Muttmates Grooming

What the Grooming module adds

Muttmates Core is the spine of your back office: clients and dogs, the diary, prices, payment links, receipts, emails, reminders, reports and settings. This manual covers only what the Grooming module adds on top, so if you have not read the Muttmates Core owner's manual, start there.

A groom, in Muttmates, is an ordinary Core booking: one dog, a start time, a length, a price, a service. Which means the diary, the mobile app, payment links, receipts, reminders, credit and statements all work on a groom exactly as they work on anything else. What makes a booking a groom is its service — any service with This is a groom ticked. From that single tick you get:

• A grooming profile on every dog — coat, size, the usual style, handling and coat notes, how often they come, when they were last done.
• Length and price that follow the dog, so a full groom on a large doodle books the time it really takes rather than the time the price list says.
• The salon board — today's grooms in time order, each showing where the dog actually is, and a text to the owner the moment the dog is ready.
• Due for a groom — who is about due with nothing booked, and a nudge you can send in one tap.
• The groom report, with before and after photos, emailed to the owner.
• Extras scoped to grooms, and your own wording for every groom message.

The module suits a salon and a mobile groomer alike, and it knows the difference: that difference is one field on the service, Where, and the board changes its language to match. With Grooming on and no training or walking module beside it, a booking is called a Groom throughout the menus; a trainer who also grooms keeps the word Session.

Your Grooming page

Your services → Grooming in the rail opens the page that gathers the whole trade in one place, subtitled The salon board, who's due, groom reports. Beside the heading sit + New groom, Salon board and Take payment. Four tiles run across the top: Today (grooms booked today, or how many are ready to collect if any are), Next 14 days, Owing on these — what is still owed across today and the fortnight — and Due for a groom.

Under the tiles is a tab row. Overview is this page; Salon board holds the board itself, Due for a groom and Grooms — every groom, past and coming, with what is paid; Reports holds your groom reports; Set up holds Services & prices, Extras and Grooming settings. The tabs say where you are and the pills beneath say which slice of it, so you can move between the board and the due list without coming back here.

The main column leads with Today in the salon: each groom's time, the dog and client, the service, where the dog is up to, and a button that moves it to the next stage, so on a quiet morning you need never open the board itself. Where money is outstanding the row carries Take cash. Below that is Coming up, the next fortnight, each groom with its length and Due or Paid. The side column carries a short Due for a groom list with a Nudge link against each dog.

Two lines also reach Today's Needs you, on the Diary: how many dogs are ready and waiting to be collected, and how many are due for a groom.

Setting up what you offer — groom services, length and price

Everything you sell is a service, and services live under Services & prices. What makes one a groom is the tick This is a groom. Alongside it are the Core fields: Price, Minutes, Where, Location / address and, on the plans with a booking page, Book online.

Four groom services are created for you the first time the module runs, so there is something to book on day one.

All four arrive with Where set to On premises — a salon, drop-off at your address. Rename them, reprice them, delete the ones you do not do; they are seeded only once, so a service you delete stays deleted.

On a groom service, Price and Minutes are the base figures: what the groom costs and takes before the dog is taken into account. The dog is added on top, which is the next section. If you would rather price flat, set the pricing switch to Nothing and the base is all there is.

Salon or mobile

Where is the whole of it. Leave a groom service on On premises and the client brings the dog to you; the service's Location / address is where. Set it to In-home and the van goes to the client's address, Core's travel zones apply as they do to any in-home work, and the board reads in the language of a round rather than a salon.

How the dog shapes the groom — size, coat and your pricing choice

A full groom on a chihuahua and one on a giant doodle are not the same job, and charging the same for both is how a day runs two hours late. So the dog adjusts the service's base figures. How far it may is your choice, made once under Grooming → Grooming settings at Price and length follow the dog's:

• Size only — one uplift per size band. The simple way: one number per band, nothing else to think about.
• Size and coat — size band plus coat type. A large doodle costs more than a large lab. This is how the module arrives.
• Nothing — every groom is the service's base price and length. Your price list is your price list.

