All the information you need to Start A Dog Daycare

 Dog Daycare Opening Cash Flow Analysis

Understanding the first few months Cash Flow Situation in a newly established Dog Daycare.

Taking the previous section of maintaining a cash reserve into more depth we have provided for you the actual profit and loss statements of a Dog Daycare that started in April of 2007. This Dog Daycare is using the “triple feed business model” whereas they offer Dog Daycare, Dog Grooming and Dog Boarding as standard services, and each service in turn feeds customers and revenue to the other services provided. This business model offers a lot of advantages for those that are just starting out as it provides a wider range of services from which to draw customers and generate the cash flow needed to keep the business afloat. The other advantage is that by offering a range of services it creates the ability for you to combine your services and offer a wide range of options that would otherwise be unavailable. This makes your business a lot more attractive to potential customers.

You will find that by offering these other services in combination with daycare that your business as a whole will grow quickly. For customers that are interested in grooming they now have the option of letting their dog play before and after its groom where as before the only choice was to have it locked in a crate at a standard grooming shop, your boarding business will soar as the dogs get to play during the day and your clients also have the option of having their dog groomed and bathed before picking up their pet. These other service customers will also see the value in daycare and a lot of them will become regular daycare clients. In our society of convenience people are inclined to frequent businesses that provide a variety of services in one place.
 

The other unique advantage to this industry is that, it is common place to establish very close relationships with your customers, more so than with a traditional service business. Even closer relationships than they have with their veterinarians that they may see every couple of months. Think about how many times a week do you eat at your favorite restaurant? Or go to your local barber?  Maybe a once every couple of weeks, and you may even know your favorite waitress or barbers name, but still don’t really have anything more than a professional relationship with them, as your interaction is solely based on paying for the service provided.

Your daycare customers will see you everyday, and will always take that time to listen to all the wonderful things that their dog did while it was at daycare, who its friends are, who it played with etc. Every day that you successfully provide joy for the pet they love they will grow a little closer to you and your establishment. They will establish a relationship such that they will feel guilty taking their dog anywhere else to use a service that you offer. So it is important for you to offer more than just daycare if you intend on generating serious revenue in this industry. This is covered in great other pages of this site.

Getting back on track we have provided for you in the following pages the actual printouts for the first four months of a newly established dog daycare facility along with the information on the facility and demographics for the area, with commentary and notes.

Dog Daycare Facility Information 

State: Florida
 

Location: Commercial in the City along a major commuter route
 

Services: Dog Daycare, Grooming, Dog Boarding and small amount of retail.
Size: 2600 sq/ft (600sq/ft for little dogs, 1000sq/ft for Big Dogs, 150 Sq/ft Grooming area, 400 Sq/ft boarding {four 6’x 9’ pet suites}, 200 sq/ft office, and 250 sq/ft lobby and traffic areas.)

Staffing: 2 (Husband and Wife)

*Note that your facility does not have to be huge, to be profitable. As long as you are customer service oriented with an effective management style and operate your facility in an efficient manner then the revenue will come.

Information- (Update)

The next section was not in the original manual that written some 6 months ago, since then I have contacted this same facility and they graciously provided me with some updated financial  information.. (Thanks, Susan)

There is some variation between the software that they use and the QuickBooks Profit and Loss sheets below though both are from the same facility, this is normal.. A lot of refunds, credits, coupons etc.. will be handled differently by the Dog Daycare Software than it is by QuickBooks and some need not be entered into QuickBooks anyway as they have no effect on your taxable situation.

Dog Daycare Start Up Gross Profit and Check In Analysis (The New Stuff)

The chart below shows you the typical rate of growth for an effectively managed, customer service oriented, efficient facility. Keep in mind the total size of this particular Doggy Daycare is 2800 sq/ft, not huge by any means but effective. Profit is the amount of money you take home and put in the bank (AFTER TAXES), so in the beginning why pay twice the rent to have a 6000 sq/ft facility that generates the same gross as a smaller facility? As you grow your business, grow your facility...

What becomes apparent is that by advertising sparingly and networking heavily while providing great customer and dog service this Dog Daycare facility increased by it's revenue each and every month of operation. You will also notice the huge spike in revenue for December. Dog Boarding and Dog Grooming will generally be off the charts and busier than you can imagine during this month..

In the two charts below you will notice the initial customer spike in August, this is the result of a huge 3 page full color article toward the end of July coming out in a rather affluent publication in the area concerning the new dog daycare in town. This caught the attention of a local t.v. station which ran a segment on the 5, 8 and 10 O'clock news. This resulted in a number of "try it out's" bringing their dog to the facility for daycare, as a result of the press and then dropping sharply off once all the fuss died down. What should be most striking about the charts below is that after the spike, steady business continued to grow. Daycare moved into a more predictable growth pattern, while the press created a lot of new boarding customers that really grew the business (Check Outs per Month) is the total for boarding and Daycare.  

The actual Check Out numbers for the first 8 months are as follows.

• Total No. of  Check Outs: 2,759

• Total No. of Daycare Visits: 1,790 64.88% of Check Outs
  

When averaged out this equals around 14 dogs per day at the facility boarding or in Daycare over the course of the previous 8 months. Which for a newly established Dog Daycare operating out of a 3500 sq/ft location is pretty good, especially considering the initial 3 months were almost nil.

Dog Daycare Start Up Gross Profit Analysis (More New Stuff)

The following is the gross profit as printed out by the Software they are using for the same time period covered above. You can see the steady growth in revenue that sound management and efficient operation can generate, again there is the ever present holiday spike in December. Also you should notice that regardless of the check in drop off's in daycare (the previous two charts) in September amounting to a little over $500.00 of the monthly total, the actual gross profits rose substantially during this period as a result of offering additional services like Dog Boarding and Dog Grooming.

Profit and Loss Sheets for the first Four Months of Operation (Original Stuff)