Muttmates Daycare

What the Daycare module adds

Muttmates Core is the back office you already know: clients and dogs, bookings, money, reminders, the diary, Today and reports. This manual assumes you have read the Muttmates Core owner's manual, and covers only what the Daycare module adds.

A daycare day is one session on your premises, with a number of places, a day rate, and the dogs booked onto it — one ordinary booking per dog. Because each dog's day is a normal Core booking, everything Core does keeps working: payment links, receipts, statements and credit are unchanged, the reminder goes out, and the card is filed with your other reports.

Around that, Daycare adds the daily machinery: days that make themselves from your open weekdays, times, places and closures; a daycare record and an assessment path on every dog; rooms; Today's register, with a mobile app for the paddock; a report card home each day; behaviour levels; vaccination chasing; van runs; and day rates that understand size, half days and days a week.

Daycare runs on Solo, Solo + Online, Business and Business + Online. Online booking of a day and the owner's login come with the + Online plans; staff and rosters are a Business feature of Core, which Daycare uses where it can — who is on the floor, a driver for a van run — but nothing here needs staff.

Your Daycare page

Daycare has its own page, and it is where to start the morning if you are not going straight to the register. Four tiles sit across the top: Here now, the dogs marked arrived against the number booked; Places today, reading 8 of 20 with 12 free; Owing for today and the next fortnight; and Dogs, approved and on trial.

Below them, Today at daycare lists each room with its sizes and count, and a No room yet line if anybody is unplaced, while The days ahead gives the next fortnight. Down the side are the things to chase: Vaccinations to chase, On trial, Behaviour concerns, the latest End of day note and Closed dates. Everything else is in the manage tabs:

Daycare also writes lines onto Today's Needs you: dogs waiting for a place, lapsed vaccinations, trials to approve and a van run with no driver.

Setting up the day — what you offer, hours, rooms and how many dogs you take

Most of this is Daycare → Daycare settings, in the block Daycare — the day. First the price: under Daycare → Services & prices, tick This is a daycare day rate on the services that are days at daycare, then choose one under Day rate. That price is your casual day rate.

Open days, Drop-off from and Collect by set the shape of the day; the two times are what owners are told and what lateness is measured against. Make days ahead is how far into the future the days exist, and so how far ahead you can book. Closed dates takes a first day, a last day and a reason.

Rooms, places and groups

Dogs a day is the number of places on every day. Rooms are the finer limit: under Daycare → Rooms each room has a name, Takes so many dogs, the Sizes it accepts (none ticked means any), an Order and an In use tick. A dog is placed as it is booked — its group's room, then its Usual room, then the first room with space that takes its size — and you can move it on the register.

Under Daycare — groups & care, Dog groups pairs a Group with its Usual room, and Support needs is a list ticked on each dog and shown as chips on the register, so nobody has to remember the tablet at noon.

You never make Mondays: the days are built once a day, again when you save Daycare settings, and on demand from Make the days ahead — the fix for most oddities.

What a day costs, and how it gets charged

A dog's price is the trial price if it is on Trial and you have set one, otherwise the days-a-week tier it reaches where that applies, otherwise the day rate — then the size group adjustment, plus any van charge and late fee. It is worked out as the dog goes on and again as the week fills, and a price you type yourself is left alone from then on.

The dog's size, and half days

A dog's Weight puts it in a size group, which can add to or take off the day rate. The bands are in Daycare settings → Daycare — prices, in kilograms:

From (kg) is included and Up to (kg) is not, so a 10 kg dog is Medium above. Places a day caps that size (0 for no cap), and +/− a day ($) is dollars on the day rate: 5 adds five, -3 takes three off. A half day is simply a different service on the booking.

Discounts for regulars — days-a-week pricing

Days-a-week pricing means the more days a week they come, the less each day costs. The rule is exact: count the days that dog has booked in the week (Monday to Sunday), take the highest tier it reaches, and price every one of those days at it. A tier takes either a price a day or a percentage off — never both.

On a $50 day rate: two days, $47 a day; three or four days, 10% off; five or more, $40 — four days gets the three-day tier, because a tier is a floor, not an exact match. A percentage works off the day rate before the size adjustment, and a finished day is never repriced.

