⚙️ Advanced Business Settings

An in depth look at customizing your business settings in Scout.

James Dixon avatar
Written by James Dixon
Updated over a week ago

To navigate to the business settings, click or tap on the gear symbol in the left sidebar.

Your Business

The "Your Business" tab is where you set up all the following business operations information

  • Business Name and Address

  • Business Contact Information

  • Business Hours

  • Business Holidays

Business hours are for a feature not yet live in Scout. This feature is currently in development and will allow you to charge an additional fee for any services outside of the hours you set here.

Business holidays are the days you charge clients an additional fee for services. You can choose from a predefined list of popular holidays or create your own custom holidays. We will discuss this more in the Smart Charges section below. 

Appointments

Preferences 

Under the "Appointments" tab in the preferences section you can set a: 

  • Cancelation Window: When an appointment is canceled by a pet owner or administrator and the appointment start time is within the threshold you've set, a custom fee is automatically applied to an appointment. We will discuss setting up custom fees in the Smart Charges section below.

  • Last Minute Appointment Window: When an appointment is requested by a pet owner or scheduled by an administrator, and the start time of the appointment is within the threshold you've set, a custom fee is automatically applied to an appointment. We will discuss setting up custom fees in the Smart Charges section below.

Schedule Backup

This setting cannot be disabled at this time. Find out more about your schedule backup file here.

Services

The services you create are displayed as tasks in the Scout Mobile App for Dog Walkers and Pet Sitters report card.

Primary Services

Primary services are your main service offerings, such as dog walks, daycare, boarding or overnight pet sitting.

To create a primary service select "Create Service" in the upper right hand corner of the Primary Services area.

Begin creating a new primary service by selecting a template or creating your own custom service. Each template has a default name, photo-check in setting, and GPS setting. These setting can be changed at any time.

  • Walk: Photo check-in enabled; GPS tracking enabled

  • Visit: Photo-check in disabled; GPS tracking enabled 

  • Daycare: Photo-check in disabled; GPS tracking enabled

  • Custom: Create a custom service name and set your own photo-check in and GPS tracking options.

Once you have selected a template option, you will be required to set a service price and service duration.

Selecting to make a service required will cause the pet sitter to receive a warning message in the Scout Mobile App for Pet Sitters if they do not check off the task.

Next you can customize the Photo check-in and GPS tracking options.

  • Enable Photo check-in: Enabling this setting will force staff members to take a photo of the pet(s) when checking into an appointment. This photo will be attached as part of the check-in email sent to customers when their service begins. The location of the check-in will also be captured and will be visible to administrators when viewing the completed appointment.

Note: Disabling photo check-in will prevent the check-in email from being sent to customers.

  • Enable Location Tracking: Enabling this setting will turn on location tracking during the service. Location data captured during the appointment will be plotted on a map and sent as part of the check-out email sent to customers when their service has been completed.

Last, administrators have the option to set a staff rate. If you pay staff hourly with no per service commission, you can bypass this option by selecting "Staff should not be paid for this service".

  • Fixed: Staff are paid based on a fixed rate for each service.

  • Percentage: Staff are paid based on a percentage of the fee charged to customers.

Note: The rates you set in this section are global meaning they are the default rates for services and related staff payroll. You can override these settings in the staff and customer cards. You can find more information about overriding global prices for pet owners here and payroll rates here.

Add-on Services

Add-on services are additional services performed along with one of your primary services such as feeding, plant watering or medication.

Predefined Add-ons

Scout provides the following predefined add-on services. 

  • Feeding

  • Medication

These services can be selected on a per pet basis when pet owners request or administrators create appointments. For convenience, the instructions related to these add-on services are available to the pet sitters from a link on the report card.

Custom Add-ons

The custom add-on option allows businesses to get creative with the additional services they want to offer. Some examples are treats, plant watering, poop scooping and mail pick-up.

Note: Water is automatically added as a non-required task to the report card, and need not be included in this section.

Surcharges

Surcharges are non-task related charges. Select from predefined Smart Charges or create your own. Surcharges do not appear in the Staff Mobile App Report Card.

Smart Charges 

Smart charges are automated surcharges based on certain criteria being met. Smart Charge options include:

  • Additional Pets: Charge a fee for each additional pet n the same household

  • Cancelation: Charge a fee for cancelations when they occur within a specified time limit.

  • Holiday: Charge an additional fee when a primary service occurs on a specified holiday

  • Last Minute: Charge a fee for appointments requested by a pet owner or scheduled by an administrator within a specified time limit.

  • Weekend: Charge a fee for primary services scheduled on weekends.

  • Outside Hours: Coming Soon

Note: The rates you set in this section are global meaning they are the default rates for surcharges and related staff payroll. You can override these settings in the staff and customer cards. You can find more information about overriding global prices for pet owners here and payroll rates here.


Custom Surcharges
Don't see what your looking for in the smart charges, create your own here. Custom surcharges must be applied manually to an appointment by an administrator.

Have any Smart Charges you would like to see in Scout? Make sure to drop us a line!

Billing

Find out everything you need to know about billing with Scout here.  Learn more about accepting cash and outside payments here

Braintree by PayPal

Braintree is the merchant payment processor integrated with Scout. To enable automated payment processing you will need to create a Braintree by PayPal account. Braintree stores all credit card data on their own system. Scout does not have access to this information.

If you have used Braintree as your payment processor before, you can simply log into your current account and allow scout to send billing information to Braintree on your behalf.

If you do not have a Braintree account, you can create one by clicking on the link in Scout. You will be directed to a secure connection with Braintree where you fill out all of the necessary information. Account approval is almost immediate.

Scout suggests creating a new Braintree account using your email address rather than an existing PayPal account. During the Braintree setup process you will be asked if you would like to link an existing or create a new PayPal merchant account if you choose to accept PayPal from your customers.

Note: Enabling Cash, Check, etc in the business settings will enable cash for all customers, and disable the ability to accept automated electronic payments. Please read this documentation before enabling this feature.

Preferences

Sales Tax if required by law, can set a total sales tax rate which would include both state and local sales tax.

Payment Terms: Coming Soon

Apps

Navigating to the "Apps" tab in the business settings allows you to prevent early check-ins. Enable this setting if you do not want your Staff members checking in early. You can set an acceptable threshold.

Notifications

Scout has a number of notification setting you can select.

  • New Requests: Sends an email to the business owner when a customer-requested appointment starts outside the designated threshold.

  • Cancelations: Sends an email to the business owner when a customer-requested appointment is cancelled outside the designated threshold.

  • Late: Specifies the amount of time after an appointment is scheduled to start that it will be considered late and notifications are sent. Once marked as late, the business owner will receive an email that the appointment is late. The Staff member will also receive a push notification to their phone that will indicate that they are running late.

  • Upcoming Pet Birthdays: Sends the business owner a weekly email that lists pet birthdays for the upcoming week.

 


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