The Customer Portal

The Customer Portal is a self-service hub where your clients can log in to view their pets, upcoming reservations, invoices, report cards, and communicate with your facility — all without calling or emailing you.

Accessing the Portal

Clients visit: yoursubdomain.goodstay.pet/portal/sign_in

They can sign in with:

• Email and password (if they've set a password)
• Magic Link — they enter their email, receive a one-time sign-in link, and click it to sign in automatically (no password needed)

The portal opens with the first confirmed booking: a client whose only bookings are requests you haven't confirmed — still pending, or cancelled — can't sign in yet, by magic link or password. They see "Your portal opens once your first booking is confirmed." instead, so a stranger's request from your public booking page never opens a portal account before anyone has looked at it. Clients with no bookings at all — ones you added yourself or imported — sign in as usual and can book their first stay from the portal.

Portal Features for Clients

Online Invoice Payment

If you have a payment processor configured (see Invoicing & Payments), clients can pay invoices directly in the portal using a credit or debit card. Both Stripe and Square are supported. Clients sometimes expect their credits applied automatically at online checkout — that isn't how credit works: a client's credit balance is spent by your staff at checkout, landing on the invoice as tender, and the portal then shows the applied credit and the reduced balance due. After payment, the invoice status updates automatically and you are notified.

In-Progress Stays & Deposits

When you email a client the invoice for a stay that's still in progress (see one invoice per stay), it appears in their portal marked In progress — a running total that may still grow until checkout — and can be paid at any time. Invoices you haven't emailed stay hidden from the portal.

When a deposit has been requested, the portal pay screen leads with a Pay $X Deposit Online button, with an "or pay the full $Y" option underneath. The payment lands directly on the stay's invoice, and the reservation is marked deposit-collected automatically once payments reach the requested amount. If your facility has set a customer-facing deposit name — "Booking fee", say — the portal's labels and button use that name instead of "Deposit". The invoice email and its no-sign-in pay link make the same offer, so a client can pay the deposit without ever opening the portal.

Online Booking from the Portal

Signed-in clients can book all three services themselves — and every portal booking arrives as a pending request for your team to confirm. Nothing a client books is promised until staff (or the daycare roster's Confirm button) confirms it, and the confirmation email only goes out at that point.

Boarding (Book a Stay)

On the My Reservations page, a Book a Stay button opens the boarding request form. The client picks their pets (up to 4, from one household), chooses check-in and check-out dates, and — unless your facility is request-only — selects a kennel from the genuinely-available options, with a live price ticket showing the nightly rate and stay total ("the price shown is the price charged"). Clicking Request Stay creates a pending reservation; the client is told "the facility will confirm shortly." Request-only facilities skip the kennel picker and show the kennel as assigned by the facility.

Daycare

Clients can view daycare availability and request daycare days from the portal, with any active daycare package applied automatically. The request lands as a pending reservation — the client sees "Daycare requested … the facility will confirm shortly."

Grooming

Clients book grooming by selecting a pet, a date and time slot, and services from your grooming menu. Real-time availability is shown for each grooming station. These also arrive as pending reservations for staff to confirm.

Requesting Add-On Services on a Stay

On a reservation's portal page, an Add a Service panel lets the client pick an add-on service from your menu and click Request — available on upcoming stays (pending or confirmed) as well as while the pet is checked in. The service attaches to the stay as Requested, at the current list price, and fires the Service requested facility notification; your team confirms it before it's performed or billed.

Compliance never blocks a portal booking: if a pet's vaccinations aren't compliant, the booking still goes through, the client is told their pet's vaccine records need attention, and the reservation is tagged with a "⚠️ STAFF REVIEW" note so your team follows up before confirming.

Temperament evaluations work the same way: at a facility that requires evaluations, an unevaluated pet's daycare request automatically becomes an evaluation-day request — the picker says so before they submit ("first visit will be a temperament evaluation day"). Boarding and grooming requests still go through with a "⚠️ STAFF REVIEW" note, and the client is told the facility will reach out to schedule an evaluation.

Uploading Vaccination Records

When you've switched on owner uploads (see Vaccinations & Compliance), each pet's portal page gains an Upload record link. The client picks the vaccine, enters dates, and attaches the vet's certificate; the record shows as Awaiting review until your team approves or declines it from the Vaccine Reviews queue.

Install the Portal as an App

The Customer Portal is a Progressive Web App, so clients can install it on their phone for one-tap access:

• iOS (Safari): Share button → Add to Home Screen.
• Android (Chrome): menu (⋮) → Install app (or Add to Home screen).

When a client installs from a portal page, the app is named after your facility — "Happy Paws", not "Goodstay" — and launches straight into the portal, never onto staff pages. Once installed it opens full-screen with no browser chrome, and shows a friendly offline page if connectivity drops. Mention this in your client onboarding emails to drive adoption.