Understanding Your Dashboard — A Quick Tour

Category: Getting Started Reading time: 6 min

Once you're set up, your owner dashboard is where you'll spend most of your time in Groomera. This tour walks through every section of the sidebar — what it does, what you'll find inside, and when you'll use it.

Bookmark this article if you're just getting started. It's a useful reference as you explore each section on your own.

How the Dashboard Is Laid Out

The owner dashboard has a left sidebar with navigation items and a main content area that changes based on what you've selected.

At the top of the sidebar you'll see your business name and logo. At the bottom, your account settings and logout option.

Everything in between is your working dashboard. Here's what each item does.

📅 Bookings

What it is: Your central appointment calendar and booking management hub.

What you'll do here:

• View all upcoming and past appointments in calendar or list view
• See each booking's status: PENDING → CONFIRMED → COMPLETED / CANCELLED
• Manually confirm, cancel, or mark bookings as completed
• Add walk-in appointments directly from the dashboard
• Filter bookings by specialist, service, date range, or status
• View client details and appointment notes for any booking

When you'll use it: Every day. This is the most-used section of the dashboard.

Key things to know:

• A booking created through your storefront starts as PENDING — you can set it to auto-confirm or manually confirm each one
• Marking a booking COMPLETED triggers the Google Review email to the client (if your Google Review link is set up)
• Marking a booking CANCELLED removes it from active calendar views but keeps it in your history

👥 Specialists

What it is: Your team management hub.

What you'll do here:

• View all specialists on your team
• Invite new specialists via email
• Configure each specialist's commission rates (revenue + tips)
• Assign services to each specialist
• Set each specialist's availability (working days and hours)
• Enable or disable SMS reminders per specialist
• Deactivate specialists who've left your shop

When you'll use it: When hiring, onboarding new team members, adjusting pay, or managing availability changes.

Key things to know:

• Each specialist has their own login portal at /auth/login?role=specialist
• Commission settings you configure here are visible to the specialist in their portal
• SMS reminders cost $5.99/specialist/month and are toggled per specialist here

🐾 Clients

What it is: Your client relationship management (CRM) list.

What you'll do here:

• Browse all clients who have booked through your storefront
• View each client's full booking history
• Read and add notes about a client or their pet
• See contact information (name, email, phone) for any client
• Track how many times a client has visited and when

When you'll use it: When you want to look up a client before their appointment, review their history, follow up after a visit, or pull contact info for manual outreach.

Key things to know:

• Clients are created automatically when someone books through your storefront — you don't add them manually
• Notes added to a client record are visible to all specialists when viewing that client's upcoming appointment
• This is the foundation of your repeat-client relationship strategy — use the notes field actively

📦 Products

What it is: Your e-commerce product inventory and retail management section.

What you'll do here:

• Add grooming products you sell (shampoos, conditioners, accessories, treats, etc.)
• Set product prices, descriptions, and upload photos
• Manage stock levels and inventory
• View and manage product orders placed through your storefront
• Generate shipping labels via Shippo or EasyShip for orders that require shipping

When you'll use it: When setting up your retail store, restocking inventory, or fulfilling product orders from clients.

Key things to know:

• Products appear on your public storefront automatically once added
• Payments for products go through your connected Stripe account
• Shipping label generation requires your Shippo or EasyShip API key (entered in Settings)
• Product sales are logged separately from service revenue in your financial reports

🤖 AI Assistant

What it is: Configuration hub for your Groomera AI Voice Assistant — powered by Vapi.

What you'll do here:

• Set up your AI assistant's name, voice, and personality
• Write or customize the system prompt (what the AI knows about your shop and how it responds)
• View your dedicated AI phone number
• Review call logs — every inbound call the AI has handled
• Read call transcripts to see exactly what was said

When you'll use it: During initial setup, when updating your AI's instructions (new services, new hours, promotions), or when reviewing how the AI handled recent calls.

