Foreign.

And welcome to the Pat Accounting Podcast with me, your host, Vicky Clark.

I'm going to help you get to grips with your finances, save you lots of money and take the stress out of doing your tax return.

So let's get going.

Welcome, everyone.

We have a lovely special guest today, Pete and Sarah, and then we're going to go over their new app.

So if you are a dog walker, a dog border, a kennels, commercial or otherwise, then please, please, please listen to this.

As always, it will go onto the podcast on Monday and it will be available on here for 30 days before Facebook gets rid of it again.

And it'll also be on our YouTube channel, which we've now created.

Because Facebook have decided to Delete videos after 30 days, we're franchise, we're branching out into YouTube so that you can watch it on YouTube or you can listen to our Dulce at Tones on Monday when it goes live in the podcast.

So welcome, Pete and Sarah, thanks very much.

Thank you.

And thank you for having us.

We're excited to be here.

We first met Pete and Sarah at crafts and they come over to our stand and had a little chat with us.

It was a bit of a hustle and bustle there, so we struck up a little bit of a relationship since.

And you know, from what they've told us about the app, I'm really excited to have to be able to bring this to you guys today and have a chat about it.

The benefits that I can see for this for certain businesses are huge.

So I'm not going to spoil it too much because obviously I want Pete and Sarah to tell us all about it, but I am excited, as you can probably tell at the moment.

So do you want to start us first by just giving people a background on who you are, what you've done and how this sort of apps come about, just in case people don't know who you are?

Yeah, absolutely.

I'm sure many people don't, but yeah, so we started out, I started dog walking myself and I don't remember dates at all.

I'm totally rubbish for that.

But Pete will.

2014.

There you go.

2014.

I started up as a dog walker on my own in my little Corsa, as you do.

Just.

I was working in schools previously.

Had enough school politics, love working with children.

But yeah, I'd worked with horses previously, so come from an animal background.

Before that, had my own dog, had a dog walker at the time.

Completely envious of her taking my dog out.

I was like, I want to do that.

I Want to do that?

My first dog walker was brilliant.

My second dog walker when we moved was average and I was like, oh, I could do it better than that, I could do it better than that.

So I just got to the point where, had enough school politics, right, I say, and just went right, that's it, I'm doing it.

So took a complete leap of faith and, and off I went and it, it built up really quickly.

Yeah, we've been kind of a year, 18 months.

I'd started taking on just some kind of part time staff and help and then everybody kept asking me about daycare.

So in 2016, 2016 we moved because we were in a two bedroom flat at the time and obviously I couldn't do any daycare.

I couldn't do that.

Be a bit difficult.

Yeah, I saw a place basically and I was like, oh, that's a nice place, there's no near neighbors or anything.

I was like, that may a really good place to do daycare from.

So I basically twisted your arm, didn't I, and said, hey, let's, let's move.

Like let's move.

It's a really good idea.

So we did and then, yeah, as soon as we were here, got our, got our daycare license and that was it.

Just hit the ground running, doesn't it?

It grew.

I had some staff at the time, we were still doing the, the walking, we were doing individual walks, we were doing guinea pig feeding, we were doing cat visits, we were doing all sorts, puppies.

Sounds like a lot going on.

It was, it was really, really busy.

Had staff, got like contracted staff working for us, doing the walking, that gre, didn't it?

And then, and then you got fed up with your job, didn't you?

Do your.

Yeah.

So in the October of 2016, I pretty much gave me notice in where I was working.

I was a transport manager at Heathrow.

Absolutely had enough of it, wanted out, got out of my comfort zone.

I've been in transport all my life and come and joined Sarah.

Working for Sarah, shall I say?

I might as well say work for Sarah.

But.

Actually the first day wasn't.

It was when one of my nails went sick and blew me out.

And you go fishing, weren't you?

And I said, and he was like, do you need some help?

I was like, yes, here's the dogs, here's the keys, off we go.

And that.

That was his introduction.

Yeah, that was my trial.

Trial morning.

There you go, you're off.

And you pups.

Yeah, so, yeah, so I joined Sarah quite, quite rapidly.

In the October, and it was about a year after that, we sort of like, we were out one day dropping dogs off together on a Saturday afternoon and.

