Auditing booking declines by reason
Pull the decline log for one week
Start with a fixed seven-day window, such as Monday through Sunday, so the counts stay comparable week to week. Record every declined booking and keep three fields: date, dog name, and the reason the desk gave at the time of the refusal. A decline is only useful if the reason was written down when the call or message came in; a vague "couldn't fit them" tells you nothing later.
Sort reasons into four buckets
Use one labeled entry per decline:
- Capacity full — the play group was at its dog limit.
- Vaccine missing — rabies, bordetella, or distemper record expired.
- Temperament — the dog has a documented history of aggression or escalation.
- Schedule conflict — requested drop-off or pickup outside open hours.
Anything that fits none of these gets its own line labeled other with a short note. If more than a few declines land there, your front desk is recording reasons loosely.
Worked example: A Tuesday decline log shows 14 entries. Nine say capacity full, two say vaccine missing, one says temperament, one says schedule conflict, and one says other. The desk manager moves the single "other" line to vaccine missing after re-reading the note, which changes the vaccine count from two to three. That one-line correction is the audit result: vaccine declines are 3 of 14, not 2 of 14, and the owner outreach list grows by one household.
Compare the buckets, not the totals
The raw number of declines matters less than the shape. If capacity full dominates two weeks running, the question is whether a booked-out day was predictable from the calendar. If vaccine missing dominates, the question is whether reminders went out early enough. Keep the same four buckets each week so the pattern is visible.
What changes on the desk
After the audit, the Tuesday sheet shows a separate vaccine outreach list with three names instead of two, and the capacity line is flagged for the following week's booking review. One dog that was counted as a generic refusal is now a named household getting a shot reminder.
Related: Dog Daycare Manager features.