PetGroomBossPro Blog — Pet Grooming Software

The Grooming Checklist and the Grooming Report: What Got Done for Every Pet

When a groom is finished, the owner sees a clean, fluffy dog at the door. What they do not see is everything that went into it. A checklist on the groomer's phone turns that work into a record, and a Grooming Report turns the record into something the owner can actually read.

Part of the Groomer's Day

The appointment card, the three buttons and the photos were covered in The Groomer App: A Mobile Pet Grooming Day on One Phone. The checklist sits between Start and Complete on that same card.

This is a record of work, not a set of instructions. Your groomers already know how to groom. The checklist simply lets them tick off what they did, pet by pet, so the office and the owner can see it.

One Checklist per Pet

A home with two dogs and a cat gets three checklists, one for each pet. That matters because the work is different. The doodle might get the full set of steps, while the cat on the same visit gets a bath and brush and nothing else. Each pet's checklist shows only what was done for that pet.

The standard items on each pet's checklist are:

• Coat & skin checked on arrival
• Brushed out / de-matted
• Bath & conditioner
• Blow dry & fluff
• Haircut / style
• Sanitary trim
• Paw pads
• Nails
• Ears
• Eyes & face
• Final brush-out

The add-ons booked on the visit, like teeth brushing or a bandana, appear on the checklist as well, so the groomer ticks them off with everything else.

A Note for the Owner

At the end of each pet's checklist there is room for a note to the owner. This is where a groomer passes along something worth knowing: “Matting behind the ears is coming back,” or “She was great on the table today.”

Keep these notes observational. A groomer can say what they noticed. Anything that sounds like a health question belongs with the owner's vet, and a note can simply suggest the owner mention it there.

What the Office Sees

When the groomer taps Complete, the checklist is saved on the job. The office can open the job and see exactly which items were ticked for each pet, which add-ons were done, the note to the owner and the before-and-after photos.

That is useful for more than curiosity. When an owner calls to ask whether the nails were done, the office can answer in seconds. When a new groomer is learning a route, the office can see whether the checklist is being used. And when an add-on was booked but not ticked, the office can catch it before the invoice goes out.

The Grooming Report

From the job, the office can print a Grooming Report for the customer. It lays out what was done for each pet and includes the note for the owner. Some groomers hand it over at the door, some send it home with a monthly account, and some keep it on file for clients who like a record.

For owners, a report like this answers the question they often do not ask out loud: what am I paying for? Seeing the list of work for each pet makes the price feel like a list of services rather than a single number.

The Checklist and the Next Visit

Because the checklist and the owner note are saved on the visit, the next groomer can look back at them. If the last note said matting was coming back behind the ears, the next groomer knows to look there first. Combined with the carry-forward of pets and cut notes, each visit starts with everything learned on the visits before it. That carry-forward is covered in The Next Visit Fills In From the Last: Why Nobody Re-Types the Pets or the Cut.

For Multi-Pet Homes and Monthly Accounts

The checklist earns its place most on busy visits. A home with four pets is a lot to remember at the end of a long day, and a per-pet checklist means nobody forgets which dog already had ears done. For monthly accounts, like a senior living pet day where you groom several residents' pets, the checklists give the office a clean record of each pet's groom for the monthly statement.

A Record Without Extra Work

The point of the checklist is that it costs the groomer a few taps per pet, not a page of writing. It is there when it helps and quick to tick when it does not. For the rest of this series, go back to the pet grooming software page.