And it was a nice sunny day, put the sun visor down and literally had a thousand pound drop of that.

Literally.

And I thought winning the lottery, it's great, you know, but then the reality drops.

Home of, you know, where's it from?

Who's paid us what?

When?

Yeah, you know, and I'll.

Sarah come back to the van after running this dog in the house.

And I looked her and I went like, you know, what's this?

She went on to, I'm robbed the bank.

I went on, did you know who's.

Who's paid us what when?

And Sarah didn't have a clear.

Either.

It was.

It was a bit.

Yeah, in my mind, I was like, yeah, I remember that.

I'll put that up there.

Yeah, I'll remember that.

I'll take that off later.

And that's how businesses always go.

It's that.

It's that small business mentality of when you're.

When you're in that growing phase and it's all down to you.

You do store a lot in your head.

And I was exactly the same before I joined Vit Goal, before I had Abby join me, because she would come to me and say, well, Lee, what did you do this?

And there was a point in time where I could remember a year ago, why did.

In somebody's accounts who they were, what they did, you know, and you get to the size where you have so many clients or so much things going on in the day that the memory isn't as good as what it used to be, because you've got so much going on.

So I completely understand what you mean by that.

Yeah, yeah, it was.

Yeah, it was.

Got to that point.

We were a victim of our own success, really.

And I was a total people pleaser at the time.

And I, like, didn't say no to anybody because I'm like, well, poor Fluffy might be home alone.

Who's going to deal with it?

And quite a learning curve for me as well is that actually someone else will, but, you know, or they need to be more organized.

But I would.

I would try and please everybody and try and fit everything in and just totally, you know, always wanting to put them first.

But yeah, you have a learning curve as well.

But yeah, it was at that point, weren't we?

Yeah, at that point.

Yeah.

I mean, we sat down on that Saturday night and sort of worked out where the money had Come from.

And then it's like, okay, gotta go to the bank Monday, queue up and pay in.

And.

And then it was like I was talking to Sarah.

Sarah's phone was pinging away and then she was on WhatsApp messenger and it was like, you know, saying, am you.

Where do I go to find out who's.

But what went.

Yeah, yeah.

And it was Facebook messenger, it was WhatsApp, it was emails, it was text messages, it was phone calls, it was like.

I was just like, wow, this is just a mess.

So we went on the journey to try and find a software to use to, to be us, you know, to.

Pull it all together.

Yeah, yeah, put it all together and everything out there.

There was stuff out there, but it took away us.

It almost like we were working for someone else now, you know, and not working for ourselves.

So I got chatting to one of our customers and he's owns a.

A part of a software technology company and got chatting away about apps and, you know, what's on the market, what isn't.

And you know what would be great?

We're busy people always on the go and they think in our hand we can go around with.

And it's there and we can use it there and then and everything.

And he said, well, you know, let's build you an app.

So late 2017, we had a canine adventures paw pal version one built and we were using it for ourselves and, and it changed our lives.

Completely funneled everything into one booking stream.

And brings order to chaos.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah.

We, you know, we started knowing who was doing what, when.

Yeah, yeah.

And the, the peace of mind bit really was that it's, it's all there and you haven't missed anything because you're at the point and I'm sure it's happened to every dog walker out there is someone's message.

You, when you're out on a walk, like, can you do something random, something completely odd like feed my dog at 9 o'clock on Saturday night?

And you've gone, yeah, fine, no problem.

And then you, you've rushing around, you're on to the next walk.

It's gone, it's gone out your head and you've had another 50 messages and it's gone.

So it's, it was that, that it's not just me that knew what was going on.

That was, yeah, is, yeah.

Any point I can pick up the app and look at it and go, I know what's going on.

Or Sarah can pick it up, you know, what's going on.

So we were gonna, we started using it just for ourselves.

And, and, and it was built for ourselves, our business.

And I kept sitting there going, you know, this would benefit so many other people.

This will really benefit people.

And then Covid come along.

So it sort of put that idea on the back burner a little bit.

And then in 2023, early 2023, we got sitting down with the IT guys going, listen guys, I can really see the benefit of commercializing this and white labeling it and giving people the opportunity to have what we got because it's a fantastic tool and what it does.

