Adding clients and their pets

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

Adding a client

Sidebar: Clients, then Add Client.

Required: First Name and Last Name. Everything else is optional, but three fields do real work later:

• Email — without it the client gets no booking confirmations, no reminders and no invoices, and cannot be invited to the customer portal.
• Preferred Contact Method — no preference, email, phone or SMS.
• Permanent Alert — an amber banner that appears on every sheet for this client. Use it for "always 15 minutes late" or "VIP, do not keep waiting", not for one-off notes.

There is also a Referral Source field, which feeds the Client Acquisition report, and an SMS consent checkbox that must be ticked before you can text them.

When you save, a toast offers an Add Pet shortcut and you land on the new client's profile.

The client profile

The left-hand nav on a client's page has Overview, Bookings, Calls, Agreements and Invoices. From the header you can start an appointment, start a reservation, or use Collect Payment to roll all their unpaid bookings into one invoice.

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

Adding a pet

Sidebar Pets, then Add Pet, or the shortcut from the client toast. The form has five tabs:

• Basic — Owner, Pet Name, Species, Sex, Primary Breed, optional Secondary Breed and Breed Notes, Weight in pounds, Date of Birth, and general notes. Weight matters: boarding and daycare rates are weight-banded.
• Health — vet name and phone, and the vaccination expiry dates. See Tracking vaccinations.
• Care — feeding schedule and instructions, shown at boarding check-in.
• Grooming — coat, cut preferences and grooming notes.
• Emergency — emergency contact details.

A pet that has passed can be marked as deceased with a date and optional cause. Deceased pets are excluded from reminders, alerts and marketing.

Documents

The pet profile has a Documents tab: drag a file in, choose a document type (vaccination record, vet record, rabies certificate, health certificate, spay or neuter certificate, insurance, other), give it a title and an optional expiry date. Files can be up to 10 MB, as PDF, JPG, PNG, WebP or HEIC, and are stored privately.

Note that uploading a rabies certificate does not update the pet's rabies expiry field — the alert system reads the date fields on the Health tab, so enter the date there too.

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