Boarding and pets

Keep a record of each client's pets, and book their stays in your kennels, suites or stalls. Fifi never double-books a place, checks each pet fits, and shows who's arriving and leaving today.

Pets and Boarding are two modules, on by default for Pet services workspaces and on the Pro and Business plans (during the beta every workspace gets Business). Boarding needs Pets. If Pets or Boarding is missing from the sidebar, an owner or admin can turn them on in Settings → Modules.

Who can do it:

1. Add your kennels

1. Go to Settings → Boarding and click Add a kennel.
2. Give it a Name ("A1", "Suite 3", "Stall 7") and a Kind ("Kennel", "Suite", "Stall"). Fifi shows them together, like "Kennel A1".
3. Optionally type an Area ("Small dogs wing", "Barn"). The kennel board groups kennels by area.
4. Choose the Largest size it fits: S, M, L or XL. A pet bigger than that can't be booked into it.
5. Set Pets at once: usually 1. A family suite might take 2 or 3.
6. Click Add.

Use the arrows to change the order (the board shows them in this order). Untick Taking new stays to stop booking a kennel for a while; deleting it does the same for good. Stays already booked keep their kennel either way. A workspace can have up to 200.

2. Add a client's pets

1. Open the client (a contact) and find Pets.
2. Click Add pet, then fill in the Name, Species, Breed, Size and, if you know it, the Birth date (approximate is fine). Notes are for the team: temperament, allergies, vet.
3. Click Add pet. "Pet added" shows on the client's timeline.

Click a pet's name to open its page. Edit changes its details. Under Vaccinations, type the vaccine and the date it expires, and click Add.

What you'll see: a vaccination that has expired is badged Expired; one that expires within 30 days is badged Expires soon. The client's Pets section and the Pets list show the pet's worst one. (Fifi doesn't email reminders about vaccinations yet.)

Pets in the sidebar lists every pet with its owner, and has a search box for names.

A pet's photo

Give each pet a photo, so the team knows who's who at a glance.

1. On the pet's page, click Add photo. Or, on the client's page, click the camera button next to the pet under Pets.
2. Click Upload a photo and choose a PNG, JPEG or WebP picture.
3. Fifi crops it to a square around the middle and makes it smaller (512 × 512) before it's sent, so a big phone photo is fine. Its hidden details, like where it was taken, are removed.

To change it, click Change photo, then Replace photo (the old one is removed) or Remove photo (Fifi asks you to confirm). A pet without a photo shows its initials on a coloured circle, with a small sign for its species.

What you'll see: the photo shows on the pet's page, next to the pet on its client's page and in the Pets list, in a stay's details, on the kennel board's Floor view (up to two pets on a kennel, then "+1"), and on the seats in the calendar's Floor view. The kennel board's grid stays text only.

Who sees it: only people in your workspace. Photos never appear on your booking pages, in emails or texts to clients, in webhooks, or in Ask Fifi. A pet in the trash keeps its photo, and has it again when it's restored. A removed photo is deleted for good 30 days later, as is the photo of a pet that's deleted for good.

A pet's profile photo is one small picture. For before and after pictures, a guest settling into its kennel, or the day's progress, add photos to the client's timeline and say they're about the pet or the stay: see Photos on timelines. Those pictures are kept apart from the profile photo, and show on the client's timeline and the pet's page.

Set your rates

A rate says what a night costs: one price for one pet, and a price for each additional pet on the same stay (two dogs from one family, say). Give each kennel a rate, and a stay is priced for you the moment you book it.

Add a rate (owners and admins):

1. Go to Settings → Boarding. Under Rates, click Add rate.
2. Give it a Name: "Standard kennel", "Large run", "Family suite", "Cat condo". Names are unique among your rates, in any case.
3. Type One pet, per night and Each additional pet, per night, in dollars, from $0.00 to $10,000.00. The additional price can be lower, higher, or $0.00. It is only used for kennels that take more than one pet at once.
4. Click Add rate.

You can have up to 50 rates. Edit changes a rate; Archive puts one away (you can Unarchive it later, from the Archived list). A rate is never deleted, because stays remember the rate they were priced from. Archiving is refused while a kennel uses it ("Used by Kennel 1, Kennel 2. Give those kennels another rate first").

Give a kennel a rate. Edit the kennel in Settings → Boarding and choose its Rate. Many kennels can share one. The kennel list shows each kennel's rate, or No rate; a stay in a kennel with no rate has no price. Changing a kennel's rate changes no stay.