So we took Paw Pal version 1, took all the good bits out of it, screwed it up, threw the rest away, put loads of new stuff into it, re reformed the process, redesigned it from scratch again.

And we now have Paw Pal, which is originally it was K9 Adventures app.

It's now Paw Pal, new business we own with the IT guys to enrich the business owners world to make their life easier, you know.

So tell me what Paw Pal does.

How does it help dog walkers and boarders?

What does it do?

So Pawpal is a streamlined booking app which all your customers will book all their services through, which then come through to you, which you have on an app as well.

So all your bookings will come through to your app.

You can then organize who's doing what went.

Now you can then organize from your app to your staff who have an app as well.

So it's three apps in one.

So you have a customer app, an admin app and a staff members app.

So you can organize who's doing what, when, where, how.

Everyone knows what they're doing.

You've not got the 50000 questions are what am I doing next?

What am I doing next?

What am I doing next?

You can organize it all through the app of who's doing what, when, how, what time and everything else they do.

It takes a payment gateway.

It completely organizes your life, streamlines everything.

You'Re doing for your business, isn't it?

Yeah.

Give huge time saver and we've got.

I've got a dog walker friend and I know how unorganized she is.

And you're right, like you said before, it's like messages come through WhatsApp.

I'm not going to say her name.

I know she's going to listen and she was still cursed.

But you know, she'll get messages through WhatsApp, messages through Facebook messenger and you know, like you said, sometimes she'll get those obscure requests like, oh, can you just go on Sunday and let Layla out for a week and give her a food.

And if we don't write that down, then it's like, oh, I'd have to stop what I'm doing.

Let me write this down.

A notepad.

And then you have like 20 different notepads and, you know, payments as well, like you said earlier.

It's like, who hasn't paid?

And then there's like an hour searching through your software going off, oh, no, she hasn't paid or he hasn't paid.

And by the time you've done all that, like, four hours is gone.

So if.

If they've got something that does all of that in one and the customer can just go, yeah, I want that slot.

That slot, I can pay it, job done, then it's going to save them absolute hours.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

It's a total game changer.

It is a.

It's a game changer.

It probably save an average dog walker probably 20 hours a month easy.

Yeah.

In invoicing, chasing payments, going to the bank, paying money in where Mrs.

Jones aren't giving you cash or a check or what, you know, you can stream on everything so you can focus on what you enjoy doing the most.

Yeah, I mean, I.

I don't enjoy doing invoice and I hate it.

So I love being with the dogs and playing with the dogs and.

And enjoying, like.

That's why I come and joined Sarah and the team to do.

Do that and found myself doing the bit I didn't like at all.

Yeah, it was just a relief to get away from the.

Oh, Friday night.

You know, most people go down the pub or whatever.

Oh, it's invoicing night.

Yeah, it was like admin.

Work all night.

So, yeah, I'm not gonna.

I may be like, oh, no, I've got to go home.

I've got to do all my bookings and stuff in this day and that's half a Sunday gone.

Yeah.

Go sit and do all our bookings on a Sunday.

So, you know, it's, It's.

I think it's.

It's definitely got a place in the market and I think more people need to get on board with it and start using it and realize how much time it of.

I think we.

We had a chat earlier, didn't we, and we mentioned about when businesses grow, you get to that certain stage where the only way to take the next step is to automate the processes within the business as much as you can, which then frees up your time to either go and do what you enjoy with the dogs or to grow the business further.

But there comes a point where technology is going to be in every business.

And up until this point, yes, there has been apps on the market for borders and walkers, but like you said, they.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and they don't do it all.

And they don't do it all very well.

What your app brings to the market is the entire automation process of a client comes to you.

They download the app so you onboard them as normal.

You're going to store all of the personal details of that client in the app, like you said, where the keys are kept, what the alarm cords are, what the allergies of the dogs, what they can and can't have, where they're going to need to go.

Important information is at your fingertips and at your team's fingertips.

The client gets to book with their dog walker directly through the app.

It will take the payment so that you've been paid upfront in advance for your services so you don't have to worry about the cancellation site.

It'll deal with the cancellation policy, avoiding those awkward conversations.

But then it also allows you to add additional services that clients can book directly from their app.

