Revelation Pets or Pet Manager? A Deep Dive into Managing Your Grooming and Boarding Business

The scent of shampoo, the buzz of clippers, and the happy yaps of freshly coiffed pups – the world of pet grooming is a beautiful thing. But behind the artistry lies a significant amount of administration. The same goes for boarding facilities, where precision and organization are paramount. You’ve recognized the need for a digital co-pilot to help manage your business, and your search has likely led you to platforms like Revelation Pets and Pet Manager.

Both are respected names in the industry, designed to take the pressure off your front desk and streamline your operations. Revelation Pets is often praised for its clean interface and ease of use, making it a popular choice. Pet Manager offers a deeply comprehensive suite of tools designed for businesses with an eye on growth and diversification.

So, how do you choose? Let’s take a deep dive into the features of both, helping you decide which platform will be the most loyal companion for your business journey.

Handling the Complexity of a Multi-Service Business

Many modern pet businesses are a hybrid of services. You might be a boarding facility that added a grooming salon, or a groomer who now offers daycare. This is a smart business model, but it can be a nightmare to manage on paper or with simplistic software.

Revelation Pets provides a unified calendar to manage your various services. You can colour-code appointments for grooming, boarding, or daycare, giving you a visual overview of your day. This works well for many businesses and keeps everything in one central location.

Pet Manager takes a different approach, offering dedicated, separate schedulers for each arm of your business. You get a scheduler specifically for Boarding, another for Grooming, one for Daycare, and so on. Why is this significant? It prevents visual clutter and operational confusion. Your groomer doesn’t need to navigate through kennel bookings to see their appointments for the day. This departmentalized structure mirrors how many larger businesses operate, allowing for specialization and focus. The system also supports “Split Bookings,” an essential feature for boarding, allowing you to schedule a pet to move between different pens or rooms during their stay with ease.

For a grooming business, Pet Manager’s staff rostering and service allocation is particularly powerful. You can define specific grooming services (e.g., ‘Nail Clip’, ‘Full Groom’, ‘De-Shedding Treatment’) and assign them only to the staff members qualified to perform them. The system then knows which time slots are available for which service with which groomer, virtually eliminating booking errors.

Your Business, Your Rules: The Power of Pricing

Your pricing structure is part of your competitive advantage. You might offer special rates for multi-pet families, have surcharges for matted coats, or provide discounts for seniors. Your software needs to handle this without requiring manual overrides and calculations every time.

Revelation Pets allows you to set your service prices and add charges to invoices. It covers the essential financial needs of a pet business.

Pet Manager is renowned for its extraordinarily powerful rules-based pricing engine. This system allows you to automate even the most complex pricing scenarios. For boarding, you can set different rates for seasons, for specific animal sizes, or for different kennel types. You can automatically add charges for late checkouts. For grooming, you can set different prices for the same service based on breed size (a Poodle groom costs more than a Chihuahua groom) or even customer type (your ‘VIPs’ might get an automatic 10% off).

This automation isn’t just a time-saver; it ensures consistency. No matter which staff member takes the booking, the price is calculated correctly every single time. This protects your revenue and provides a transparent, professional experience for your customers.

Building a Community Through Communication

In the pet care industry, you’re not just providing a service; you’re joining a pet’s care team. Building a strong, communicative relationship with pet owners is what creates lifelong clients. A recent survey showed that over 80% of pet owners view their pets as family members, highlighting the emotional importance of trust and communication.

Both platforms offer tools for client communication. With Revelation Pets, you can send out booking confirmations and reminders to keep your clients in the loop.

Pet Manager offers a more extensive, automated communication suite. You can set up a whole series of emails and SMS messages that are triggered by specific events in the booking lifecycle. For example:

• An automatic booking confirmation email.
• A ‘Welcome’ email sent a few days before a boarding stay.
• An SMS reminder the day before a grooming appointment.
• An automatic reminder when a pet’s vaccinations are due to expire.

All these templates are fully customisable with your own branding and wording. Furthermore, Pet Manager’s delightful ‘Pet Postcard’ feature allows you to send picture updates to owners, a touch that many users say their clients absolutely adore. Imagine the peace of mind a new client feels when they receive a photo of their beloved dog looking happy and relaxed during their first stay.

The Customer Portal: Your 24/7 Receptionist

Your online booking portal is your hardest-working employee. It needs to be smart, efficient, and easy for your customers to use.

Revelation Pets has a customer portal that allows clients to request bookings and manage their information. It’s a clean and functional interface that gets the job done.

Pet Manager’s customer portal is designed for seamless integration and deep customisation. It can be embedded directly into your existing website, so the customer never feels like they are leaving your online home. You can customize the portal’s colour scheme to match your brand perfectly. From a practical standpoint, you can force customers to upload vaccination documents and digitally sign your terms and conditions before they can make a booking. This feature alone can save countless hours of administrative chasing and adds a crucial layer of legal protection to your business.

Ultimately, the choice between Revelation Pets and Pet Manager may come down to your future ambitions. If you have a multi-faceted business or plan to expand your service offerings, the depth, customisation, and all-in-one nature of Pet Manager provides a robust platform to support that growth.