How a stay is priced. Fifi works out the price when a stay is booked, and again when its dates, its pets or its kennel change:

• Nights are the midnights between the check-in day and the check-out day, in the time zone of the workspace's first owner (their Settings → Profile), and at least 1. Check-in on Oct 3 at 2:00 PM and check-out on Oct 6 at 11:00 AM is 3 nights. A stay that starts and ends on the same day is 1 night. The time of day doesn't matter, and a change of clocks never adds or removes a night.
• Pets are the pets on that stay. Another family's stay in the same suite doesn't matter: each stay is priced on its own pets.
• A night costs the one-pet price plus the additional-pet price for every pet after the first. The stay costs nights × that.

Prices are whole cents all the way through; nothing is ever rounded.

What you see. In the stay form, a line under the dates works the price out as you type: "3 nights × ($85.00 + $50.00) = $405.00 · Family suite". If the kennel has no rate it says so (with a link to Settings → Boarding for owners and admins), and the stay is saved without a price. After saving, the stay's details show Price: the total, the sum, and the rate's name. The Price note is a separate line of free text for the team. The kennel board, the Floor view and the calendar don't show prices.

A price is a copy. The nights, the pets and both amounts are copied onto the stay when it is priced. Changing or archiving a rate afterwards never changes a stay that is already booked ("Changing a rate affects stays you book or re-date afterwards"). Then:

• Moving a stay's dates or pets keeps its own amounts, so a stay booked at $45.00 a night is still $45.00 a night if you add a night next week, even if the rate has gone up since.
• Moving it to a kennel on a different rate prices it at that rate's current amounts. The form tells you before you save ("Moving to Large run changes the rate: now $55.00 + $35.00 a night"). A kennel with no rate keeps the stay's price.
• Stays booked before you set up rates have no price. They get one the first time their dates, pets or kennel change into a kennel with a rate, or when an owner or admin uses Use today's rates on them. Changing only the notes never prices a stay.
• A stay that is checked in can still be extended or shortened: the nights change and nothing else. A checked-out or cancelled stay is closed.

A custom rate for one stay (owners and admins). On the stay's details, Set custom rate… takes the two amounts and a reason (up to 200 characters, shown on the stay). The stay then shows a Custom rate badge. Its dates and pets still change its total, but its amounts never change by themselves. It works on any stay that isn't cancelled, a checked-out one too, so a discount can be given at the desk. Use today's rates puts the stay back to the amounts of its kennel's rate now ("This kennel has no rate" if it has none). Both are recorded in the Settings → Activity log with who did it and when; the log says the reason changed, never what it says.

Worked examples. Standard kennel is $45.00 for one pet and $30.00 for each additional pet. Family suite is $85.00 and $50.00.

Two pets that don't stay the same length. Bo and Mia arrive Dec 22; Mia goes home Dec 25 and Bo stays to Dec 27. That's two stays in the same suite: Bo and Mia from Dec 22 to Dec 25 (3 nights × ($85.00 + $50.00) = $405.00) and Bo alone from Dec 25 to Dec 27 (2 nights × $85.00 = $170.00), $575.00 in all. Mia leaving at 11:00 and Bo's second stay starting at 11:00 fit in the suite. (Pets on a stay can't change after check-in, so a pet leaving early means a second stay.)

A rate that goes up. If Standard kennel rises to $50.00 on Nov 1, a stay booked on Oct 20 for Nov 5 to 8 stays at 3 nights × $45.00 = $135.00. An owner or admin can use Use today's rates on it to make it 3 nights × $50.00 = $150.00. Moving that stay's dates from 3 to 5 nights before check-in makes it 5 nights × $45.00 = $225.00, still at its own $45.00.

Not in the price. Flat fees and add-ons (medication, a bath, a check-in fee), packages, percentage discounts and deposits aren't part of a stay's price; for now, add them as separate lines on the invoice (invoice lines can be negative, for a discount). Prices that change with how full the building is, with the season or the date, per pet size, or per pet number beyond "additional" aren't supported. Rates and prices aren't in Reports, Ask Fifi, the API, webhooks or your owners' confirmation emails. They are in Export everything.

Invoice on a stay fills the invoice from its price: one line, with the nights as its quantity and the whole nightly price for its pets as its unit price, so the line adds up to the stay's price to the cent. See Invoicing a boarding stay. A stay edited after it was invoiced shows a note, but never changes the invoice.

3. Book a stay

From the kennel board (Boarding in the sidebar):

1. Click a free day in a kennel's row. On a phone, choose the day and tap Book next to a kennel under Free tonight.
2. Search for the Owner and choose them. Their pets appear; tick the ones staying (one pet is ticked for you).
3. Check Where, Check-in and Check-out. They start at 2:00 PM on that day and 11:00 AM the next, in your time zone (Settings → Profile).
4. Choose Confirmed, or Pending for a stay you haven't confirmed yet. A pending stay holds no place until you confirm it.
5. Under the dates, Fifi shows the price for those pets, kennel and dates as you type (see Set your rates). It never stops you from booking. Add Notes (feeding, medication, walks) and a Price note if you like. Both are for the team only.
6. Leave Email the owner a confirmation ticked to send them one, if they have an email address.
7. Click Book stay.