So if you're a dog walker or you're a home boarder and you offer teeth cleaning, you offer nail cutting, you offer grooms, these are additional services that can be booked at the point of making the reservations through the app, which increases the revenue for yourself.

So for me, having that at your fingertips and having something push those services without the salesy pitch behind it or without having to ask a member of your team, whether it be a subcontractor or an employee.

Did you ask them about nail clipping?

Did you ask them about brushing the teeth?

The customer can book that at that point because the app is taking away that awkwardness if somebody doesn't like sales.

So for me, that's really, really exciting that you've got all of these features built into this one app.

Yeah, it's, it's like, yeah, it's like you said, Lee, it's like ordering your cheeseburger and going, what size do you want with it?

And it sells itself.

And, and no, no, no one loves selling, do they?

Let's be honest, like, I don't enjoy, even as a business owner, I don't enjoy selling.

I hate it.

You know, I find it awkward.

I find it difficult.

I, I don't know when to push the last part of it.

Am I pushing Gerard or not pushing enough and you'll be amazed when, when you got the app and people put their base service, whether that be a dog walker daycare or aboard, and suddenly they go, oh, you offer bath and brushing as well.

I didn't know that.

I booked one of them.

Oh, you offer mickey mats or you offer enrichment sessions or.

People love their dogs.

People, they're like, you know, everyone laughs at me, like, little Frank, my sausage dog, you know, he's like.

He's like my baby.

And, you know, people want their dogs to have all those extra bits and if they don't know they're there, they're not going to ask for them.

Whereas if you've got a list of treats, licky maths, enrichment days, whatever it might be, you're always going to have people go, actually, yeah, I'll get that for him.

Oh, it's his birthday daycare, I'll pick that for him.

And all of that added on stuff that, like you said, people might not want to try and sell, or they might feel a bit nervous saying, oh, but we've got all of this stuff as well.

Whereas if they haven't in front of them, like you said, it's when you're ordering your pizza or your bag or whatever.

Yeah, I'll have that, I'll have that on that done.

So, so, again, it's.

We love it.

We have customers who just, like, they're keen to like, oh, what's next?

What's next?

Because we change up our enrichment every month.

We're part of the Enrich you University, the Dom and Tim do.

So, yeah, we have different enrichment themes going and they're literally waiting for what's coming next and really keen for it.

But even if I put it, you know, even if you give them a leaflet with a service menu on and you put things in our newsletter, like half, it just goes over their heads anyway.

But when they think it, it only.

Becomes relevant when somebody's physically at the booking stage, because if it's there in front of them, they're more likely to say, yes, please, I'll have that and add that onto my order.

Yeah.

And it's capturing that menu that you've.

Kept in the drawer.

Yeah, that's it.

And it's that impulsive, like, oh, yeah, I want them to do that today, or, yeah, you know, they, they had a bit of a bad day yesterday, so I'm going to treat them to lick him out or a Kong today and things like that.

So, yeah, when they put stuff next to the till, when you go to the shop and you didn't actually put the anchor, but because it's there and you're at the till, you're like, oh, I'll add, I'll add that Maltesers on there.

Because why not?

I'll put that, I'll put that can pop in there.

It's the same premise.

You have it there and they go, I might as well if I'm gonna book that, I might as well.

Yeah, yeah.

And even little things, you know, a couple of quid, it makes a big difference to your bottom line.

It does.

And that's where the hidden money is.

From an accountant's perspective, those, those little extras make a massive difference because they're easy sells, they're services that you wouldn't have had had it not been part of the app.

And being able to book at that point there and then.

So unless you're actively pushing them, these are additional sales that you wouldn't have had that is going to give you more money in your back pocket at the end of the tax year.

So, you know, from the accountant's perspective, absolutely.

Every client out there should be pushing for extra sales, whether or not it be small items or large items.

But there should be cross selling going on at every opportunity.

Oh, definitely.

And also with the app as well, you get, you get your analytics on the app as well.

So it tells you what your top sales are, what's really selling for you.

Right.

And what's not selling for you.

So you can manage what's going really well.

What do I need to push a.

Bit and swap out what's not?

Yeah, that's it.

And give it a stuff what's not working and put stuff in there what is working.

So it helps you keep things evolving all the time.

So it makes you keep the menu fresh.

It's not the same menu going out week in, week out.

