning It Into a Job.

Invoices and statements carry line items and sales tax, so the account sees what each visit included.

Scheduling Around Big Accounts

A monthly account visit is often a longer block than a household. When you set its repeat slot, give it the time it needs on the van's day so the household appointments after it are not squeezed. On the Scheduled list and the groomer's phone, the account shows with its time like any other appointment.

If you run more than one van, putting the big accounts on one van and households on another can keep both days predictable. That is covered in Running a Two-Van Mobile Pet Grooming Company: Groomers, Bathers and Shared Vans.

Notes for Big Accounts

Larger accounts usually come with their own rules: sign in at the front desk, park in the service lot, groom between 10:00 and 2:00, use the activity room door. Those belong in the van notes on the account's address, where every groomer who takes that visit will see them. It is also worth keeping the account contact's name and best phone number on the client record, so the office knows exactly who to call if a visit needs to move.

Why Monthly Billing Helps

Big accounts are good business: regular, predictable and often close together on the route. The only thing that makes them awkward is billing them like a household. A single monthly statement fixes that and makes you easier to work with, which is the kind of thing that keeps an account renewing.

For every guide in this series, return to the pet grooming software page.