Adding clients and their pets

Every pet in Alaga belongs to a client, so the client comes first.

Adding a client

1. Go to Sidebar → Clients.
2. Press Add Client.
3. Fill in First Name and Last Name. These are the only required fields.
4. Press save. A message pops up with an Add Pet button, so you can add their pet straight away.

Everything else is optional, but these fields do real work later:

• Email. Without it the client gets no email confirmations, reminders or invoices, and you cannot invite them to the customer portal by email.
• Phone and Secondary Phone. Once you type a phone number, two boxes appear:
• Appointment texts — reminders, ready-for-pickup texts and replies about their visits. Tick this or appointment texts are skipped.
• Marketing texts — promotions and campaigns. Only tick it if the client has clearly said yes. Ticking it also turns on appointment texts.
• Preferred Contact Method — No preference, Email, Phone or SMS.
• Referral Source — how they heard about you. It feeds the client acquisition reports.
• Permanent Alert — an amber banner that shows on this client everywhere. Use it for things like "always 15 minutes late" or "VIP", not one-off notes.
• Block online booking — the client can still sign in to the portal, but booking is turned off and they are asked to call. You can add a staff-only reason. Your team can always book for them.
• Require deposit — their online bookings show a deposit notice and stay unconfirmed until the deposit is collected. It stays on until you turn it off.
• Notes — staff-only notes about the client.

The client profile

Open a client from the Clients list. The menu on the left has Overview, Bookings, Calls, Agreements and Invoices. (Invoices only shows if your role can see invoices.)

Across the top you can:

• Press Add Appointment or Add Reservation to book for this client.
• Press Collect Payment to pay off their unpaid bookings in one go. This button only shows when something is unpaid.
• Press Mark Inactive to hide a client who has stopped coming.

The Overview section also holds their credit, loyalty points, referral, tags, notes, secondary contacts and notification preferences.

If your role does not include permission to view contact info, phone numbers and emails are hidden. The call and message buttons still work — you just cannot read or copy the details.

Adding a pet

1. Go to Sidebar → Pets → All Pets and press Add Pet. Or use the Add Pet button that pops up after you save a new client.
2. Fill in the five tabs:

• Basic — Owner, Pet Name, Species, Sex, Primary Breed, an optional Secondary Breed and Breed Notes, Weight in pounds, Coat Type, Date of Birth, pet tags, Owner Notes and Internal Notes. For a new pet, Sex, Primary Breed and Weight are required.
• Health — vet name and phone, vaccination expiry dates, behaviour flags (like Aggressive / Bite Risk or Flight Risk) and medications.
• Care — feeding instructions, amount, food type, feeding times, special diet, treats and special requests.
• Grooming — preferred groomer, typical groom length, blade numbers and grooming remarks.
• Emergency — emergency contact name and phone.

1. Save.

Weight and coat type matter. Grooming prices can be set by size and coat, and boarding and daycare rates can be set by weight. If you leave Coat Type unset, Alaga suggests one from the breed.

Owner Notes are visible to the client in their portal. Internal Notes are only seen by your team. Put handling warnings in Internal Notes.

When a client or pet stops coming

Alaga does not delete clients or pets. You archive them instead.

• Archive a client: open the client and use Archive Client in the left-hand menu. The client and their pets disappear from lists, search and booking. Invoices, payments and history are kept, and you can restore them any time. Cancel or finish any upcoming bookings first.
• Archive a pet: in Sidebar → Pets → All Pets, open the row menu and choose Archive Pet. To bring one back, switch the filter to Archived pets and choose Restore Pet.
• Two records for the same person or pet? Merge them instead. See Merging duplicate clients and pets.

Archiving is for owners and anyone whose role allows deleting clients or pets. Mark Inactive is for owners and managers.

When a pet passes away

1. Open the pet's profile.
2. Press Mark as Deceased.
3. Enter the Date of Passing and, if you want, a cause.
4. Press Confirm.

Alaga cancels the pet's upcoming bookings and sends the owner a condolence email. Deceased pets are left out of reminders, vaccination alerts and marketing.

Exporting your list

Owners see an Export button at the top of the Clients and Pets pages. It downloads the list as a CSV file. Other staff only see it if their role has the export permission.

Documents

Certificates and vet records go on the pet's Documents tab. See Pet profiles — documents, photos, tags and notes.

Pet parents can add and edit their own pets, and add a photo, from the portal. They cannot enter vaccination dates or upload documents. That stays with your team.