Key things to know:

• The AI Assistant requires the aiAssistantAddon on your account — either included in your plan or purchased separately
• Your AI gets a dedicated phone number — share this as your shop's main number and the AI answers it 24/7
• The AI can answer questions and book appointments. Review your system prompt regularly to make sure it reflects current services and pricing
• If a call comes in and you want to review it, the full transcript is in this section

📊 Reports

What it is: Your analytics and business performance dashboard.

What you'll do here:

• View revenue trends over custom date ranges
• See booking volume by specialist, service, and time period
• Identify your busiest days and most popular services
• Track client retention and repeat visit rates
• Export data for your accountant or personal records

When you'll use it: Monthly for business reviews, or whenever you're making decisions about pricing, staffing, or services.

Key things to know:

• Reports pull from your real booking and financial data — the more consistently you use Groomera, the more useful these become
• Booking reports and financial reports are separate views within this section
• Revenue shown here reflects what was logged — make sure you're marking bookings as COMPLETED to get accurate data

💰 Budget & Expense

What it is: Your financial ledger for tracking income and expenses.

What you'll do here:

• Log business expenses (supplies, equipment, rent, utilities, software)
• Log income that comes outside of Groomera bookings (cash payments, external transactions)
• Categorize entries so reports are meaningful
• Review monthly income vs. expense summaries

When you'll use it: Regularly — weekly or monthly — to keep your financial records current. Especially useful at tax time.

Key things to know:

• Income from bookings processed through Groomera is automatically tracked; this section is for manual entries (cash income, expenses, non-Groomera revenue)
• Categories are predefined but may be customizable depending on your plan
• This is not accounting software — it's a ledger. For full bookkeeping, export and share with your accountant

✅ Task Assigner

What it is: A team task management system for non-booking work.

What you'll do here:

• Create tasks for shop operations (cleaning protocols, supply orders, equipment checks, client follow-ups)
• Assign tasks to specific specialists with a due date and priority level
• Set priority: Low / Medium / High
• Track task status and actual vs. estimated completion time
• Review what's been completed and what's overdue

When you'll use it: Daily or weekly to manage shop operations beyond appointments.

Key things to know:

• Tasks appear in the assigned specialist's portal — they can update status and mark complete from their end
• Priority levels help specialists know what to do first on a busy day
• Tasks are separate from bookings — they don't appear on the booking calendar

🛟 Support

What it is: Your in-app access to the Groomera Help Center and feedback tools.

What you'll do here:

• Browse help articles organized by category
• Search for answers to specific questions
• Submit a bug report or error ticket
• Request a new feature and see what others have requested
• View the status of known issues

When you'll use it: When you have a question, hit a bug, or want to suggest something.

Key things to know:

• Feature requests submitted here are reviewed by the Groomera team — your input genuinely shapes the product roadmap
• For urgent issues, the error ticket form is the fastest path to a response

📄 Contracts

What it is: A document storage section for client and business contracts.

What you'll do here:

• Upload contract files (PDFs, signed agreements, service terms)
• Attach contracts to your business profile for reference
• Store grooming waivers, contractor agreements, or service terms
• Download or share stored contracts as needed

When you'll use it: When onboarding new specialists under a contractor agreement, or when you require clients to sign service waivers.

Key things to know:

• Files are stored securely via Cloudinary
• This is document storage, not a digital signature tool — if you need e-signatures, you'll handle that externally and upload the signed copy here

A Note on Your Specialist's View

Your specialists see a simplified version of this dashboard — their own portal. They see their bookings, their tasks, their profile, and their earnings. They don't see your financials, other specialists' data, or business settings.

If a specialist asks "where do I find X?", the answer is almost always in their portal under Bookings, Tasks, or Profile. For a full guide on what specialists see, refer to the Groomers category in this Help Center.

You're All Set

You've completed the Getting Started track. Your shop profile is built, your services are live, your specialists are invited, your storefront is ready, and you know your way around the dashboard.

Here's what to do next:

• Share your storefront link with your first clients
• Book your first appointment and watch the confirmation flow run automatically
• Enable SMS reminders for any specialist where it makes sense
• Explore the AI Assistant if you want 24/7 phone coverage

If you ever get stuck, the Support section in your sidebar is always there.

Welcome to Groomera. 🐾