The page shows only the blocks the chosen way uses, so picking Size only hides the coat boxes rather than leaving them there to confuse you. These are the figures it starts with; all are editable, a blank box keeps the standard figure and 0 adds nothing.

On Size and coat, then, a large curly coat adds an hour and $40. A full groom on that dog is 150 minutes at $135 rather than 90 minutes at $95 — which is the real job, honestly booked and honestly charged.

When the figures go in, and when they are left alone

When a groom is saved with a dog on it, the module works out the length and price and puts them in — but only when the box is empty, when it still holds the service's plain base, or when it still holds what the module itself put there last time. A figure you typed yourself is left alone: if you decided this groom is $120, it stays $120 whatever the profile says.

When you do want the profile to win, the Groom box has Recalculate from profile, which overwrites the minutes and the price and re-syncs what is owed. The button says as much — overwrites minutes and price — and afterwards you get Length and price recalculated from the dog's grooming profile.

The dog's grooming profile

Every dog gets a Grooming profile panel on its record, just under About the dog — six fields, each earning its place.

Coat and Size touch the money and the clock. Usual style and Handling & coat notes save you from asking again — both appear on the booking's Groom box and on the dog's card on the salon board, so whoever is at the table can see them without opening anything.

The same questions are asked on Core's New client page, under a Grooming heading, so a dog arrives with a profile rather than needing one later. Last groom is asked there for a reason: it is what puts a new dog onto the due list at the right time instead of never.

Extras

Extras are Core's add-ons — a name, a price and usually a few minutes — and the module scopes a set of them to grooms. They live at Grooming → Extras, which opens the list narrowed to grooms only, seeded once with prices worth changing to yours.

Each extra's For field says which bookings it is offered on; the seeded ones say Grooms only, so they do not clutter a walk or a training session. Add your own the same way.

Tick an extra on a groom and three things follow. The price is added to what is owed, as its own line on the payment panel, the receipt and the pay page — the booking's own price field is untouched, so the groom and the add-ons stay visible separately. The minutes are added to the length, and taken off again if you untick it. And the extra shows on the dog's card on the board, and in the groom report.

Booking a groom

+ New groom, from the Grooming page or the salon board, opens a new booking with the first groom service already ticked and the groom boxes up. From there it is an ordinary Core booking: the client, the dog, the time. Confirmation and payment link go out as your Core settings say, in the groom wording. You can also make any booking a groom by ticking a groom service on it — the groom boxes appear straight away, and unticking makes them disappear again, without saving first.

Down the side is the Groom box, which shows the profile at a glance and does the sums:

• the dog's name, linked to its record, with coat and size beneath
• Usual style and Handling & coat when they are filled in
• the last groom and the interval — Last groom 4 Sep 2025 · every 6 weeks
• From the profile: 150 min · $135.00, and under it the working — large +30 min +$20.00, curly / wool +30 min +$20.00
• Recalculate from profile

With no groom service the box says Tick a groom service and save — the length and price then follow the dog's coat and size; with no dog, Add the dog to size the groom. Both are the box telling you what it needs, not an error. Everything else on a groom is Core: the dog-at-a-glance panel, travel zones on in-home work, deposits, the payment panel.

The salon board — the day, stage by stage

Grooming → Salon board (or Muttmates → Salon) is the screen for the day itself. The heading is the date in full, and beside it a count: how many grooms, how many in, how many ready, how many collected. Day arrows sit in the corner with a Today button between them, and Due for a groom and + New groom are there too.

Below that, one card per groom in time order. Each carries the time and length, the service, Due $x or Paid, the dog and client, the dog's markers from Core, any extras ticked, and the profile line — coat, size, the usual style, handling notes underneath. On a mobile groom the client's address is a link that opens the map.

The row of pills across the card is where the dog is. One tap moves the dog on, and the button on the right of the card is always the next stage, so the day can be run with one thumb.

Every stage is timed as you tap it, and the stage the dog is on now shows its time beside it — On the table · 11:20 am — so you know how long a dog has been where it is. Tap a pill behind to correct a mis-tap. A card on Ready to collect is edged in green so it catches your eye across the room, and a collected card fades back.