Yeah.

And from a, from a, an automation point of view.

And reminders, does it have a reminder system built in so that you're not.

So that people don't book these walks or these boards and then they kind of forget about them.

Is there anything along those lines that would, that would help our clients?

Yes.

So we have on the app itself, you can do a, set up a notification system through email, push notification through the app itself and messenger and it, you can do an auto setup.

So it goes out every Sunday night at 6:00, say, hey guys, getting busy this week.

Don't forget, get your walks booked in this week.

Actively encourages bookings as well.

You actually encourage bookings all the time.

You got the chat feature feature we just launched, which we're testing now, which is going really, really well.

So you can direct message with customers as well.

And also you can take a picture of Flydo running around the field, snap it there and then send it to mum and dad straight away and say, Friday's having a great day, which everyone loves.

Wait for the pictures.

Because I'm sad.

I'm like, what is the pictures of, Frank?

But we did mention when we were chatting earlier the.

The feature where you can check in where you tick the box to say that they've been collected or dropped off or.

Yeah, can you talk us around that?

Because I think even from like a security point of view, especially at the minute with people nicking dogs and whatnot, the fact that you.

They can tick and say, I've got your dog, I've put your dog back, or your dog's here, your dog's gone home is a really, really good feature.

So do you want to just tell.

Us a bit more about that on the app itself?

You've got organization.

Organize your staff into what order they're picking their dogs up in, so your staff know exactly which dog's next, who's after, who's after when they're being picked up in ringhouse, their time slots.

When you get to the first dog, you'll pick up the dog.

There's a little tick button on the box on the app, so the walker would tick that box.

That will send a message to the dog's owner through the app and via email as well, saying, Spark has been picked up.

When you arrive at, say, your, your walk or your daycare, you start in the service, you tick the box again.

It then sends another notification to the owner.

Just saying Sparky started his walk or he started his daycare session at the end of the walk or the session we finish off, so we check out.

So Sparky will be checked out.

So the owner knows Sparky's finished his walk now and he's now going to be starting to travel home.

When you get Sparky home to his home address, you pop him in where he's meant to be, make sure he's comfy, fed and wood, whatever he needs.

You then check out, tick the box again and he lets the owner know that Spark is now back home indoors.

I think it's a great tool in the sense that if you're a busy owner and you're on your way home, have I got time to pop the Sainsbury's?

How long has Spark you been home for gives you a complete and absolute timeline of when they've gone out the door, how long they've been out the door for, when they've got back in.

Exactly.

So you know roughly how long your dog's been home or when you're expecting them to get home.

Of course, that builds trust as well, doesn't it?

Because if, if you're certainly using a new dog walker that you've not used before and you have this level of audit trail when your dog's being collected, they then have an allocation of when the dog's been dropped back home.

They know how long the dog has been out as well.

So there's that.

You're, you're, you're instilling the trust and building that relationship with the dog walker because all of a sudden you've got all this information at your fingertips and it removes that seed of doubt that, did they take them out?

Were they out for the full hour?

You know, they go, what did they do?

What time did they bring him back?

Did they come back and check on him like they were meant to?

So it is a great way to build that relationship, putting the owner in control of all of the data.

Yeah, definitely as well.

And also in the audit side of things, maybe Vicky picked Sparky up.

So it tells me Vicky's picked Sparky up.

Maybe you've walked the dog for us, Lee.

So it tells us Lee's walked the dog.

And then maybe Sarah's dropped the dog home.

It tells us Sarah's dropped the dog off.

So we know exactly who's been in what, involved in what process, at what point with that dog throughout the day.

So it's, it's a complete audit trail what that dog's done and how it's done.

Plus, yeah, get your photos in there as well at the same time.

There you go.

This arch out is what you, you.

Read my mind there.

Jackson's got the million dollar question, which is on everyone's mind if she's.

But sounds good.

How much is it?

So the actual process of setting up the app and advertising on the Istore, the app Store with your colored logo, your logo on it.

So remember, it's your logo, not ours, so it's your app.

We've got a special offer.

It's normally 999.

999 pound.

It's 499 for a special offer for you guys at the pet accountants.

And then you've got a minimum charge of 49.99amonth and then you have Other little bits and pieces, depending what payment gateway you use or don't use, which we've got some striking deals going on with them as well.

