The short answer
You do not handle them on the website. The booking platform collects vaccination records and consent at the first online booking, stores them on the pet's profile, and reminds the owner when a record is about to expire. The website's job is to explain what is needed before the owner starts booking, so nobody is turned away at the door. The desk's job shrinks to glancing at a profile that is green or amber.
Three parties, three jobs. Here is what each one does.
What the platform does
Gingr, PetExec, Revelation Pets and Kennel Connection for daycare, boarding and catteries; MoeGo, Savvy Pet Spa and Gingr for groomers; Time To Pet and Pet Sitter Plus for walkers and sitters; Vetstoria, ezyVet and Provet Cloud for vets. All of them hold a pet profile with vaccination fields, certificate upload and expiry dates, and most carry digitally signed agreements in the booking flow.
Configured once: which vaccinations are required for a first booking, whether kennel cough and flea and worm treatment are needed, which agreements must be signed (grooming consent, matted-coat policy, daycare terms, treatment consent, photo permission), and how far before expiry the reminder goes out. The owner completes it on their phone the first time and updates a certificate when reminded. Staff never handle a paper card.
What the website does
Explains, in plain words, on the Your first visit page and beside the Book button:
- Which vaccinations you require and how recent they must be, including when a puppy or kitten can start.
- Whether you accept a titre test, and your position on kennel cough.
- How to show it: a photo of the card or the vet's certificate uploaded during booking, or the vet emailing it.
- What the consent covers, so an owner knows what happens if the coat is matted or a vet is needed and you cannot reach them.
- What happens if a record is missing on the day, said kindly and firmly.
- How long the first booking takes.
The confirmation message repeats the requirements with a link to the upload. Owners who read it arrive with everything done; owners who do not phone, which is what you are trying to stop.
What the desk does
Opens the day's bookings and looks for amber. A daycare or cattery checks the vaccination status is green before the animal comes in; a groomer checks the consent is signed before the first clip; a walker checks the access notes and treatment consent before the first visit. Where a record is amber, the reminder has already gone; the desk sends a one-line nudge or asks for the card at the door. That is the whole process.
Why not a form on the website
Because two places for the same record is how records go missing. A website form that emails vaccination dates to an inbox is a copy nobody checks against the profile, and it holds health data about a family in an email account. Keep the site's own form to name, phone, pet's name and what you are looking for, and send everything about the animal into the profile where staff will find it on the day.
What about the paperwork you already hold
Businesses moving to a platform have a filing cabinet of cards and signed forms. Enter the vaccination dates for active clients into their profiles, ask owners to upload a current certificate at their next booking, and set the agreements to be signed at the next visit. Six months later the cabinet is empty and every active pet is on the system.
Privacy, briefly
A vaccination certificate names the owner and their address as well as the pet, so it is personal data. It stays in the platform, not in email or a shared drive. The privacy notice says what you collect, why, how long you keep it and who sees it. Lapsed clients' records are deleted after a stated period where the platform allows. Staff get access only to what their job needs.
The one thing to test
Once a quarter, book a new pet from your own phone: upload a certificate, sign the consent, and check the record lands on the profile with the expiry date set and the confirmation says what to bring. Platforms change their intake flows without telling you.
Where this sits
Vaccination and consent collected by the platform at first booking, explained by the website and checked by the desk in a glance, is one of the six must-haves in every pet business website we build. The question comes up in every first conversation with a pet business, and the answer is always the same: the website explains, the platform collects, and nobody is turned away for paperwork that could have been done a week earlier.