PetGroomBossPro Blog — Cat Grooming

Adding Cat Grooming to a Mobile Dog Grooming Business: Setting Up the Software First

A lot of mobile dog groomers end up taking cats the same way: a regular client with two dogs asks, “Could you do the cat too?” Then a neighbor asks. Then someone finds you online and asks if you do cats at all. Before long you are doing cats without ever having decided to.

Whether cats become a real part of your business is your call, and how you handle cats on the table is your craft. This article is about the other part: setting up the software so cat appointments are booked, priced, scheduled and billed as cleanly as your dog work from day one.

Why Set Up the Software Before the First Cat

If you have not read it yet, Cat Grooming Software: The Complete Guide for Mobile Groomers Who Take Cats covers the whole picture. This piece is the setup checklist.

When cats arrive by accident, they tend to get handled by accident too. The price gets made up in the driveway. The cat goes on the invoice as “extra pet.” The notes about how the visit went end up in a text thread with the owner. Eight weeks later, nobody remembers what was charged or how the cat behaved.

An hour of setup in PetGroomBossPro fixes most of that. Cats do not need a different system. They need their own services, their own prices and a habit of writing the right things down.

Step One: Add Cat Services to the Service List

PetGroomBossPro uses one service list for everything you sell. To add cats, you add cat services next to your dog services. A common starting list:

• Cat Groom — your standard full cat appointment.
• Lion Cut — priced on its own, since it is a different job from a groom.
• Comb-Out — for owners who want the coat kept up between bigger appointments.
• Sanitary Trim — often booked on its own between visits.
• Cat Nail Trim — quick visits, usually tied to a home you already serve.

Putting “cat” in the service name matters more than it seems. The software does not have a cat-only service type, so the name is what tells the office, the groomer and the owner what was booked. More detail is in Cat Services on the Service List: Cat Groom, Lion Cut, Comb-Out, Sanitary Trim and Nail Trim.

Step Two: Price Cats on the Booking Page

Your online booking page uses that same service list. For each service you set a base price, a price add-on per size, and a minimum. You can also set add-on prices and optional discounts for repeat schedules.

For cats, groomers usually keep it simple: a flat base price for the cat groom and the lion cut, with the size add-on used only for the big longhairs, or not at all. Example numbers might be a $95 cat groom and a $120 lion cut, but the right prices are the ones that fit your market and your time.

When a cat owner opens your Book Now link, they pick the service, enter each pet's name, breed and size, choose add-ons and a preferred day and time of day, and see the price. The request lands in Leads with the quoted price and you get an email.

Step Three: Decide How You Will Write Cat Notes

Every pet on a visit has a notes line for the cut and behavior. The notes are only useful if everyone writes them the same way. Before the first cat, decide on a short house style, for example:

• Cut first: “Lion cut, leave boots and tail tuft.”
• Behavior second: “Fine for brush-out, needs two people for nails.”
• Anything the owner asked for last: “Owner wants mane left fuller.”

Because the next visit at that home fills in from the last one, a well-written note pays you back every visit after.

Step Four: Mark Each Pet as Cat and Settle the Size Rule

On every visit, each pet is set to Dog or Cat, with breed, size and coat. Make it a rule in the office that every cat is marked Cat. It is a small thing, but it is the one setting that tells the groomer at a glance that the next card is a cat appointment.

The sizes (Toy, Small, Medium, Large, Giant) were built around dogs. Pick a simple rule for cats and use it every time, so prices that depend on size come out the same for the same cat.

Step Five: Think About Which Van and Which Day

Many groomers who add cats keep them on certain days, often the days when two people are in the van. In PetGroomBossPro, employees are assigned to vans, and a groomer and a bather can share one. Appointments have set times, and repeat visits can be booked on the same weekday, time and van every 6 or 8 weeks.

Nothing in the software forces cats onto a particular day. That is a scheduling decision you make, and the software just keeps it consistent once you have.

Step Six: Tell Your Existing Clients

Your easiest first cat clients are dog clients who already have a cat. A two-way text from the office, or a line on your next invoice, is enough to let them know. Each visit holds up to four pets, so adding the cat to a home you already serve is just one more pet on the card. Homes with both are covered in Cats and Dogs at the Same Home: Multi-Pet Visits in Cat Grooming Software.

Ready for the First Cat

With cat services on the list, prices on the booking page, a notes habit, a size rule and a plan for vans and days, you are set up before the first cat climbs out of the carrier. For the full picture of how cats work in PetGroomBossPro, go back to the cat grooming software page.