So now I'm going to come back onto those in a second.

What I just want to touch on is a lot of clients are going to go, oh my God, 499 pounds.

But really what we have to be thinking about here is the amount of time that this app will save you and the benefits that this is going to bring to your business because of all the integrated features that it has.

So most people will go out and spend thousands of pounds on a website, which is great and dandy and they wouldn't batter an eyelid.

But this is a feature that your competitors are not going to have.

So it's going to give you an edge over your competitors and the selling point that you can have when you speak to your clients of what it is that you do differently.

And it will also give you the ability to charge a little bit more for your services.

So it's important to realize the value and the investment that this app can bring to you as a business.

And it will take you from that individual sole trader to somebody that can have multiple members of staff, but maintain control, which is sometimes which is lost once you grow.

So this is an investment as well as a fantastic opportunity for you to really kind of customize your business, brand it within your own colors, your own themes, and from an outside perspective to your clients, raise your game slightly as well.

So for me, this represents exceptional value at that price point when they're getting something that's so custom and so bespoke, that ties down three different apps all into one.

So it's, it's, I think at 499 is phenomenal value, certainly also a business expense.

It is absolutely tax deductible business expense.

I mean, you look at, we've got Sara Barnes, who's got you, who lets your dogs out dog walking and the Dog Adventure Center.

And I mean, she said it's saving her around 40 hours a month.

Yeah.

Which feeds you up to run work on your business.

And it does, it does.

And you have to attach a value to those hours that it's saving you.

So you've got to work out what your hourly rate is worth to you because that's 40 hours that you could be spent doing something elsewhere within the business, whether or growing or your personal life, it's getting that balance.

Right.

Because otherwise you spend all your weekend on your days off managing what you're going to be doing the next week.

And then you're not even having a day off then, are you?

Because you're managing what you're doing the following week, which I know a lot of the guys that I speak to and friends that they spend most of their weekend doing admin and it's like, why not do it?

Oh, there we go.

Sarah's on.

It wasn't planned.

How do you pick an example?

I mean, you know, you take like 6 o'clock at night now we close our doors, we shut up and we finished our day's work and tomorrow's work is already organized and done.

Yeah.

So I'm not sitting there at 8, 9 o'clock at night now going pen and paper, who's doing what?

Scrub that.

No, redo that.

I mean, I'm talking 50, 60 dogs, you know, all in one place, organized.

Who's doing what, who's picking up what, who's looking after it during the day, who's dropping what home at night.

All done and dusted by 6:00.

And I'm now enjoying my evenings again.

Not.

Yeah, it's time.

And the other thing I think that is quite important is as you sort of learn and grow as a business is like we've been looking at not just your exit specialty, but to have a business that's sellable, it needs to be able to.

Absolutely, yes.

And so this has been a big part of our learning journey when we kind of transition from walking to daycare is you've got to have your processes and your systems in place.

And if you've got a floor in them, as you grow, that floor becomes more obvious and more of a problem.

So you've got.

So a big part of our last kind of five years, isn't it?

Has been absolutely refining everything, standard operating procedures, just making sure that everything can be something that can be run by something, someone else.

Yeah.

And because you don't know what's going to happen at the end of the day, and we're not getting any younger as well, isn't it?

And why does everyone want to sell the daycare?

And if it runs by itself, it's got much more value than something that relies on us.

It definitely does.

A business that is run smoothly with all of its internal processes and controls in place, is a much more attractive proposition, which gives you the nest egg when you come to retire.

And you know, and as accountants, we tell businesses and business owners that depending on what their exit strategies are and what their.

Their drive behind a business, they run a Business differently.

And you know, in the first couple of years the business is all about the lifestyle.

It's able to produce and provide for the person that sets it up that then gets a little bit bigger and the lifestyle changes and they run the business and they look for the most tax efficient strategies, the, you know, of what they're getting the most out of the business as possible and paying the least amount of tax.

And then as you get a little bit older and the business develops a little bit, we then start to plan about the exit strategies and then it's about making the business look as attractive as possible, as much profit as possible, so that any prospective buyers is going to get you top dollar when it comes to selling it.