You can also click New stay at the top of the board, on a client's page (under Stays) or on a pet's page.

What Fifi checks:

• No double-booking. A kennel never holds more pets at once than its Pets at once, even if two people book the last place at the same moment: one gets it, the other sees "That's full for part of those dates". A stay leaving at 11:00 and one arriving at 11:00 fit.
• Size. Every pet must fit the kennel ("A pet is too big for that place").
• One place at a time. A pet can't be in two stays at once.
• A pet that's late leaving keeps its place. A pet still checked in after its check-out time is still there, so it holds its place for the next 24 hours (counted from now, again and again) until you check it out. Another pet can't be booked into that place for tonight, or checked in there, until then; a stay booked further ahead is fine. If the owner is picking up later, Edit the stay's check-out to that time.
• The owner's pets. A stay's pets all belong to its owner. A client has at most 50 pets (pets in the trash don't count).
• At most 90 nights, and check-out after check-in.
• A priced stay prices the pets it has. If someone else changes a stay's pets while you are editing it, saving shows "That stay changed while you were editing. Reload and try again" rather than saving a price for pets that aren't there.

4. The kennel board

The board shows your kennels down the side and a Week or 2 weeks of days across, from today. Use the arrows and Today to move. Each day is split into morning and afternoon, so a morning departure and an afternoon arrival share a day.

Each stay is a bar with its pets, the owner's surname and its status, shown by an icon and a word as well as a colour:

Click a bar to see the stay and its next steps. A bar marked Held belongs to a client in the trash: the place stays taken until they're restored, or purged after 30 days. A pet still checked in after its check-out time keeps its bar, running on through tonight, until you check it out.

With the keyboard: press Tab to reach the free days (they're one stop), use the arrow keys to move between them (Home and End go to the first and last in a row), and press Enter to book. Tab again to reach each stay.

On a phone the board is a list for one day: who's Arriving, Leaving and Staying, and what's Free tonight.

The Floor view

Once you've drawn a floor plan (see Draw your floor plans below), click Floor at the top of the board to see your rooms as they are, with each kennel as a box (a "pod") on the plan.

1. Pick the day with the arrows, Today, or the date field. If you have several plans, pick one from the row of plan names.
2. Each pod shows its kennel's name, its status for that day, and the pets staying, with their photos (up to two, then "+1") when the pod is big enough:

Every status has its own icon and word, as well as a colour. A pod with two stays that day (a morning departure and an afternoon arrival, or a suite with room for more) shows both, and a suite shows how many pets are in tonight ("2 of 3 tonight"). Pending stays hold no place, so they don't colour a pod; a free pod says "1 pending".

3. Click a free pod to book it: the New stay form opens with that kennel and the day filled in (2:00 PM to 11:00 AM the next day).
4. Click a pod with a stay to open the stay (confirm, check in, check out, edit). When a pod has more than one stay, or room for another pet, you choose a stay or Book here.

Zoom and move around: use +, − and Fit, hold Ctrl (⌘ on a Mac) and scroll, or pinch on a touch screen. Scroll or drag to move around a large plan. Every pod is a button, so Tab reaches each one.

On a phone the plan fits the screen, and you can still zoom and move around it. Tap List for every kennel as a list, with the same statuses and the same taps. The list is also under the plan on bigger screens.

If Online booking is on and the plan has seats (a grooming room, say), they're drawn as rounded outlines with a chair and their name, without a status: who's in them is on the calendar's Floor view.

5. Draw your floor plans

Owners and admins draw what each room or wing looks like in Settings → Floor plans (it moved there from Settings → Boarding in v0.50.0; old links still work). Everyone in the workspace can look at the plans, and the Floor views use them. Floor plans are shared by Boarding and Online booking: they're there while either is on, with your kennels (while Boarding is on) and your seats (while Online booking is on) on the same plans. Settings → Boarding and Settings → Booking → Seats both link to them.