Telling the owner their dog is ready

Moving a dog to Ready to collect tells the owner, and this is the single most useful thing on the board. A text goes if texting is on and the client has a mobile; otherwise an email, branded like the rest, with the dog's photo in the header. The default text reads Hi Sam, Billy is all done and ready to collect, and you get Marked ready — the owner has been told. If the client has neither a mobile nor an email address the board says so rather than pretending: Marked ready. Couldn't reach the owner (no mobile or email) — give them a call.

While a dog sits on Ready to collect the card carries Tell them again, which sends the same message a second time and shows when you last told them.

Collected completes the booking and stamps the dog's last-groom date, which is what keeps the due list honest without anyone typing a date. It asks first — Collected — mark the groom complete?

Taking the money at the counter

Where a groom still has something owing, the card carries Take cash, which opens Core's Take payment with that booking already chosen. It is recorded the ordinary way, so the ledger, the receipt and the balance behave as they do from the booking screen. The same button sits on the Grooming page's today list.

The groom report — before and after

The report box sits below a groom booking, headed Groom report — emailed to the owner. It appears on grooms only; the session, walk and day report boxes stay out of the way there, and yours stays out of the way on theirs.

The two photos are the heart of it. They go out side by side, labelled Before and After, and they are the reason owners forward these reports to their friends.

Down the side, the Groom report box does the sending. It says whether the report has gone and when, offers Preview ↗, and carries a tick — Mark the groom Completed when sent — on by default for a groom not already complete. The button reads Email the owner, or Email again once it has gone, and stays greyed out until something is written; press it with nothing there and you are told The groom report is empty — write what was done first.

The email is Core's branded report email with the dog's photo in the header. Its sections, in order, are Before & after, What we did, Extras, Products used, Anything we noticed and Next time; anything blank is left out rather than appearing empty. Groom reports are registered with Core's Reports page as their own kind, Groom report, and Grooming → Reports opens that page filtered to grooms.

Due for a groom, and nudging

This is the quiet money-maker. Grooming → Due for a groom lists dogs whose last groom plus their interval is here or nearly here, with nothing booked — as the subtitle says, Last groom plus how often they come, with nothing booked yet.

The arithmetic is deliberately simple: last groom, plus How often in weeks, minus a warning period so there is time to book. The warning is Show as due this many days early under Grooming → Grooming settings, and it arrives at 14 days, so a dog groomed every six weeks appears a fortnight before the six weeks are up. The moment a groom is booked for that dog it drops off the list; nobody is nudged about something they have already arranged.

Each row shows the dog, its owner, the interval, when it was last done, and a pill: Due in 9 days, Due today, or 12 days overdue. Then, once you have nudged, a quiet Nudged 4 Sep so you do not nudge twice in a week. Two buttons: Send a nudge, which becomes Nudge again afterwards, and Book.

A nudge goes by text if texting is on and the client has a mobile, otherwise by email, in your Due for a groom wording — by default a friendly note that it has been a little while, asking them to reply or ring. You get Nudge sent — "due for a groom". If the client has neither a mobile nor an email address, nothing is sent and you are told why: Couldn't send the nudge: the owner needs an email address or a mobile number.

A dog only appears here once it has a Last groom date — the one field worth filling in for a client whose dog you have not done yet. The count sits on the Grooming page's tiles and on Today's Needs you.

Letting clients book a groom online (plans with online booking)

On Solo + Online and Business + Online, clients can book their own groom from your booking page. Three things have to be true: Take bookings online is on under Settings → Online booking, your Hours are set there, and Book online is ticked on the groom service. All three are Core's; the module only decides how a groom is offered.

The offer appears under a Grooming heading, named after the service, with a line beneath it: Sized to your dog — from $95, followed by whatever description you gave the service. "From" is the honest word, because the price depends on the dog.

The times are the interesting part. They come from your Hours — the salon's day or the van's — measured against the groom's real length, the service's base plus what this dog's size and coat add. A large doodle is only offered where a large doodle actually fits, not wherever a 90-minute slot fits.