Who gets it decides who it applies to: Dogs on the Regular plan only (the default — a Regular has set days on its record), or Any dog, by the days they actually book that week, which rewards a casual client booking three days.

Late pick-up, and how the money reaches the client

Under Daycare — late pick-up you set a Grace, then a fixed fee or a rate per minute. Mark a dog picked up after collect-by plus the grace and the register shows LATE n min and offers + Late fee $X — nothing is charged until you tap it.

Otherwise nothing is daycare-specific: the charge goes on the ledger, and Take payment handles cash at the gate. Prepaid days are Core's Packages — a ten-day pass is ten daycare days on one payment link. A Free day is zero, though the van charge still applies.

Booking a dog in — one day, a repeating week, a block

Daycare → Book days is one form for every shape of booking.

1. Pick the Dog — the list is in two groups, In daycare and Not in daycare yet — booking puts them in.
2. Set the First day and For how many weeks.
3. Tick the weekdays under On: nothing ticked means just the first day, greyed days are closed, a regular's own days come ticked.
4. Tick Trial day for a new dog's first day, or Free for a comp day or a staff dog.
5. Leave Email the owner a confirmation ticked, set the Van if you run one, add a Note on the booking, and Book the days.

Days that do not exist yet are made, so booking three weeks out works beyond your horizon. What comes back is a plain summary: days booked, waitlisted, already booked, closed, and anything refused with the reason. A dog not in daycare yet joins as you book.

The gate is strict on purpose, because the alternative is a dog on a day it should not be on:

An enquiry from your website arrives with the dog's rough weight, saved as its size group, and the Enquiries page's Book menu opens Book days with the dog chosen.

Who's coming, capacity and the waiting list

Daycare → Days ahead lists every day ahead and who is on it. Each day has its own screen too, from The day's screen on the register: places used, a count per room, the end-of-day note and the waiting list. One day's places can be changed there without touching your settings — for the day you are short-staffed.

When a day is full, booking another dog puts it on that day's waiting list. When a place frees up, the first in line is booked in automatically and its owner emailed in your a place has come up wording — so keep that wording warm, and make clear the day is booked. The order is the order they joined, and the ✕ skips somebody.

The register and the mobile app — the day's board

Daycare → Today's register (the menu calls it Daycare register) is where the day is run from. A date picker moves between days, and the header reads drop-off, collect-by, places used, here now, picked up and waiting, with 📋 Send today's report cards, The day's screen and Take payment beneath.

Dogs are grouped by room, anybody unplaced at the top under No room yet, trial dogs at the top of their room with a red edge. Each dog is a tile: the photo ringed in its behaviour level colour from green through amber to red, the background saying whether they are here (grey not yet, light green here, faded once picked up or absent), then size and group, breed and age, the owner with 📞 and 💬 links, the care strip (🛌 naps, support chips, ℹ the note), the state with times — ○ not here yet, ● here since, ✓ in → out, ✕ absent — and a flags line: 🎂 birthday, Trial day, ⚠ vax lapsed or 🔶 vax in 9d, the behaviour level, due $X, ↪ moved, free day and the 🚐 van stop.

Then the buttons. Arrived, Picked up and Absent stamp the time, and tapping a lit one undoes it; Picked up completes the booking and Absent records a no-show. + Late fee appears when a pick-up is late, a room picker shows each room's count, and on a trial day ✓ Approve and Not suitable sit alongside. 📋 Card opens the report card, a box saves today's note, and 🚩 Flag an incident opens the form in place.

At the bottom of every day is End of day: one note, for you and your staff rather than the owners. With the roster on, each room's heading also names the people rostered into it, and warns when nobody is on in a room with dogs.

Daycare → Mobile app is the same day built for the paddock, so bookmark it to the phone's home screen: big photo, badges and care strip, by room, with thumb-sized ✓ Arrived, Absent, ✓ Picked up and Undo, and chips for 📞 Call, 💬 Text, 📷 Photo — the phone's camera, straight onto today's report card — ✓ Approve, 🚩 Flag an incident, 📋 Send cards and 🚐 Van. The card shows as a status only: writing it is a desk job.

