PawLoyalty vs. Pet Manager: Unpacking the Features That Matter for Daycares and Kennels

You’re in the business of happy pets, which is a reward in itself. But you’re also running a business, and that means juggling bookings, staff, customer communications, and a thousand other little things. You know that software is the key to sanity and success, and you’ve likely narrowed your search down to some promising options. Two names that often come up in the conversation are PawLoyalty and Pet Manager.

Both platforms are designed to bring order to the wonderful chaos of the pet care industry. They both offer tools to manage your clients and their furry companions. But when you dig into the details, you’ll find different philosophies and features that might make one a better fit for your specific facility.

Let’s unpack the toolkit of PawLoyalty and Pet Manager, focusing on the features that can truly transform your day-to-day operations.

The Approach to Customisation and Control

Every pet business is unique. You have your own way of doing things, your own pricing structures, and your own secret sauce that makes clients choose you. Your software should celebrate that uniqueness, not force you into a generic box.

PawLoyalty offers a range of customisation options for services and reporting. It’s a solid platform that helps businesses standardize their operations, which is crucial for maintaining quality and efficiency. Their system helps to implement best practices for daycare and boarding facilities.

Pet Manager, however, is built on a foundation of deep customisation and control, empowering you to tailor the software to your exact needs. This philosophy is evident in its powerful rules-based pricing engine. You aren’t limited to a few standard pricing options. You can create complex, multi-layered rules based on any combination of factors: pet size, breed, temperament, the season, length of stay, or even the customer’s loyalty status. This means your invoicing is not only automated but also perfectly aligned with your specific business model.

This control extends to the customer portal. With Pet Manager, you can change the wording for key elements throughout the portal to match the language you use with your customers. You can decide which information fields are mandatory for clients to fill out and which are optional. This level of granular control ensures the entire customer journey, from booking to payment, feels like an extension of your brand.

Staff Management and Operational Workflow

Your team is your greatest asset. Equipping them with the right tools is essential for a smooth-running facility. A confused staff member can lead to a booking error, and in our business, those little errors can cause big problems.

PawLoyalty provides tools for staff to manage their tasks and view schedules. It helps keep the team on the same page regarding the pets in their care.

Pet Manager places a huge emphasis on clear, segmented operational workflows. A great example is the use of dedicated schedulers and dashboards for each department. Your daycare team has its own dashboard showing daycare check-ins, check-outs, and in-house numbers, completely separate from the boarding kennel’s view. This reduces clutter and minimizes the chance of errors.

For service-based businesses like grooming or training, the staff rostering system is a game-changer. You can create roster templates for staff members, and the system can auto-populate their availability weeks in advance. You can even allocate specific services to certain staff. For instance, ‘Puppy Clips’ can be assigned to your junior groomers, while ‘Full Breed-Specific Grooms’ are reserved for your senior stylists. The system won’t let a client book a service with a staff member who isn’t rostered on or qualified to perform it. It’s like having a super-efficient front-desk manager who never takes a day off.

The Power of Integrated Communications

Keeping pet parents informed and engaged is no longer a “nice to have”; it’s a core part of the service. Statistics from the marketing world consistently show that personalized communication builds customer loyalty.

PawLoyalty includes marketing tools to help you communicate with your client base, including email campaigns to drive re-bookings and promotions.

Pet Manager integrates this on a micro and macro level. On the macro level, it syncs seamlessly with Mailchimp, allowing you to easily export your customer list for professional newsletters and marketing campaigns. But it’s the micro, day-to-day communications where it truly shines. The system is packed with automated email and SMS triggers. Imagine the time saved when a ‘Welcome Email’ with facility rules is automatically sent a week before a new boarding stay, or a ‘Vaccination Due’ reminder is sent 30 days before expiry without you lifting a finger.

And let’s talk about a feature that generates pure delight: Pet Postcards. Being able to quickly send an owner a photo of their dog having a blast in the play yard, complete with a little note, is incredibly powerful. It turns a standard service into a memorable experience. As one happy Pet Manager user put it, “The automated reminders are a lifesaver, and our customers feel so much more connected to us.”

Financials and Reporting: The View from 30,000 Feet

You need to be able to zoom in on the details of a single booking, but you also need to zoom out and see the health of your entire business.

Both platforms offer financial reporting to track revenue and payments. PawLoyalty gives you insights into your business performance to help you identify opportunities.

Pet Manager provides an extensive suite of over 40 reports, giving you an unparalleled view of your business. You can, of course, run standard reports on revenue and payments. But you can also get much more granular. The ‘Occupancy Report’ helps you understand your busy and quiet periods with visual graphs. The ‘Lapsed Customers’ report is a goldmine for re-engagement campaigns, showing you every client who hasn’t visited since a specific date. The ‘Revenue Estimate’ report can forecast how much each upcoming day is “worth” based on invoiced charges, helping with cash flow planning.

Choosing between two capable platforms comes down to which one best fits your operational style. It’s about finding the software that not only organizes your present but also equips you for your future growth, giving you the control, flexibility, and insight to take your business to the next level.