So, you know, the way the businesses are run changes through its life cycle, but having the processes and the policies and the different ways of it working is part of that journey.

And the more that you can refine it, the more that you can take a step back and allow that business to run without you, the more attractive that proposition is to somebody else because they can step in without having absorb all of their time and it will still run and tick along and do the same amount of money and keep the same amount of profit without having to have all of that legwork and time and attention that's needed for some other businesses.

So absolutely, you, you know, it adds value from that side as well.

One of the things that I'd like to touch at is because me and me and Pete spoke when we were at Crafts about the payments processing side of things because whilst the app is able to take payments, everybody knows it doesn't matter what payment gateway you use, there's fees involved from providers.

And I was really shocked about how PBS has managed to negotiate such a really good deal with some of the payment gateways that he's got.

So Pete, please tell me about this, this payment process in the uk.

So, yeah, yeah, it all started out between myself and our business partner Bigness having a bit of a battle of who's going to win this, this challenge of who can get a payment gateway down to the cheapest.

And I won that battle.

I got in touch, well, well Pay actually got in touch with me and I said to him, go away, shot your pencil, your tooth there, you know, it's not what I want, it's not what I'm trying to provide and you know, I could bring you a lot of business if your pricing is right.

So bottom line is I got well paid to agree to a standing fee of 19 pound a month and half a percent transaction charge on debit card and 0.75% charge on credit card for any transactions put for your business.

Now that's done.

I'm on a partnership scheme with us.

So if anyone has our who takes our app on can have that option of having then payment gateway through.

Well pay if they want and they will get them same rates of what I've agreed with.

Well yeah, something I can pass on to someone already.

So I know you know we've got some up out there, about 1% stripe, about 1.69 plus transaction stuff like that.

It soon it doesn't take long for your 20p transactions to add up to 19 pound and beyond.

So we've managed to get a striking deal which we can now pass on to our customers and say there you go, there's that.

We've also done a deal with a bank called Crezo bank which are a new bank for bank payment transfers.

So some banks would charge you a little bit more depending on the, the size of the transfer and stuff like that.

Yeah, Crezo, no matter the size of the transfer, 30 pence per transaction.

Okay.

So they, they would.

We've got on the app you can have a car payment option, a bank transfer option or you can invoice a customer and they can do a bank transfer direct to your bank account, whatever you want to do.

So Crezo will take that transaction on for you and pass it on.

All these are on next day payout as well.

Crezo's on instant payment.

Well pay is on next day payout and that goes to you as the client, as the business owner.

It doesn't come to poor power or anyone else.

It goes direct to you.

I don't get nothing in there.

I don't cousin come to me and then I release it a week later like some people do and stuff like that.

It's your money, your timeline, but it's all on next day payout.

So use our payment gateway with wellpay.

You'll be paid out the next day guaranteed and you're guaranteed them rates as well of half a percent and 0.75 the business credit card.

They will charge you a little bit more.

But we can block business credit card payments on the app so people can't use it.

So it forces.

A lot of people do that because the American Express because again the American Express charges a little bit more for those type of payments.

So some businesses just refuse to take them because they have to absorb the extra costs of, of processing the Card fees.

So that's exactly it.

That's who's paying the cost is us, isn't it?

You know, I mean up till recently we were using, we were using Stripe and thinking, oh, you know, we got the same as everyone else, 1.5% plus 20p and this and that and it's now a lot.

Well, I'm saving a percent on that straight away and amount of transactions going through our account, I've soon had my 19 pound back and I'm actually my, my transaction charges are probably down to about, probably about 5 pence a transaction now instead.

So I've saved money there and there straight away.

So the app, I know the app costs money to have every month and I know it costs money to have it bespoke your color scheme and everything else going on.

But also we want to try and save people money as well.

So we're, we're fighting all the time to come up with new ways of A, give you more sales but B, also try and save you some money on day to day business costs as well.

So we're trying to be, because we're business owners ourselves with a daycare, we've been quite proactive on that side of things as well, going, I want to cut these costs, I need to cut them.

So the app's not going to cut them, it's not good enough.

So we need to work on that side of things.

I think it's good as well that it's been developed by someone who's actually does the job because sometimes you find that a lot of these apps are built by people who don't actually know what it is that you do.

