---
title: Setting up boarding and daycare
slug: setting-up-boarding-and-daycare
category: Boarding & Reservations
url: https://alaga.io/help/article/setting-up-boarding-and-daycare
audiences: business_owner, manager
updated: 2026-08-20
source: Alaga Help Center
---

# Setting up boarding and daycare
Sidebar: **Business Settings → Facility Settings**.

Nothing about boarding or daycare works until capacity exists. **Your business type does not decide this** — a business registered as a kennel with no capacity configured cannot take a single reservation, and a groomer who adds capacity starts offering boarding immediately.

## Capacity groups

A capacity group is a set of spaces you can fill, and each one is marked as boarding, daycare or both.

Think in terms of what you actually sell:

- A kennel with 20 runs and a separate cat room has two groups.
- A daycare with one big playroom that holds 30 dogs has one.
- A business doing both overnight boarding and daytime daycare in the same runs has one group marked for both.

Each group has a limit. That limit is what stops you being overbooked, so it should be the number you can genuinely handle on a normal day, not the theoretical maximum.

## Boarding rooms

Rooms are the individual named spaces inside a group — Run 1 to Run 20, Cat Condo A, and so on. These are what you assign a specific pet to on the Kennel Board.

Rooms are optional if you only care about totals. If you assign pets to particular spaces, or you need to know which run a dog is in when the owner rings, set them up.

## Boarding and daycare together

Mark a group for both types when the same physical spaces serve both. Alaga then counts a daycare dog and a boarding dog against the same limit, which is what you want — a run holding an overnight guest is not available for daycare.

Use separate groups when the spaces genuinely are separate.

## Rates

**Rates are not here.** Boarding and daycare pricing lives on the **Pricing** page with everything else you charge for, so all your money is in one place. Facility Settings is only about physical space.

## Once capacity exists

- Clients can book boarding and daycare through your portal.
- The **Occupancy Calendar** starts showing how full you are.
- The **Kennel Board** has somewhere to put pets.
- Reservations can be created from the dashboard.

## Checking it worked

Open your booking address in a private browsing window and confirm boarding or daycare now appears as an option. If it does not, the capacity group is either inactive or not marked for that type.

## Getting the limit right

Start conservative. A group set to 20 when you comfortably handle 15 will let you take bookings you regret over a bank holiday, and turning work away later is harder than accepting more now. You can raise it any time.