Kennel Connection vs Gingr: what fits your facility?

How should you choose between Kennel Connection and Gingr?

Choose the exact edition that passes your facility’s booking, arrival and billing tests within a written scope you can afford. Start with where the software runs: Kennel Connection advertises full cloud and hybrid options on its own website. Gingr describes its platform as cloud-based and requiring an internet connection in its offline-access answer.

If internet outages are a deciding factor, investigate the specific desktop or hybrid setup and its limits first. If your priority is parent self-service, start the demo with a parent requesting a stay and follow it through staff approval. In either case, make your busiest morning the test. A successful demonstration should show who makes each decision, what the parent sees and how staff recover when something changes.

Which edition will you actually be buying?

Ask for the edition, service modules and optional features by name before comparing quotes. Kennel Connection’s pricing page lists portal access and online booking within specific plan feature lists, describes onboarding and support, and identifies SMS as an optional add-on. Confirm that your proposed combination includes what the salesperson demonstrates.

For Gingr, begin with your boarding requirements. Its boarding page describes customer registration, stay requests, package purchases, deposits and add-on services. Gingr also describes a pet parent app on its comparison page. Ask which plan and configuration cover the steps you need.

Use your own service list: overnight lodging, daycare during a stay, grooming before pickup, or whatever you actually sell. For a broader requirements list, use the dog boarding software guide. Mark each requirement as included, optional or still unconfirmed on the quote.

How should you test internet-failure limits?

Require a task-by-task outage demonstration for the exact setup you would buy. Kennel Connection’s desktop-versus-cloud guide says desktop software works without internet, excluding run-card updates and email, and leaves updates and backups to you. The same guide lists reliable internet as a requirement for cloud software. Do not extend its desktop claim to a cloud edition or assume payments, texts and online bookings will continue offline.

Gingr’s offline-access answer says it requires an internet connection. If you plan to use a backup hotspot, test it at your reception desk with the devices staff will use.

Ask the demonstrator to disconnect a test device. Can you view today’s arrivals, read care instructions or record a change? Which actions stop? After reconnection, show how staff know what saved and what needs attention. Write an outage procedure around the observed results, with a named person responsible for backups where required.

How should online booking reach your staff?

Trace a parent’s request through review, confirmation and a later change before accepting the booking workflow. Decide when you want staff approval, what should reserve capacity and when the parent should receive confirmation.

Use a sample household with two dogs. Give them different care needs and separate lodging, then change the departure date for one dog. Ask the demonstrator to show the parent’s screen and the staff view after each step. Check whether staff can explain the status without opening unrelated records.

Treat these as questions for the demo, not features presumed to exist. Ask what happens when vaccine evidence needs review, a requested room is unavailable or the deposit has not been paid. Have the vendor identify any setting, manual step or unsupported case before you commit.

What should your busy-morning demo prove?

Your demo should prove that staff can handle arrivals and exceptions in the configuration you are being quoted. Bring a sample day with overlapping boarding arrivals, daycare visits and pickups. Ask a front-desk teammate to drive the steps after the walkthrough.

Use this checklist with every vendor. These are proposed test scenarios, not claims that any product supports every outcome.

Record a pass only after you see the result. Where the answer is “we can configure that,” ask for another demonstration with the configuration applied. Keep unresolved items beside the quote rather than in a separate email thread.

What belongs in your written quote and migration scope?

Get the complete operating scope and the transfer boundaries in writing before you choose a switch date. Request the edition, modules, optional features, setup charges, payment fees, support coverage, training and cancellation terms. Use the same requirements for each quote so you can compare equivalent work.

For migration, prepare a small export sample and a list of records you need: households, pets, future stays, vaccine evidence, package credits and account balances. Ask which records will import, which need correction and which must remain accessible in the old system. Request explicit answers about saved payment methods and active subscriptions; do not count them as transferable without confirmation.

Agree how you will reconcile a sample household before accepting the import. If you are widening your shortlist, the Gingr alternative guide offers another starting point for that evaluation.

What should you confirm in a Tato demo?

Confirm your boarding workflow and migration scope against your sample day before adding Tato to your shortlist. Tato’s documented customer portal flow creates pending boarding and daycare requests that require staff approval. Its documented boarding kiosk flow checks in an existing same-day confirmed stay only when lodging is assigned and the stay is check-in-ready; it does not create a new booking or take kiosk payment for that stay. Confirm these workflows for your location in the demo.

Tato’s documented Gingr imports are facility-specific, so agree the transfer scope after reviewing your export. Do not assume balances, saved cards or subscriptions will transfer. If you use Tato, plan to keep a separate point-of-sale for drinks and food.

Book a Tato demo with a sample boarding day and migration export, and ask for a written list of supported steps, manual work and exclusions.