Richard Booty Managing Director Pet Software Limited

Forward to the edition.
30 Pet Sitters Sign for Pet Sitter Plus in September & October

Hello and a big welcome to this our first ever newsletter from Pet Software, the company that specialises in software solutions for dog walking, pet boarding, pet sitting & day care businesses worldwide.

Reaching out to more than 3,500 pet sitters in the UK, Pet Software News is a national publication crammed with hints, tips and advice to give your pet business the edge in what has become an increasingly competitive market.

Since our launch in September this year, we are delighted to announce the signing of more than 30 new clients, many of whom you can see on our client page here.

I think the big surprise for us has been the sheer variety of customers, from some of the largest pet businesses in the UK to new start ups. After just a few months our customers are a variety of day care centres, specialist boarding companies, sole traders and larger pet sitting businesses.

The feedback has been invaluable and is already helping to shape our thoughts for future releases, for example the introduction of diary and client information accessible via iPhone and Android devices is something you all say you want and is top of the development list for the first half of 2012. More on this later.

We hope you enjoy the articles in our newsletter and if you have any comments or if you have an article you think might be of interest to pet sitters in the UK, please don’t hesitate to email these to us at
newsletter@petsitter-software.co.uk.

So there is just time to say a big thank you to our new customers and we look forward to serving more of you in the future.

Oh – one more thing. If you want to join the next generation of pet sitters and see what Pet Sitter Plus can do for your pet business, have a look at our demonstration videos here, or why not sign up for a live trial of the software here, its completely free for 30 days.

With Best Regards

Richard

Richard Booty
Managing Director
Pet Software Limited

Jackie Booty Business Owner Dog Days Limited

Guest Speaker.
How Pet Sitter Plus Saves Me Time.

Hi, My name is Jackie and I have been running Dog Days since 2006. In this article I am going to talk about the time I have saved since making the switch to Pet Sitter Plus.

Before I installed the system, everything revolved around my diary. Like most pet sitters I used to enter my work into a paper diary which contained all my jobs for the day (and eventually those of my employees).

The problem I faced at month end was ..”How to get the information from my diary onto an invoice?” The answer for me was literally to count up the services in the dairy and manually record the total in a book keeping system. This was both long winded and prone to error, for example before I had Pet Sitter Plus, just producing my invoices took me a full working day and this was before I had calculated my staff salaries.

Ready to ditch your diary?…….
Coming Soon, Pet Sitter Plus for iPhone and Android.

Ever fancied being able to ditch that paper diary? Well you might be able to sooner than you think……..

Its tough to keep a paper dairy up to date when you are on the move and your paper diary can never contain all the client & financial information that you need. Paper diaries are often bulky and cumbersome, they get scuffed and scruffy and full of your amendments and notes.

If you are an employer and that “last minute” job arrives for a member of your team you currently have no option but to txt or ring them to tell them what to do. This is all about to change…..

On the drawing board and planned for release in March 2012, Pet Software is currently writing a revolutionary new product to provide access to Pet Sitter Plus via a smart phone interface (such as iPhone or Android). Called PSP Mobile, this will quite simply revolutionise the way you can run your pet business.

So what will PSP Mobile do? Imagine for a moment being able to access your diary information on your smart phone so that each job you have to complete is readily available along with all the key information such as pet names, addresses, visit routine information and so on. In the first release you will be able to do these things.

In future releases, we plan to provide functions that will enable you to book and cancel services on the move, right from your smart phone and even assign services to a member of your team so that it pops up on their smart phone with an audible “ping”. Also, if you or an employee can’t remember how to get to a particular address, our planned integration with Google Maps Mobile will sort that out……the possibilities are endless.

Armed with PSP Mobile, our plan is that you will eventually be able to answer customer billing enquiries even when you are out and about and one day even send and re-send invoices.

Whilst the initial release is likely to be a basic read only system providing access to diary and client information, the development of PSP Mobile into a fully functioning system is inevitable……Look out paper diary, your days might be numbered.

The first release of PSP Mobile will not be around until March 2012, but if you would like to be ready to take full advantage of this product, you can get prepared by signing up for a live trial of Pet Sitter Plus here, its completely free for 30 days. Having Pet Sitter Plus installed and running in your pet business is the foundation and pre-requisite to make PSP Mobile work.

If you have any suggestions about functions you would like to have available on your smartphone, please don’t hesitate to email us at
newsletter@petsitter-software.co.uk.

With Best Regards

Richard

Richard Booty
Managing Director
Pet Software Limited

Home Boarding Licensing.
A sensible move or pointless red tape?

In February 2010, the whole dog boarding community of the borough of Wokingham, some 50 companies and individuals, let out a cry of horror as Wokingham Borough council announced its consultation around the proposed introduction of a home boarding licence for Dog Boarders.

The reason for the anguish, neighbouring Bracknell Council had introduced a similar license in 2006 which had the effect of almost eradicating the practice of home boarding in the borough.

The licence proposed set out a series of measures over 4 pages of A4. Some would argue they were sensible measures, other would argue that it was the nanny state in action, but there was an almost unanimous condemnation of one or two key clauses that would put the majority of home boarding establishments out of business overnight.

For example, one clause, which was introduced in Bracknell, proposed that only dogs from one family would be boarded at any given time (which came to be called the one dog policy). This clause alone meant that the home boarding of dogs would cease to be a business opportunity other than for those larger businesses that could employ 15 – 20 home boarders, each taking one dog (eg Barking Mad, etc).

There was also another problem that would affect the larger businesses themselves in that the requirement for a license would make the recruitment of individuals to provide boarding services on a one to one basis very difficult indeed (if not impossible). At the end of the day, the type of people who are interested in providing home boarding services on a one to one basis are earning a very low income, work casual hours and are not interested in having random inspections from the local council or paying for a local vet and councillor to inspect their premises.

In the end, the consultation process proved very useful. One councillor admitted to me that they usually get between 0 and 10 responses to any given consultation, but on the issue of home boarding, the council had been (to use their phrase) overwhelmed by over 270 angry responses.

On the day of the town hall meeting it was standing room only to hear the results of the consultation. The room was full of tension. If they had been handing out pitch forks on the door it would have been a scene from a medieval village revolt. Whilst there were some home boarders present, the majority of attendees were individuals who were simply livid with the council for attempting to dictate to them what they could and couldn’t do with their own dog.

Seldom does sense prevail in matters relating to local council affairs but I am happy to report that on this occasion, sense did prevail. Wokingham councillors listened to the huge number of responses and took note. In the end, they rescinded the one dog rule in favour of a “written permission” style of clause whereby an establishment could board more than one dog from different families as long as they had written permission (from the families) to do so.

Additionally, and some would argue quite brilliantly, Wokingham Council introduced a “de-minimis” clause meaning that until you had more than three paying guests, there was no need for a licence. Their thinking being that one or two dogs did not constitute home boarding on a commercial scale and therefore did not require regulation. This meant that companies recruiting staff to provide limited boarding services on a one to one basis could continue to do so with impunity.

All in all, the result of the consultation means that the home boarding business community in Wokingham Borough has a fighting chance of surviving in some form or another onto 2012 and beyond.

Whilst there remains the issue of inspections and the cost of the license, these should prove to be non fatal impositions and life should (for the majority at least) go on.

We are very keen to understand what your experience has been on this matter. If your boarding business (or any other part of your pet business) has been adversely affected by local authority red tape, please email us your experiences at newsletter@petsitter-software.co.uk.

With Best Regards

Richard

Richard Booty
Managing Director
Pet Software Limited