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Clients & Pets

Vaccinations & Compliance

Set vaccine requirements, track records, and enforce compliance at booking.

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Vaccine Requirements

Go to Facility Settings → Vaccine Requirements to configure which vaccines are required for each species:

  • Dogs default: Rabies, DHLPP, Bordetella
  • Cats default: Rabies, FVRCP

Each of Dog, Cat, Bird, and Rabbit has its own panel — switch on the vaccines you require from that species' built-in catalog. (Custom vaccine names can be recorded on an individual pet, but not added to a requirement list.) The tab's Enforcement Mode decides what a gap does at booking: Warning Only (default) or Hard Block.

Adding a Vaccination Record

  1. Open a Pet's profile.
  2. Click Add Vaccine in the Vaccinations card.
  3. Select the Vaccine Type from the dropdown — the choices come from the built-in list for that pet's species — or pick Other (specify below) and type any name.
  4. Enter the Date Administered (required) and the Expiration Date (leave blank for a vaccine that doesn't expire). Optionally record the Veterinarian.
  5. Optionally upload one Vet Record / Proof — PDF or image (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP), up to 10 MB. Uploading a second file replaces the first.
  6. Click Add Record.

Vaccination Compliance Alerts

Each vaccination record on the pet profile carries its own status badge:

  • Green — current ("Expires in N days")
  • Amber "Expiring Soon" — 31–60 days out
  • Orange "Expiring Very Soon" — within 30 days
  • Red "Expired" — past its date
  • Grey "No expiration set"

The Vaccinations card's header also shows a red "N expired" count pill when anything has lapsed.

When creating a reservation, Goodstay checks vaccine compliance for the pet being booked. If vaccines are missing or expired, a banner appears — Vaccine Warning — Missing or Expired Vaccines in Warning Only mode, or Booking Blocked — Vaccine Requirements Not Met if you've set Hard Block. Any staff member can tick Override vaccine requirements to book anyway (e.g., the owner is bringing proof at drop-off).

Vaccination Alerts Dashboard

From the Dashboard's vaccination alerts card, open the full Vaccination Alerts page — a consolidated list of all pets with expiring or expired vaccines across your facility. Four summary cards (Expired / Urgent / Expiring Soon / Upcoming) double as filters, and each alert shows the pet name, an urgency badge, the vaccine name and expiration date, and the owner's name. This helps you proactively reach out to clients before their pets' next visit.

Per alert, Notify emails the owner a reminder (owners with no email show No Email instead). Click Clear All Expired to clear every expired record across all pets at once — records stay in history, marked as cleared.

The Expired-Vaccine Digest

Early each morning — before your facility opens — Goodstay can email you a summary of pets whose vaccines expired in the last week and who have an upcoming stay, so you can chase records before drop-off. It's controlled by the Expired vaccine with upcoming stay facility notification toggle.

Automated vaccination reminder emails also go to the pet owner at exactly 60 and 30 days before a vaccine expires (email only — these are skipped for owners with no email on file). They can be switched off facility-wide with the Vaccination expiration reminders toggle under Settings → Notifications → Customer Notifications — the per-alert Notify button above works regardless. See Notifications & Emails for details.

Owner-Uploaded Vaccination Records

Instead of chasing paperwork by phone, you can let clients send you vaccination records themselves — with your team keeping final say over what counts.

Turning It On

Go to Facility Settings → Vaccine Requirements and find the Owner Uploads card. Switch on Allow owners to upload vaccination records and save. The setting is off by default.

With uploads on, clients get an Upload record link on each pet in the Customer Portal. They pick the vaccine, enter the date given and expiration, and attach a photo or PDF of the certificate from their vet. The public Pre-Check form also gains a Vaccination Records section when a pet on the upcoming stay has a vaccine gap, so records can arrive before drop-off without anyone signing in.

Reviewing Uploads

Uploads never change what's on file by themselves — nothing counts toward a pet's vaccine requirements until you approve it. Every upload lands in the Vaccine Reviews queue (in the sidebar under Facility, with a badge showing how many are waiting). The queue has Awaiting review, Approved, and Declined tabs.

Open a submission to see the uploaded record side by side with the proof document, then:

  • Approve & add to file — the record joins the pet's vaccinations and immediately counts toward compliance. If it replaces an older record of the same vaccine, the old one isn't deleted — it stays in the pet's history, dimmed and marked Replaced.
  • Decline — with an optional note explaining why. The owner sees the note in their portal ("Not accepted") and gets a link to upload a replacement.

While a submission is pending, the staff pet profile shows an "uploaded record waiting for your review" banner linking straight to the queue, and the owner's portal shows the record as Awaiting review.

Notification: the Vaccination record uploaded facility notification (on by default — see Notifications & Emails) emails you when a new record needs review.

Importing Vaccination Records

If you have vaccination records in a spreadsheet or from another system, you can bulk-import them using the Data Import tool.

  1. Go to Import Data in the sidebar, then click New Import.
  2. Select Vaccinations as the import type.
  3. Upload your CSV or Excel file with columns for pet name, vaccine name, and date administered (plus optional expiration date, veterinarian, notes, and owner name/email to disambiguate pets that share a name).
  4. Map your columns and run the import.

This is especially useful during initial setup when migrating from another kennel management system.