Chasing a client for an expired rabies certificate is nobody's favourite job. Now PawsAdmin can do it for you. Switch this on and a client whose pet's vaccinations have lapsed can't book online until they've brought them up to date — they're sent straight to their pet's profile, told exactly what's missing, and once they've fixed it they carry on booking. No phone call, no awkward conversation at drop-off.
Two pages set this up: one decides which vaccinations you care about, the other turns the rule on. Do them in that order — the first one matters more than it looks.
1. Choose which vaccinations you require
Go to Admin > Clients & pets, then the Pet Attributes tab: open pet attributes.
You'll see your vaccination fields — Rabies Expiry, DH2PP Expiry, Bordetella Expiry and Advantage Expiry — sitting alongside the rest of your pet fields. Every one that's switched on here becomes one your clients have to keep current.
So switch off any vaccination you don't actually track. This is the step worth slowing down for. If Advantage is left on but you've never asked clients for a flea and tick date, then every pet in your store counts as out of date the moment you turn the rule on, and everyone gets stopped at once. Most stores start with rabies on and the rest off.
Tracking something that isn't in the list? Add it here as your own vaccination field and it's counted the same way.
2. Turn the rule on
Go to Config > Online booking: open online booking settings.
Open the Online Booking Configuration panel and look for the Vaccinations row. Tick Require current vaccinations before booking online and save.
There's a second, optional box underneath it: Also require a vaccination record file on the pet. Leave that one off to begin with — it asks clients for a document as well as a date, and it's worth reading Good to know below before you use it.
Unticking the first box switches everything off again, immediately.
3. What your clients see
For a client whose pets are up to date, nothing changes at all. They book exactly as they always have.
For a client whose pets have lapsed, it depends on how many pets they have:
- If all of their pets are out of date, clicking Book takes them straight to their pet profile with a note asking them to bring vaccinations up to date first. Each pet carries a red Blocks online booking label spelling out what's missing — for example, "missing or expired: rabies".
- If only some of their pets are out of date, they carry on to the date screen as usual, and can still book the pet that's fine. The affected pets are flagged in the pet list as vaccinations not current. If they pick a flagged pet and try to submit anyway, they get a message explaining why and no booking is made.
Either way, the fix is theirs to make: they enter the new expiry date on the pet's profile — and upload the record too, if you turned that second box on. The moment it's saved they can book.
Good to know
- A blank date counts as out of date. A pet that has never had a rabies date entered is treated exactly like one that expired last week. That means this reaches your existing clients, not just new ones, from the moment you switch it on.
- It only affects online booking. You and your team can still book any pet from inside PawsAdmin, whatever state its vaccinations are in.
- Clients enter their own dates. This makes sure the information is on file and current — it doesn't verify the certificate itself, so keep checking documents at drop-off the way you do today.
- The record file check is a simple one. It looks for any file in the pet's Vaccination and paper Records section and can't tell a rabies certificate from a vet invoice. Anything the pet already has on file counts, so clients with documents attached won't be asked for anything new.
- Brand-new clients who haven't been linked to a client record yet aren't checked, because they don't have a pet profile with vaccination dates on it.
Pro tip
Before you turn this on, open a handful of your pet profiles and look at the vaccination dates. If most of them are blank, expect a wave of clients to hit this on their next booking. Start with rabies only, give it a couple of weeks to settle as clients come through, then add another vaccination if you want to.
See also: Set up your client and pet profile fields, and Set up your online booking and client portal.
Need help or have questions? Contact our support team at support@pawsadmin.com. We're always here to help you fetch success!