Online Boarding Reservation Time Savings Calculator

Estimates the staff hours and payroll dollars a kennel saves by moving reservations online, and whether that covers the cost of booking software, for owners weighing the switch.

Your estimate

Staff hours saved per month...

Labor value saved per month...

Net monthly gain after software cost...

Return on software spend...

Estimates only. Assumptions are listed below, and you can change every input.

Taking boarding reservations by phone, email and paper calendar eats staff time in small pieces: the call, the callback, the vaccination record chase, the confirmation, the change request. None of it feels expensive on its own, so the total cost stays invisible. Before paying for reservation software, it helps to estimate honestly how many hours that manual process really consumes and what those hours cost.

The calculator takes your monthly bookings, the share you expect to move online, and the minutes a booking takes today versus with an online form. The difference in minutes, across the bookings that move online, is converted to hours and multiplied by your staff hourly cost to get labor value saved. It then subtracts the monthly software cost to show a net figure and a simple return on that spend. Every minute figure is yours to change, because the estimate is only as good as your own timing.

How to use this tool

Enter your monthly bookings and the share you think customers would book themselves online.
Time a few real bookings to fill in the minutes per booking today and the minutes you expect once customers enter their own details.
Add your loaded hourly staff cost and the software price to see hours saved, labor value, net gain and return on spend.

What the math assumes

Only the bookings that move online save time; bookings that still come in by phone are assumed to take the same minutes as today.
Minutes saved are converted to dollars at your loaded hourly rate, which assumes the freed time is actually used for other paid work or lets you cut hours. If staff sit idle, the dollar saving is smaller than shown.
The default minute figures of 12 and 3 are placeholders to illustrate the math and should be replaced with your own timed estimates.
Return on spend is net monthly gain divided by monthly software cost. If the software cost is zero the tool shows 0 percent because the ratio is undefined.
Setup time, training, and any change in booking volume from being open for reservations around the clock are not included.

Frequently asked questions

How do I measure how long a manual booking really takes?

Keep a tally for one week. Note the minutes spent on each call, email, vaccination record follow-up and calendar entry for each reservation, then divide the total by the number of bookings. That figure is far more useful than a guess.

What if the net gain is negative?

Then at your volume and rates the software would cost more than the labor it saves, at least on this measure. That is a legitimate result. You may still value fewer errors, round-the-clock booking or online deposits, but the calculator will not claim those benefits for you.

Should I use the owner's time in the hourly cost?

If the owner is the person answering the phone, yes. Use a figure that reflects what an hour of your time is worth to the business, since that is the time being freed.

Does moving bookings online change how many bookings I get?

It might, but this tool deliberately leaves that out so the estimate stays grounded in time you can measure. If you later see a change in volume, rerun the numbers with the new booking count.

Link to this toolhttps://petstayr.com/tools/reservation-time-savings/

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