A proper alternative to the dog walking spreadsheet
Almost every walker starts on a spreadsheet, and for the first dozen clients it genuinely works. It stops working quietly: a missed walk, an invoice that never went out, a phone number only you know. This page is about when to move and what replaces each column.
You don't need to abandon what works about a sheet. The at-a-glance week, the control. You need the bits it can't do: repeating bookings, money that reconciles itself, and details your team can see.
Signs the sheet is costing you money
None of these are about being disorganised. They're about a tool that has no idea what a recurring walk is.
- You copy last week's rows across every Sunday night
- You've invoiced late, or missed a walk off an invoice entirely
- You can't say, today, how much is outstanding
- A second walker means WhatsApp screenshots of the sheet
- Vet, medical and feeding notes live in your phone, not anywhere shareable
- A cancellation means editing three places and hoping you got them all
Recurring loops instead of copy-paste rows
Set a client's dogs on their usual days and times once. The calendar fills forward on its own. Cancel or move a single day without touching the pattern, and add a one-off walk in seconds.
That single change removes the Sunday night admin block entirely.
A real calendar instead of a tab per week
Day and week time grids with dog photos, grouped concurrent walks and a colour per walker. Filter by dog or walker, jump to any date, and see the whole week without scrolling a grid of merged cells.
Boarding stays sit on the same calendar, so an overnight isn't a note in the margin.
Invoicing that builds itself from the work
Completed walks and stays become an invoice per client, branded with your logo and emailed out. Mark it paid and every booking on it is marked paid too. No reconciliation column, no formula to break.
Payments splits pending, due and paid so the outstanding number is always in front of you, and prices are per dog with per-client overrides.
Records you can actually rely on
Client and dog profiles hold vets, emergency contacts, medical, feeding and behaviour notes. Because it's a CRM, that history, the household's prices and its access notes stay attached to every booking. Something a spreadsheet column can't do. Insurance, licences and contracts live in the document hub. Every change is logged with who made it and when.
Keeping digital records also puts you in a better position for Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, where a spreadsheet alone gets harder to defend.
Getting off the sheet without a lost weekend
Add your walk types and prices during setup, then share your private onboarding link with clients by text, email or WhatsApp. They fill in their own details and dogs; you review and approve, and everything is created for you. Existing clients are matched rather than duplicated.
Most walkers move over across a week of normal work rather than in one sitting.
PawLoop vs a spreadsheet
A spreadsheet will hold your bookings. It just will not remind you, price them, invoice them or tell you what changed.
| What you need | Spreadsheet | PawLoop |
|---|---|---|
| Recurring weekly walks | Copy and paste last week, then fix the bits that moved | Recurring loops rebuild the week automatically |
| Pricing | Typed in by hand every time, and easy to mistype | Walk types price themselves, per dog, with per-client overrides |
| Invoicing | A separate document, built from memory at the end of the month | Built from the walks and boarding you actually completed |
| Payments | A column of Y and N that someone has to keep honest | Paid status linked to bookings and invoices, with outstanding totals |
| Working with another walker | Version conflicts, or one person owning the file | Shared calendar, assigned walkers and role-based permissions |
| Knowing what changed | No history, the old value is simply gone | An audit log of every change, who made it and when |
| Dog and client details | Scattered across tabs, notes apps and text messages | One profile per dog: vet, medication, behaviour, photos, documents |
| On your phone between walks | Pinch, zoom, scroll, give up | Works on any phone today, open it in your browser or add it to your home screen |
What dog walkers say after moving their admin into PawLoop
Rated 5 out of 5 onTrustpilot
Running my business feels manageable again now
I'm a dog walker in Norwich who WAS seriously struggling with the amount of admin that comes with running a small business. Scheduling, invoicing, messaging customers... it was eating into my evenings, particularly at monthly invoicing time, and it was starting to affect how I felt about a job I otherwise absolutely love.
Then I found Pawloop and it has genuinely saved me!
The app is so easy to understand and really user-friendly. I can schedule all my walks into a clear diary, which my customers can also view, saving me even more time sending messages about their dog's walks. Then, when it comes to invoicing, it's pretty much done at the click of a button. It's saved me hours and hours of admin every month.
I'm also really impressed by the price. At £18 a month, it's affordable for a small dog walking business and worth every single penny (and more!) for the time it's given back to me.
Running my business feels manageable again now
I'm now back to spending my working day enjoying the dogs rather than thinking about the admin waiting for me at home, and, most importantly, my evenings can be spent actually being present with my family. You can't really put a price on that.
I've also loved being able to make a few suggestions about the app's functionality and seeing the Pawloop team listen and make updates incredibly quickly. It really feels like they're building the app alongside the people actually using it.
I've found this 100x easier and better than Peter Sitter Plus.
Thank you, Pawloop, you've made running my little business feel manageable again!
Very responsible to ideas and changes
Very responsible to ideas and changes, answered messages and emails quickly. Excellent tool to help me run our boarding and dog walking business, has cut done on my admin time considerably!
Start free, upgrade when you grow
Starter is free forever within its limits. Solo and Team add unlimited clients, reporting, the client portal and multi-walker scheduling.
For new dog walkers starting and organising their business.
- Up to 10 clients and 30 pets
- 100 bookings per month
- One-off and recurring walks
- Boarding, meet & greets and compliance tracking
- Invoices, billing and payment tracking
For established independent dog walkers running their business full time.
- Everything in Starter
- Unlimited clients, pets and bookings
- Private client portal
- Client notification centre and scheduled emails
- Complete revenue, expense and profit reporting
For growing dog-walking businesses with multiple walkers or staff.
- Everything in Solo
- Multiple walker and staff accounts
- Shared calendar and booking assignments
- Roles and module-level permissions
- Staff leave requests, approvals and cover
Frequently asked questions
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