So it's good that it's been developed by someone that goes, actually we run this business, we do it, we know what we need and what we don't need and that's what we've put in the app.

So it makes sense.

Yeah, definitely.

And we, we've been in the industry for 10 plus years now.

We've done every part of it boarding, walking, visits, managing team of staff.

So yeah, we've, and we've had our.

Beta test as well.

So Sara Barnes is a beta tester for us and she's as well.

Yes, she's, she's, she's actually magged it and broke it and put it back together.

And if, if, if our clients or if anybody listening is interested in getting that app, how would they go about getting the app from themselves?

So if they pop to our website, which is a www.pawpower.uk book a discovery call with myself.

So we just go through a very quick 30 minute call about where they're at with business, what they're struggling with, what they're not and then we can go through how the app can help them and, and get them on board with it.

It's just uk Sorry, sorry.

I will get that corrected immediately.

So I just put myself on mute because the dogs went absolutely nuts and I quent.

So I was trying to find the mute button, someone knocked on the door and all three of them started barking.

So sorry, I was out with a dog wolfing.

Which sometimes she does come up and knock on the door and all hell breaks loose.

So.

And also it's a good unique selling point for people.

Like there's so many dog walkers and daycares and things popping up these days that how do you necessarily differentiate yourself between the next dog walker that comes down the road?

So the fact that they could have this and it's branded and they can say like we, you know, tick the button to tell you when we've gone, when we've left, when we've picked up the dog and all of this, it's a good selling point compared to someone else down the road who isn't using it.

So, so yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

It's, it's brand recognition, it's your brand, it's, it's, it's selling you, it's not selling someone else or someone else's software, it's actually selling you and your, your, your business.

That's what it's about.

It definitely helps with the, with the trust, doesn't it?

Because you know there's, there's quite a lot of, there's dog walkers popping up everywhere now and, and some of them we know are just Rover loves their fly by night five minute wonders.

But someone who's gone to the travel to get their own app and have it listed on the App Store and the ISORE and that it's not going to be someone who's going to be disappearing in a week's time.

Yeah, yeah.

We've just had the vaccination records uploaded on there so they're uploaded as well now.

So they've got a record of them.

So when they expire everything else they can re upload the vaccination card.

So it's here done live welfare check sheets are coming out also like if you got vehicles, you've got to do vehicle checks now that's going to be run through the app as well.

So then checklists are going to go on the app as well.

So it's starting to save you money there.

I mean, I spend probably about 20 quid a month on little books for my staff to fill out every time they drive a van.

All that's going to be on the app now.

So straight away I'm saving 20 quid a month, then, you know, it prompts the drivers less paper skip.

Yeah, yeah.

And the thing is, paper's easily lost and it doesn't matter how.

How good you are or how careful you are, you will lose a bit of paper at some stage and whether or not it's got your client details on.

So you've got a GDPR breach.

You know, it could be a receipt of some description, it could be an important information, like the vaccine side of things.

So having it all secured on an app on your phone that's available on a mobile is just good business sense, because it's that next step, it's that improvement within your business.

Yeah.

So.

And one of my big problems at the moment is obviously you have to keep your records.

So.

So I've got.

Every member of staff has a sheet of paper for their dogs they're managing every day and they do their welfare checks and record everything.

And I have to keep that for five years.

And when you've got 50 dogs a day, and that's a lot of pieces of paper that keep for five years.

So to.

To have that automated on the app and then it's just.

It's a download store, it.

Great, you know, and stored.

Yeah, yeah, grand.

Well, that's kind of brought us up to our time for today as well.

So it's.

Today's gone really quick.

Is there anything else that you guys would like to add before we.

Before we close today?

I just want to say thank you very much for.

For having us on.

It's been.

Yeah, it's been a pleasure.

It's been really good.

It's.

I've enjoyed speaking to you and I think that the app is going to do extremely well.

So I'm.

I'm keen to watch how this app grows and how it takes off and how it develops as well, because it's been very clear today that you guys are very passionate about it and that you are proactive in its development and implementing new things as they're coming along as well.

So it would be very good to see how it grows over the coming years.

So thank you so much for coming on and sharing it with us today.

Thanks very much.

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Brilliant.

Lovely.

Perfect.

Fantastic.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for listening.

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