Before the dog is known — a new client, or one with several dogs who has not yet picked — the slot is sized to a medium dog, because something has to be assumed. Once the dog is chosen the times are read again with the real length, and if the slot they had their eye on no longer fits they are sent back to pick another: That time is too short for what you've chosen — the times below fit. The same check runs at the last moment before the booking is made, in case someone booked either side while they were typing.

On the confirm step the client answers a few questions, prefilled from the dog's profile:

1. <Dog>'s size — required, since the price and the time follow it.
2. Coat — required, and only asked when your pricing is by size and coat.
3. How would you like <Dog> done? — for example teddy bear, short all over, just a tidy.
4. Anything for the groomer? — matting, nervous of the dryer, sensitive paws.

Their answers are saved onto the grooming profile and recorded as the owner's own change, the way Core records anything a client edits in their login. What they write for the groomer is appended to the handling notes, dated and marked as coming from the owner, and carried onto the booking as For the groomer: …, so it is in front of you on the day. If the size is still blank they are asked for it — Please pick Billy's size so we can book the right length — rather than booked into a slot that may be wrong, and a client with no dog is told A groom needs a dog — add one to your account first.

The booking that results is made the ordinary back-office way, with the profile applied as usual, so the Groom box and Recalculate from profile read exactly as they do on a groom you took over the phone.

In the client's own login the report is called Groom report; the home tab shows a Due for a groom card for any dog that is due, with a Book a groom button; and the nudge email picks up a Book a time button. Where online booking is off, that card says Ring or email us to book instead.

What clients hear from you — the wording you can edit

Every message about a groom has its own wording, editable under Branding → Emails alongside Core's. A groom's confirmation, reminder and report pick up the groom versions automatically — you do not have to choose.

The defaults are written to be sent as they are: the confirmation asks the owner to have the dog with you at the start time and promises to let them know when the dog is ready, and the reminder mentions that a quick toilet stop before arriving helps. Change any of it to your own voice — the tokens for the dog, the service, the time and your business name carry through.

Whether a message goes by text or by email is Core's business, and depends on your plan and your texting credit. Grooming asks for a text first where one makes sense — ready, reminder, nudge — and falls back to email.

Settings reference

Everything the module adds lives on one page: Grooming → Grooming settings, reached from the Set up tab.

Blank means the standard figure shown in the box; 0 means nothing added. The size and coat blocks appear only when the pricing switch uses them.

Three things people look for here are elsewhere, because they are Core's: groom services and their base figures under Services & prices, groom add-ons under Grooming → Extras, and the wording of every message under Branding → Emails. Two more live on the dog rather than in settings — How often and Last groom, on its Grooming profile.

What the module doesn't do yet, and when something goes wrong

Some honest limits, so you can plan round them rather than discover them on a busy Saturday.

One groomer is assumed. There is no groomer or table capacity and no overlapping slots. The board is one day's list in time order, and online booking offers a time if the hours allow it, not if a second pair of hands is free. With two groomers side by side the board shows you both dogs, but will not stop the booking page offering the same hour twice. A staff roster is a Business-tier Core feature rather than a grooming one, and on those plans it is the roster that answers the booking page's hours.

There is no photo gallery per dog. Before and after photos live on the groom they belong to and go out in that report. There is no screen showing one dog's grooms over the years side by side.

There is no stock of products. Products used on the report is a line of text for the owner. Nothing is counted, deducted or reordered.

When something looks wrong

The length and price did not change when I picked the dog. Check three things: the service has This is a groom ticked, the booking has a dog on it, and that dog's profile has a size (and a coat, if your pricing uses coat). The Groom box says which is missing. If all three are right but the figures are yours rather than the module's, that is deliberate — press Recalculate from profile.

A dog is not on the due list. Either it has no Last groom date, or it has a groom already booked. Both are by design.

The owner did not get the ready message. The board says so at the time: no mobile and no email on the client. Add one and use Tell them again.

The groom boxes are not showing. They appear on grooms only. If a booking shows a session or walk report box instead, its service is not a groom service.