PetGroomBossPro Blog — Billing, Tips & Payments

Sales Tax on Grooming Invoices: Set It Once and Let the Invoice Do the Math

Sales tax is nobody's favorite part of running a grooming van. Whether grooming services are taxable, at what rate, and whether products like paw balm or bandanas are treated differently all depend on where you work. What you do not want is a groomer figuring tax on a phone calculator at every stop.

Get the Rules From the Right Person

The previous article, Size and Coat on the Grooming Invoice: Pricing a Giant Double Coat Differently From a Toy Poodle, covered getting the price on each line right. Sales tax is what gets added on top of those lines.

This article will not tell you whether your grooming services are taxable. That depends on your state, province or country and sometimes your city, and the rules can change. Ask your accountant or your local tax office what applies to your services and where. Once you know, the software can take it from there.

What you want from invoicing software is simple: tell it once, and have every invoice come out right without anyone thinking about it.

Tax on the Invoice, Not in the Groomer's Head

In PetGroomBossPro, invoices are built with line items and sales tax. When the groomer taps Complete, the invoice is created from the pets and add-ons on the job, at the prices on your service list, with the tax added. The groomer does not need to know the rate, and does not need to do any math in the driveway.

That is a bigger deal than it sounds. A groomer who is figuring tax by hand at every stop will eventually get one wrong. Maybe they round, maybe they forget it on a multi-pet invoice, maybe they add it twice. Each one turns into a correction later. When the invoice does it, it is the same every time.

Card-on-File Charges Include the Tax

If the customer has a card on file and you charge it at completion, the charge is the invoice total — services, add-ons and tax together. The customer sees one charge on their card statement and one matching invoice in the customer app and their email. There is no separate tax line to chase and no awkward “I forgot to add the tax” text later.

The same goes for auto-charge on a schedule and for customers who pay online in the customer app. The amount they pay is the invoice total, tax included. For more on charging at the end of the groom, read Charging When the Groom Is Complete: Payment the Moment the Groomer Taps Complete.

It also means a new groomer or bather does not need any training on tax. They groom, work the checklist and tap Complete. The office handles the setup once, and nobody on the van has to think about rates again.

Tips Are Separate From the Bill

Customers can leave a tip in the customer app on a paid invoice: $10, $20, $30 or another amount. That tip is something the customer chooses after the invoice is paid, not a line you add to the bill, and it shows up on the tips report.

How tips are treated for tax purposes is another question for your accountant. What the software gives you is a clean record: the invoice with its tax, and the tips listed separately, so whoever does your books can see what was a sale and what was a tip.

Monthly Statements and Accounts

Some of your customers will be accounts rather than households: a senior living community that hosts a monthly pet day, a doggy daycare with a bath day, or an apartment community. An account set to Monthly gets one statement each month covering every visit.

Some of those organizations may have their own tax situation, and they may ask about it. That is another conversation for your accountant, not your software. Once you know how to bill them, the statement pulls together every visit in the month so the account gets one bill instead of a stack.

Working in More Than One Country

PetGroomBossPro works in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, and bills customers in their own currency. Sales tax, GST and VAT all work differently in each of those places, and some groomers will not need to charge any. The software puts the tax on the invoice; the rules about what tax applies come from your local authority.

Reports show what was billed and what was paid, which makes it easier to hand your bookkeeper what they need at the end of the month or quarter.

The short version: find out what applies to you once, set it up once, and let every invoice handle it from there. To see how tax fits with line items, card on file and the customer app, visit the pet grooming invoicing software page.