Dog grooming software that fills your tables

A grooming business runs on a rhythm: owners book, you confirm, you groom, you sell a little retail at the counter, you take payment, and, because most dogs need grooming every four to eight weeks, you bring them back on a regular cycle. OneBookPlus supports every stage of that rhythm, from the first online booking with a held deposit through to the rebook reminder that keeps a regular on schedule instead of drifting off and turning up months later in a state.

Booking, deposits and pet profiles

Owners find your salon through Instagram, Facebook, Google or word of mouth and book directly on your branded booking page. They pick a service, wash and blow-dry, full groom sized by breed, puppy intro, nail clip, de-shed or hand-strip, choose an available time, enter their dog's details, and pay a deposit that holds the slot. That deposit is the single most effective defence against last-minute cancellations and no-shows that leave a table empty. New dogs get a profile capturing breed, coat type, allergies, vaccination notes, behaviour flags (muzzle-only, dryer-shy, anxious) and the style the owner wants; returning dogs carry their full groom history, so every visit picks up exactly where the last one left off, no guessing how short to go or which dog bites at the nail clippers.

Reminders and the 4 to 8 week rebook

Grooming is repeat business, and the salons that thrive are the ones that bring dogs back on a predictable cycle. OneBookPlus sends automated SMS and email reminders before each appointment to confirm attendance and cut no-shows, then prompts the next rebook on the dog's grooming interval with a direct link to your booking page. The retention view highlights regulars who have slipped past their usual interval so you can reach out before a manageable coat becomes a two-hour de-mat. For a grooming business, consistent rebooking is the biggest lever on table utilisation and predictable revenue, and automating it frees you from chasing owners by phone between dogs.

Retail POS, add-ons and packages

Grooming margins improve sharply when retail and upgrades come along for the ride. The point-of-sale lets you ring up shampoos, conditioners, brushes, treats and accessories at the counter, and drop add-ons such as nail clips, teeth-cleaning, ear plucks or a de-shed straight onto the groom. You can also sell prepaid groom or wash packs, say a six-groom pack at a small discount, that auto-deduct one visit per appointment and prompt a top-up when the balance runs low, turning one-off visits into locked-in repeat revenue. GST is calculated per line, so taxable retail stays cleanly separated from your services and your BAS reconciles without manual sorting.

Payments, invoicing and accounting

At pickup, OneBookPlus takes the balance after the deposit and produces a receipt or GST invoice with your ABN, splitting the taxable service and any retail line correctly. Card payments through Stripe, in the salon or tapped at the kerb from a mobile van, reconcile automatically against your books, and income is categorised as it's taken so your profit-and-loss and BAS summary stay current. Dog grooming services and the products you sell are generally GST-taxable in Australia (there's no GST-free health concession as there is for human medical services), and OneBookPlus tracks the 10% per line if you're registered for GST, so you're never sorting receipts at quarter-end. This is general information rather than tax advice; confirm your registration and GST treatment with your accountant or the ATO.

Pricing by breed, coat and the time the table is tied up

A groom priced by breed alone will be wrong roughly half the time, because two dogs of the same breed can be forty minutes apart on the table depending on coat condition, temperament and how long it has been since the last visit. The number that matters is table time, and the honest way to price is a base rate by size and coat type, plus disclosed add-ons for the things that reliably blow the estimate out: heavy matting, a double coat mid-shed, a dog that needs two people, a first-timer who needs to go slowly. Put those add-ons on your booking page rather than discovering them at the counter, because a surcharge agreed at booking is a price and a surcharge explained at pickup is an argument. Review the base rate at least yearly against what a table hour has to earn once rent, power, product, insurance and your own wage are covered, and use the hourly rate calculator to find that floor before you set the menu. The markup and margin calculator does the same job for the retail shelf.

Running the van: travel time, service areas and fuel

Mobile grooming trades table time for road time, and the road time is the part that quietly eats the day. Two grooms booked forty minutes apart on opposite sides of the suburb is not two grooms, it is one groom and a commute you cannot bill. The fix is structural rather than clever: cluster bookings by area, build a travel buffer into the availability itself so the booking page cannot sell you a slot you can never reach, and set service areas rather than accepting anything within reason. Price the travel honestly too, either inside the service price for your core suburbs or as a disclosed call-out for the outer ones. Fuel, tolls, servicing and depreciation on the van are real costs that a salon simply does not carry, so a mobile price that matches the shop down the road is a mobile price that is too low. Work out what the vehicle costs you per kilometre with the vehicle running cost calculator, and if you claim vehicle expenses, the cents per kilometre calculator covers the ATO method. This is general information rather than tax advice.

Reputation and growing the salon

Growing a grooming business comes down to keeping the clients you have on their rebooking cycle and winning the next owner searching "dog groomer near me." OneBookPlus supports both. After each pickup, automatically request a Google review from happy owners at the moment they're most delighted, building the local reputation that fills the diary. Your booking page doubles as a lightweight website showcasing your services, prices, gallery and reviews, and the dashboard ties everything together, bookings, deposits, rebooks, retail mix and BAS-ready financials in one place, so you always know exactly where the salon stands. If you run grooming alongside other chairs or a retail counter, the hair and beauty salon page and the retail and point-of-sale page cover those workflows, and the OneBookPlus and Fresha comparison puts the subscription and commission models side by side.