---
title: Booking a boarding or daycare stay
slug: creating-a-reservation
category: Boarding & Reservations
url: https://alaga.io/help/article/creating-a-reservation
audiences: all
updated: 2026-08-21
source: Alaga Help Center
---

# Booking a boarding or daycare stay
Sidebar: **Reservations**, then **New Reservation**. The same button sits at the top of the All Reservations page.

## The form

- **Reservation Type** — Boarding (overnight stay) or Daycare (same day).
- **Client**, then **Pets**. Booking several pets creates one reservation per pet, linked as a group.
- **Keep pets together** — appears with two or more pets on a boarding stay. On, they share one room; off, each gets their own.
- **Check-in Date and Time**, **Check-out Date and Time**.
- **Room Assignment** — the picker shows your capacity groups and the rooms actually free for those dates, and warns you about days where availability is tight. With multiple pets you assign each pet a room.
- **Add-on Services** — grooming, a bath before pickup, play time. Each add-on gets its own date and time and is created as a linked appointment.
- **Daily Rate** or **Nightly Rate** — filled in automatically from your weight-based rates. With several pets Alaga uses the highest applicable rate. If nothing fills in, set up rates under Business Settings, Facility Settings, Boarding Rates or Daycare Rates.
- **Personal Belongings** — toys, blankets, the specific leash that must go home.
- **Notes** — feeding quirks, medication reminders, anything the kennel team needs.

## Statuses

**Requested**, **Confirmed**, **Checked In**, **Checked Out**, **Cancelled**, **No Show**.

A reservation you create is normally Confirmed straight away. It is created as **Requested** instead when the client has unsigned agreements that you require, unless staff waive the requirement.

Requests coming in through the customer portal are Requested by default. If you switch on "Auto-confirm reservations" under Business Settings, Business Profile, daycare requests come in Confirmed, and boarding requests come in Confirmed only when the client picked an accommodation.

To move a Requested reservation to Confirmed, edit it and change the status. Alaga blocks the change until there is a capacity group, a room, and actual availability for the dates.

## Deposits

If deposits are switched on under Payment Settings, a deposit prompt appears as soon as the reservation is created, showing the deposit due and the balance due at checkout. You can skip it — the client then gets a reminder before check-in.

One thing to watch: the checkout summary at the end of the stay does not subtract a deposit that has already been paid, so deduct it yourself when taking the final payment.

## Seeing the whole facility

- **Occupancy Calendar** — how full you are, day by day.
- **Timeline** — a Gantt-style view of overlapping stays.
- **Kennel Board** — a room-by-room grid for a given day, colour-coded empty, partial, full, checking out today and checking in today.