Assessments and trial days, and what a dog needs before it can come

Every dog has a Daycare block on its record, and the same questions appear on Core's New client page. What governs whether it can come is Daycare status:

Book a trial with Trial day ticked and the dog is marked Trial and priced at your Trial day price (blank means the day rate). On the day it sits at the top of its room with a red edge, so whoever is on the gate knows; log what you see, then tap ✓ Approve or Not suitable. Until you decide, the On trial card keeps saying so — a trial nobody decides is a dog nobody has taken responsibility for.

Daycare uses Core's Vaccinations current until date. In settings, Vaccinations — Must be current to be booked in — is on by default: a dog with no date, or one that lapses before the day, is refused; with it off nothing is refused, but the register still flags it. Owners are reminded 14 and 7 days before, and the Daycare page lists who to chase: lapsed in red, due within a fortnight in amber, no date in grey.

Daycare → Dogs on the books is every dog with a daycare status, as a card: photo ringed in its level colour, status, plan and days, size and group, age and weight, owner and phone, the vaccination banner with a certificate ↗ link, and the care block. Dogs with days booked come first, and you can narrow by size, status or level; each card carries Book days, Behaviour, Edit and a box for a dated note.

Behaviour — incidents, levels and suspensions

This is the part nobody enjoys and everybody needs. The aim is a record that is fair to the dog and defensible to an owner: not "we've had trouble with him", but four dated entries with what happened and what you told them at the time.

🚩 Flag an incident is on every dog on the register and the app, and on the dog's Behaviour page. The form is short on purpose: a category from your list, a severity of Minor, Moderate or Serious with its points shown, Other dogs involved ▾ where you tick as many of the day's dogs as were in it, a photo, and one line of what happened — the line that appears in the owner's email if the dog goes up a level. Photos go to your private file store, not the public media library, and open only through a signed link.

Each severity is worth points — one, three and five by default — and points halve after the half-life, ninety days by default, so a scrap in March does not follow a dog for ever while a pattern still adds up. Points put the dog on a rung:

The first rung is where every dog starts, and a dog never sits below its Starting behaviour level, which you set for a dog that arrives known to need watching.

When a dog goes up a rung, a warning goes on its log and the owner is emailed in your Behaviour notice wording with the live incidents listed. If that rung is ticked Stops the dog coming, the dog is suspended: the Suspension notice goes out, the dog comes off the days ahead it has not arrived at (paid days become credit), and new bookings are blocked. Issue a warning does the same by hand at any level, and Clear all retires every incident and approves a suspended dog again.

Daycare → Behaviour opens with the dogs of concern — above the base level, or with an incident in the last thirty days — then, per dog, the points, the ladder, the incident form and the full log. The level colours the photo ring everywhere, which is how a new staff member learns which dogs to watch.

The report card and what the owners get

The report card is why many owners pay for daycare rather than a dog walker, and it is a one-minute job. It lives on the dog's booking, one tap from 📋 Card on the register or from Daycare → Report cards:

• Highlights — ticked from your own list, written once in Daycare settings with {dog} where the name goes: {dog} made a new friend today.
• Paw ratings — out of five for each category you set up; blank is not rated.
• A line for the owner — a sentence in your own words, and the line that gets texted when texting is on.
• Photos — as many as you like, two to a row in the email. Photos from the mobile app land here.

The card also prints arrived and picked-up times and the note from the register. The Report card panel offers Email the owner, a Preview ↗ and a tick to Text the line too; or send the whole day with 📋 Send today's report cards (n), which sends every drafted, unsent card. An empty card will not send, and each dog's chip reads 📋 Card, 📋 Card (draft) or 📋 Card ✓.

Regulars, weekly patterns and changing a week

A dog's Plan is either Casual — the day rate, booked as they come or Regular — set days each week, tier pricing. For a regular, tick the weekdays under Comes on and set From (blank means now) and Until (blank means ongoing). An approved regular is then booked onto every one of its weekdays as the days are made.

