Selling treats, toys, and retail items

Most kennels make some of their money from services: boarding, daycare, grooming. But retail sales add up too. A bag of dog food here, a toy there, a leash the customer forgot at home. Petsoft tracks retail just like it tracks services, so your reports show the full picture.

Adding a product

Go to Facilities > Products and click Add Product.

You will enter:

Field	Why it matters
Product name	What prints on the receipt
Barcode or SKU	Lets you scan items at checkout instead of typing
Price	What the customer pays
Cost	What you paid the supplier; used for profit reports
Taxable	Whether sales tax applies
Category	Groups similar items together on reports

The cost field is optional, but you should use it if you want to see which products actually make money. A toy that sells for fifteen dollars but costs you twelve to stock is barely worth the shelf space.

Product categories

Categories help you organize. Common ones include:

• Food and treats
• Toys and chews
• Leashes, collars, and harnesses
• Grooming supplies
• Health and wellness

Categories show up on the Sales Revenue report, so you can see whether your food sales are growing or whether toys are sitting unsold. If one category is underperforming, you know to run a promotion or stop carrying that line.

Inventory tracking

Petsoft can track how many of each item you have in stock. Turn on inventory tracking from the product details page and enter your current quantity.

Every time you sell an item at checkout, the system subtracts one from inventory. When you get a new shipment from your supplier, add the quantity to restock.

You can set a low stock threshold. When inventory drops below that number, the product shows up on the low stock report. This prevents the awkward moment when a customer wants a specific treat and you realize you are out.

note

Inventory tracking is manual unless you have integrated with a supplier feed, which most small businesses do not. Someone on your team needs to update stock counts when shipments arrive.

Selling at checkout

To sell a product during checkout, scan the barcode or click Add Item and search by name. The item appears as a line on the invoice, alongside boarding charges and add-ons.

If the item is taxable, Petsoft adds sales tax automatically based on your tax settings. If the customer is tax-exempt, you can remove tax for that specific invoice.

Products and add-ons look similar on the invoice, but they are different behind the scenes. Products are physical items with inventory. Add-ons are services without inventory. A bag of treats is a product. A nail trim is an add-on.

Retail-only items vs service add-ons

Sometimes the line blurs. A bath is a service, but a bottle of shampoo the customer takes home is a product. A training session is a service, but a clicker the trainer sells is a product.

If you are not sure which to use, ask yourself: does the customer take something physical home? If yes, it is a product. If no, it is an add-on or a service.

Markups and profit

Your cost and price fields let Petsoft calculate markup percentage and gross profit per item. Run the Product Profitability report to see your best and worst performers.

Items with high volume and high margin are your stars. Items with low volume and low margin are candidates for discontinuation. Items with high volume and low margin might be worth keeping if they bring customers in the door, but do not expect them to fund your payroll.

Bulk editing

If you need to raise prices across a whole category, use the bulk edit tool. Select the category, enter the new price or a percentage increase, and apply it to every item at once.

This is useful when your supplier raises wholesale prices or when you do an annual price review. Just be careful. A ten percent increase on a two dollar item is only twenty cents. A ten percent increase on a fifty dollar bag of food is five dollars. Customers notice the latter more than the former.

Non-retail use cases

Some facilities use the product system for things that are not exactly retail:

• Boarding packages sold as prepaid bundles
• Daycare punch cards
• Membership fees

These work fine as products with no inventory tracking. The system treats them like any other line item at checkout.

Returns

If a customer brings back a defective toy or the wrong size collar, you can process a return at checkout. The system adds a negative line item to the invoice and updates inventory if you are tracking it. The refund goes back to the customer's card or to store credit, depending on your policy.