1. Click Add a floor plan. Give it a Name ("Main room", "Cattery") and a grid size in Columns and Rows (squares across and down; you can change it later). Click Add and open the editor. A workspace can have up to 20 plans.
2. Place your kennels: under Kennels, click Place next to a kennel. It appears on the plan as a pod. A kennel that's already on another plan moves to this one. New adds a new kennel right from the editor; it's created when you save. Place your seats the same way under Seats (grooming tables, tubs, chairs). New seat makes one (a name and a kind), created when you save; Duplicate… makes the next ones ("Table 1" three times gives Table 2 to Table 4). Seats are drawn as rounded pods with a chair and their kind, so they're easy to tell from kennels without relying on colour. A plan holds up to 200 kennels and 100 seats.
3. Draw the room with the toolbar: Wall, Door, Area (a labelled zone, like "Small dogs"), Table and Label. These don't take bookings.
4. Arrange things:
   • Drag an item to move it, and drag its square handles to resize it. Snap to grid (on by default) keeps things on whole squares; turn it off for quarter squares.
   • Rotate turns the selection a quarter turn. A pod's thick edge is its front (its door).
   • Shift-click, or drag a box around items, to select several. Without a keyboard (on a tablet), turn on Select several and tap each item, or use Select all. Arrange lines them up (left, centre, right, top, middle, bottom) or spaces three or more evenly.
   • Duplicate… makes copies to the right or below. Copies of a kennel are new kennels with the next names: duplicate "Kennel 1" six times for "Kennel 2" to "Kennel 7" in a row.
   • Everything you can drag, you can also type: select an item and change Across, Down, Width, Height and Rotation in the panel on the right.
5. Undo and Redo step back and forward through your changes. Nothing is saved until you click Save. If you try to leave with unsaved changes (a link, the browser's Back button, reloading or closing the tab), Fifi asks first.
6. Optionally add a Background: a drawing or photo of the floor to trace over (PNG, JPEG or WebP, up to 5 MB). It's stored privately and only your team can see it.

With the keyboard: Tab to the plan, then use [ and ] to step through the items, the arrow keys to move the selection (Shift + arrows resize it), R to rotate, Delete to take it off the plan, and Escape to clear the selection. Ctrl/⌘ + D duplicates once, Ctrl/⌘ + Z undoes, Ctrl/⌘ + Shift + Z redoes, Ctrl/⌘ + S saves, and ? lists every shortcut. The On this plan list names every item; click one to select it.

Two people editing at once: if someone else saved the plan after you opened it, your save is refused rather than overwriting theirs: "Someone else saved this floor plan after you opened it." Click Reload to see their version, then make your changes again.

On a phone you can look at a plan, but drawing needs a tablet or a computer.

Deleting: taking a pod off a plan doesn't delete the kennel or seat. Deleting a kennel (Settings → Boarding) or a seat (Settings → Booking → Seats) takes it off its plan. Deleting a plan (the bin next to it) takes its kennels and seats off it and removes its background; they, their stays and their bookings stay as they are.

When a module is off: with Boarding off, the editor shows the plan's kennels as plain outlines and leaves them where they are when you save (and the same for seats while Online booking is off). Floor plans themselves are only turned off when both modules are.

Other tools: your floor plans and seats can be read through the API with a key that has "Floor plans and seats: Read", webhooks can tell another system when a plan is added, changed or deleted, and Export everything includes them (see Import, export and Trash).

6. Check in, check out, change or cancel

Open a stay (from the board, a client's page, a pet's page or the dashboard). Its next steps are buttons:

• Confirm a pending stay. Fifi checks there's room, and can email the owner.
• Check in when they arrive, and Check out when they leave. Fifi records the time. If you check out on a day other than the planned check-out day, Fifi asks which nights to bill (see below).
• Cancel stay, before check-in.
• Edit changes the kennel, the times and the notes until check-out, and the pets until check-in.

Collected early, or late. The planned check-out day decides what is billed. If you check a pet out on another day (in your business's time zone), the stay asks: "Planned check-out Tue Oct 6. Leaving today, Sun Oct 4?" with Bill 1 night or Keep 3 nights; for a pet still here after its day, "Still here after Oct 6." with Bill 5 nights (until today) or Keep 3 nights. Bill moves the stay's check-out to this moment (never before check-in plus a minute) and re-prices the stay at its own nightly price, then checks it out, so the invoice you make bills the nights the pet stayed. A stay with no price is not priced by this: only its check-out moves. Keep leaves the stay as planned. Cancel closes the question without checking out. Checking out from the dashboard's Today's arrivals and departures keeps the plan; open the stay for the choice. A stay can't be billed past 90 nights.

Each step shows on the client's timeline ("Stay booked", "Stay checked in"…), and the pet's page lists every stay it's had, with the times it actually came and went.

7. Today at a glance

The Dashboard shows Today's arrivals and departures, with Check in and Check out buttons right there, and how many pets are staying tonight. The Calendar shows each stay across every day it covers (turn Stays on or off with the other filters).

Deleting a pet

On the pet's page, click Delete. It leaves the client's page and the Pets list; its stays keep their history. Right after, Undo on the client's page brings it back. Owners and admins can restore it from Settings → Trash for 30 days; after that it's deleted for good. Deleting a client takes their pets and stays with them when the client is purged.

Troubleshooting