PetGroomBossPro Blog — Repeat Appointments

Monthly Accounts on a Repeat Grooming Schedule: Senior Living, Daycare and Apartment Pet Days

Most of a mobile groomer's repeat work is households: one family, one or a few pets, one card on file. But some of the steadiest work comes from accounts: a senior living community with a pet day for residents, a doggy daycare that wants a bath day, an apartment community that hosts grooming for tenants. These run on a repeat schedule like any other client, but they are billed differently. PetGroomBossPro handles both sides.

What Makes an Account Different

Per-visit billing for households is covered in Auto-Charging Repeat Grooming Clients With a Card on File. Accounts usually do not work that way. A community's office does not want a separate charge after every visit; it wants one bill a month it can pay through its normal process.

In PetGroomBossPro, an account set to Monthly gets one statement each month covering every visit. The groomer still completes each visit on the phone as usual, and each visit is recorded with its pets, add-ons and checklist. The billing just rolls up at the end of the month.

Common Monthly Accounts

The kinds of accounts mobile groomers often run on a repeat schedule:

• Senior living communities with a regular pet grooming day for residents' dogs and cats.
• Doggy daycares that offer a bath day to their clients, with the groomer coming to them.
• Apartment communities that host a pet day as a resident perk.

Each one is a client with an address (or several addresses, if the company runs more than one location), a contact and a repeat slot.

Booking the Account's Slot

Book the account with Add Recurring Grooming like any other repeat client. Pick the service, the frequency, the weekday, the time and the van. Accounts often suit the monthly frequency, since they plan by the month, or every 4 weeks if they prefer always landing on the same weekday. Custom days work too. Monthly and custom schedules are covered in Custom Days and Monthly Schedules for Recurring Grooming Clients.

An account visit often takes a large block of the van's day, so pick a time that leaves room, and think about what else is on that van's weekday. Because every visit is written up front, Pending Jobs will show the account sitting on its days for the coming months.

Pets on an Account Visit

Each visit can hold up to four pets with name, Dog or Cat, breed, size, coat, rabies due date and notes. For a household that covers everyone. For a community pet day with more pets than that, one practical setup is to book more than one repeat series at the account's address on the same day, each holding up to four regulars with their own breed, size, coat and cut notes. Every series still bills to the same Monthly account. Pick whatever setup makes the groomer's cards most useful on the day.

Van notes matter a lot here: where to park at the community, which entrance to use, where the outlet or water hookup is, and who the contact is on site.

Put the on-site contact in the client record too, with tags or custom fields if you like, so whoever runs the office knows who to text if the van is running late or the pet day needs to move. A community's front desk changes staff now and then, and the record is easier to update than a groomer's memory.

One Statement a Month

At the end of the month, the Monthly account gets one statement covering every visit that month. The statement has the visits with their line items and sales tax, so the account's office can see exactly what was done. If a visit had extra add-ons, they show up on that visit's line.

Past-due follow-up works for accounts too. If a statement goes unpaid, the follow-up helps keep it from slipping, and two-way texting or email lets the office reach the account's contact.

Changes and Renewals

Accounts tend to be steady, which makes them easy to forget. Put them at the top of your monthly look at the Recurring Clients list:

• Extend the series well before it runs out.
• Change the price for upcoming visits when your agreement with the account changes.
• Change the day or time if the community moves its pet day.

Because the price lives on the series, an agreed account rate stays exactly where you set it until you change it.

Steady Work, Simple Billing

A good monthly account can anchor a van's week: a predictable slot, a predictable statement and a lot of pets in one stop. To see how accounts fit with household clients and the rest of the repeat tools, go back to the recurring grooming software page.