Change the pattern and the days ahead follow: drop Wednesday and the Wednesdays it has not arrived at come off, with anything paid becoming credit; add Friday and the Fridays appear; set an Until date and the days stop there.

Two things follow. Days-a-week pricing applies to regulars by default, and regulars do not get the day-before reminder unless you turn on Remind regulars — they know their days. For a one-off change, work on the days themselves: take the dog off Thursday, and use Book days for the extra Monday.

The van — pick-ups and drop-offs

If you collect dogs, the van covers the two shapes daycares actually use: set stops in drive order, and home pick-up from the door. Under Daycare — the van, Vans is a table of name and dogs per run — leave it empty and there is no van service at all — and Set stops is a table in drive order with times, an address, a price a day (both ways) and which van, followed by the home pick-up price, blank if it is not offered.

On each dog: Van (No — dropped off and collected, From a set stop, From home), which Stop, Which way (both ways, or one way at half price) and For the driver, for the gate code. The charge rides on the day, in the same payment link and receipt, and the register's 🚐 flag switches it for one day.

Daycare → Van runs shows any day's morning and afternoon runs side by side: each van with its count against capacity and, with the roster, who is driving or no driver on the roster; each stop with its time and whether the on its way text has gone; each dog with its phone, the driver's note and its state — waiting, ✓ Picked up 7:32 am, ✓ Dropped off 5:10 pm — with mark and undo links.

The driver has the same run on the mobile app under 🚐 Van, a card per stop with the address as a map link and the dogs with photos, phones and notes. ✓ Picked up marks the dog arrived and ✓ Dropped off marks it collected — the same attendance marks the register uses, so the two screens never disagree. The afternoon runs the stops in reverse, home drop-offs first, and one tap texts everyone at a stop that the van is ten minutes away. On Business, a van run appears in the roster, so a shift can be put on it like a room.

What the owners see and hear — online booking, their login, and your wording

On the + Online plans, tick Book online on your daycare day rate and the days appear on your booking page: a month showing the days that still have places, then the day. Because the days already exist, an owner sees your real availability.

The vaccination question is asked on the page, so a booking is never refused afterwards for a missing date. A dog not in daycare yet has its first day made a trial day: it goes on Trial at the trial price, and the owner is asked how the dog is with other dogs, which is saved onto the dog. A suspended or unsuitable dog is asked to call rather than refused blankly.

A regular is not given a self-service weekly pattern, and that is deliberate: who comes on which day is your call, because it is your rooms and your mix of dogs. Instead the owner asks from their login, and the request lands on Today's Needs you with a Book days link. Book the days, then mark the request done.

On their login, a booking shows drop-off and collect-by and the room, the day's report is named Report card, and the home tab has a Book a day card. The Dogs tab lets them keep current only what is theirs — weight, naps, support needs and the care note — while status, plan, days and group stay yours.

Every message Daycare sends is a template under Branding → Emails:

Read the behaviour and suspension wording before you need it: those two go out at the worst moment of an owner's week. To tell every daycare owner something at once, use Core's Message everyone.

Settings reference

All of this is under Daycare → Daycare settings.

Rooms are separate, under Daycare → Rooms, as are day rates, under Daycare → Services & prices.

When something goes wrong, and what the module doesn't do yet

• No days, or a day missing. Save Daycare settings, or use Make the days ahead. The register says which case you are in: Closed — reason, Not an open day, or No daycare day made for this date yet.
• A regular is not landing on their days. Check the status is Approved, the plan is Regular, the weekdays are ticked, and From and Until cover the period.
• A price looks wrong. Somebody typed a price on that booking, which is then left alone for ever. Otherwise check the service price, the size adjustment, the tier and Who gets it.
• A card would not send. An empty card will not go, and a client with no email or mobile cannot get one.
• Dogs are stuck under *No room yet*. Check the rooms are In use and their Sizes cover your dogs.

Not yet: drop-off and collect-by are one pair for every day, with no per-day override; there is no public trial-day form, no per-room floor screen or noticeboard, and no "email all owners" button inside Daycare — use Core's Message everyone.