Best Practices For Multiple Locations

Whether you run a franchise with locations in several cities or you are merging another business with yours, Time To Pet offers several wonderful features to make managing multiple different locations/companies easier.

Depending on your preferences, you can use a singular Time To Pet account, or you can have a separate account for each location/business. The general rule of thumb is that if the locations are in different geographical locations and do not share any clients or staff members (outside of your office team), it is better to utilize the multiple account approach, as they need to keep scheduling and reporting for each location separate. That said, we do have some tools that can help you manage multiple locations from just one account.

Here are our tips and best practices for when you have more than one pet care business/location to manage.

Using Client And Staff Flags

If you would like to keep all of your clients, staff members, and records for each location/company under a single Time To Pet account, we recommend making use of Client and Staff Flags to help with organization.

You can use flags in a number of creative ways, but for the purpose of managing separate locations, most companies will choose to label clients and staff based on what areas they are from or what companies they are associated with.

To create a flag, you can do so either directly from a client’s or staff member’s profile or from Settings > Company Settings > Flags.

With client and staff flags, you can customize a flag’s title, color, abbreviation, and description. Some companies even use emojis to make certain flags stand out further. With so many customization options, navigating through different staff members and clients is a breeze, as the flags you assign them will be visible at a glance almost everywhere in Time To Pet.

Flags are especially helpful when it comes to scheduling. For example, the image below shows us scheduling an event for a client in the Northside location. When selecting the staff member to assign, we can see at a glance which locations each staff member serves so we can quickly choose the correct staff:

It is important to note that while you can generate client and staff reports filtered by Flag in Reporting > Staff & Clients, you will not be able to use flags to filter other types of reports, such as financial and schedule reports. In addition, all clients and staff members will be visible on the company’s calendar, as well, and you will not be able to separate them out by location or flag.

Revenue Reporting For Different Locations

By default, all client invoices will contribute to the company's revenue reports. However, we do offer a way to segment revenue reports by location. To start, create a new client field in Settings > Company Settings > Client Fields and name it "Location", "Branch", or whatever makes the most sense for your company. Set it to be a text box of any size. Then, check the option to set the field as a "Customer Segment", and uncheck all other boxes so that it's not visible to the client. For example:

Once the field is created, open each client profile and enter their branch/location name in this field. For example:

You will then be able to segment your revenue reports by the "Branch" field and choose which branch you want to look at:

Staff Schedule Reporting By Location

Custom client fields can also aid in schedule reporting that is distributed to staff. Much like with Revenue Reporting by Location, you can create a new Client Field in Settings > Company Settings > Client Fields and label it "Service Area" or something similar. Then, in each client's profile, add their branch location or service area to that field.

Next, navigate to Reporting > Schedule > Printable Schedules. You can then add this field to your Schedule Report so that in the downloaded the CSV/spreadsheet, this data will be included.

If needed, you can also sort the downloaded spreadsheet by that column, thereby grouping clients in the same service area/location together.

Multiple Time To Pet Accounts And Enabling Quick Switch

While the above method can be a useful tool for the organization of your clients and team members, most of our customers have found it more beneficial to create a separate account for new locations/companies that do not overlap with their existing account’s location. This is because, while flags can help with organization, there is a point at which the growth of your business may require a need for clearer separation of clients, scheduled services, and staff. With a separate account, everything you need for a singular location is right there and can be much easier to manage than trying to figure out a system under a singular account.

Register Your Account

To create a separate account for your new location/company, you will first need to register your account with Time To Pet, which you can do here: Start Your Free Trial.

Billing & Pricing

The billing and pricing for your new account would be standard Time To Pet Pricing, but you can receive a discount by using your existing company’s referral code, as your new account will count toward that. Your existing account will also receive a credit for the referral. You can utilize Time To Pet’s Referral Program with each subsequent account that you create.

Enabling Quick Switch

Once you have set up your new account and activated it, we have the Quick Switch tool that you can request us to enable for you by emailing us at support@timetopet.com. Just a note that account activation is required before we are able to enable Quick Switch, accounts that are still on a trial are not eligible for Quick Switch. The Quick Switch tool allows you to swiftly toggle between one business and another straight from your Time To Pet Dashboard. It is not currently accessible through the Time To Pet mobile app.

Only admins can have Quick Switch enabled for their account. Each "Super Admin" will need a different email address for each additional account they are creating that needs Quick Switch enabled. Any additional admins that need Quick Switch enabled can use the same email address or a different email across accounts.

When Quick Switch has been enabled, it can be seen in the upper right-hand corner of the Dashboard under your profile picture. The other account company names will be displayed here and can be clicked to switch into. The Quick Switch tool acts as a link between all of your accounts and does not alter any of your settings or configurations.

Just as each account using Quick Switch would be charged separately, if you enable credit card processing for each of your businesses, they would each need a separate account set up with our supported payment processor. Just a note, depending on the country, different payment processors may be available. Reach out to us at support@timetopet.com with any questions on available payment processing options for your company.

It is also not possible to have finances paid into two different financial accounts using only one Time To Pet account.

Clients And Staff With Multiple Accounts

If you have clients and staff members that are associated with more than one of the locations/companies, then they too would need separate Time To Pet accounts for each location, as well. While clients and staff members that are not admins don’t have access to the Quick Switch tool, Time To Pet has made it simple for clients and staff with to switch between multiple accounts.