PetGroomBossPro Blog — Cat Grooming

Saved as Cat: How Each Cat Is Recorded on the Visit and Carried Forward

Every mobile groomer has a version of this story. The card for the next stop says “Oliver,” and the groomer pulls out the dog setup, walks to the door, and finds out Oliver is a fourteen-pound Persian. Nothing went wrong exactly, but it was a surprise that did not need to happen.

The fix is simple, and it is one of the few cat-related settings PetGroomBossPro has: every pet on every visit is marked Dog or Cat.

Where This Fits in the Setup

The last article, Adding Cat Grooming to a Mobile Dog Grooming Business: Setting Up the Software First, listed marking every cat as Cat as one of the setup steps. This one looks at what that record holds and what happens to it after the first visit.

In PetGroomBossPro, the pets are saved on the visit. A visit to a home holds the pets there, up to four per visit, and each one has its own set of details. Those details are what the groomer sees on the phone and what the office sees on the job.

What Gets Saved for Each Cat

• Name. “Oliver,” “Mochi,” “Mr. Whiskers.” Spelled the way the owner spells it, because it ends up on the Grooming Report and the invoice.
• Dog or Cat. The setting this article is named for.
• Breed. Typed in. “Domestic longhair” is a perfectly good answer.
• Size. Toy, Small, Medium, Large or Giant. These sizes were designed with dogs in mind, so pick a rule for cats and keep to it.
• Coat. Short / Smooth, Medium, Long, Double Coat, Curly / Doodle, Wire or Hairless. Hairless is on the list, which covers the sphynx owners.
• Rabies due date. Typed in. There is no upload of vaccine records.
• Notes. One line for the cut and behavior.

That is the whole cat record. It is the same record a dog gets, and the honest truth is that this is about all the cat-specific handling the software does. The difference is that the cat is clearly a cat everywhere it shows up.

Where “Cat” Shows Up

Once a pet is saved as Cat, it reads that way on:

• The appointment card on the groomer app, with breed, size, coat and notes.
• The job in the office, next to the services and add-ons.
• The grooming checklist, where each pet gets its own list.
• The Grooming Report the office can print for the owner.

For a home with a cat and two dogs, that means the groomer sees three pets on one card, each labeled, instead of guessing which name belongs to which animal.

Carried Forward: The Next Visit Fills In

This is the part that saves real time. When the next visit at that home is created, the pets fill in from the last one. The cat comes back as a cat, with the same breed, size, coat and notes. Nobody re-types any of it.

That matters more for cats than for many dogs. A cat on an eight-week schedule may go a long stretch between appointments. If the notes had to be re-entered each time, or remembered, they would drift. With the record carried forward, the groomer at visit six reads what was written at visit five.

Repeat appointments made with Add Recurring Grooming carry the pets too, so a cat booked every 6 or 8 weeks has its record on every visit in the series. And when an owner approves an estimate, the pet details on the estimate carry onto the job.

Keeping the Record Current

Carrying details forward only helps if they stay true. A few habits keep cat records honest:

• Update the note when the cut changes. If the owner switches from a lion cut to a comb-out, change the note on that visit so the next one starts right.
• Update the coat if it changes. If a cat now needs different handling, say so in the notes.
• Add new cats right away. A new kitten at a home you already serve is one more pet on the next visit.
• Remove pets that are gone. Take the pet off the next visit so the groomer is not looking for it, and so the owner never sees the name on a Grooming Report.

The Next Pieces: Coat and Behavior

The notes line is where most of the useful cat information lives, and it gets its own guides. Longhair coats come next in Coat Notes for Longhair Cats: Writing What the Next Groom Needs to Know, followed by behavior notes and lion cut notes.

One Setting, Every Visit

Dog or Cat is a small switch, but with the breed, coat and notes next to it, it turns every cat into a known appointment instead of a surprise at the door. For how this fits with services, pricing, scheduling and billing, see the cat grooming software page.