Running a pet-care business is a labour of love, but the admin has a nasty habit of taking over. It’s hard to stay present when you’re mid-groom or out in a muddy field with six dogs in tow and your phone never seems to stay quiet. Fielding a non-stop stream of WhatsApps while juggling the week’s bookings mentally makes it almost impossible to ever truly clock off.
Pawpal is a practical, no-nonsense platform built to give you your evenings back. We handle the scheduling and the invoicing in a few clicks, so you can finally shut the laptop and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet.
Why pet-care businesses feel the strain
Managing a busy diary and a team of walkers manually is the quickest way to lose your weekends. Without a proper system in place, you’re likely stuck with:
- The nightly admin mountain: Spending hours every evening cross-referencing diaries and chasing up deposits.
- Rota headaches: Trying to coordinate staff and handle last-minute cancellations via a messy web of WhatsApp threads.
- Scattered notes: Losing vital pet details, such as allergies or gate codes, across old emails and scraps of paper.
- Costly mix-ups: Double-bookings or missed appointments that annoy your regulars and dent your local reputation.
How Pawpal sorts your day
We’ve built Pawpal to be fast and fuss-free, helping your team work smarter without the extra faff.
1. Bookings that look after themselves Stop wrestling with your diary. Set your working hours once and let Pawpal do the legwork. The system checks your availability in real-time; if there’s a gap, the booking is confirmed instantly. If you’re rammed, Pawpal manages the waiting list for you.
2. Getting the team sorted without the back-and-forth The moment a booking is confirmed, you can get it onto the right person’s rota in seconds. Your staff get everything they need, including route maps, pickup instructions, and pet profiles, sent straight to their phones. It puts an end to those frantic calls from staff asking for a key-safe code while you’re in the middle of a groom.
3. Checklists that work You can’t be in three places at once, but our digital checklists are the next best thing. Your team can tick off tasks as they go, giving you a real-time view of how the day is progressing. It’s a simple, effective way to ensure every gate is locked and no medication is ever missed.
Features built for the UK trade
- No more “no-shows”: Pawpal sends automated reminders to your clients before their slot. You can also blast out group updates regarding Bank Holiday hours or seasonal price changes.
- The Client Hub: Keep every conversation in one place. No more scrolling back through months of personal messages just to find a specific feeding instruction.
- Room to grow: By automating the boring stuff, you can take on more clients and grow the business without needing to hire an extra pair of hands just to man the phones.
Getting started
Setting up is straightforward and takes less time than a standard dog walk:
- Personalise your portal: Sign up and upload your logo so your client-facing app looks the part.
- Set your stall out: Input your services, your standard rates, and your staff rotas.
- Go live: Invite your regulars to book through your branded app and let the software handle the admin.
Conclusion
Managing a pet-care business shouldn’t feel like an endless slog of paperwork. With Pawpal, you get a single, simple platform to handle your bookings, staff, and payments. It’s time to bin the spreadsheets and reclaim your Sunday nights.
Book a free Pawpal demo today and see how three clicks can sort out your schedule and get you out of the office on time.
