This template applies the four-block method — THE THINGS, THE LINKS, THE STATES, THE NUMBERS — to a grooming salon. It is filled in for a two-groomer, appointment-only salon: the example shows how to describe a business built on recurring appointments, without ever describing a screen.
The difficulty specific to this trade fits in one sentence, and the template takes it head-on: the CLIENT pays, but it is the PET that gets groomed. These are two different things, and confusing them is expensive — one client may have three dogs, each with its own coat, temperament and grooming interval. A brief that only talks about “clients” loses all of it: you cannot write “this cocker comes every two months”, nor “this one is scared of the clippers, allow extra time”.
Price follows the same logic. It does not belong to the service alone: a nail trim on a chihuahua and a bath-and-cut on a newfoundland are neither the same time nor the same fee. The template therefore puts a standard duration and a BASE price on the service, and lets the appointment carry the amount actually charged.
Filled in with your own vocabulary, this text serves as a brief for a developer — or as a description submitted as it stands to Blueprint Maker, which turns it into an application plan you approve, then a generated application: database, screens, dashboard and demo data.
The template to copy
My business: dog and cat grooming salon, two groomers, by appointment only. Regular clientele that comes back at steady intervals. THINGS tracked: - Clients (name, phone, email, how they heard about the salon) - Pets (name, species, breed, weight, coat type, quirks and temperament) - Appointments (date and time, expected duration, groomer, amount charged, closing note) - Services (name, standard duration, base price) - Payments (date, amount, payment method) LINKS: - A pet belongs to a client. - An appointment concerns a pet. - An appointment carries one or more services. - A payment is attached to an appointment. STATES of an appointment: requested, confirmed, in the salon, finished, paid, no-show, cancelled. NUMBERS to see every morning: - Today's appointments, in time order, with the pet's name - Pets whose last visit is more than ten weeks ago - This week's takings - The most requested services over the last three months - No-shows since the start of the month
Adapting this template to your organisation
- A single groomer: remove the “groomer” field from the appointment. Everything else stands, and the day's schedule simply becomes your day.
- Cats, exotics, large dogs: species and breed are free-text fields on the pet, not closed lists. If your pricing depends mostly on size, keep the weight — it is what explains the duration, not the breed.
- Price: the example puts a base price on the service and the amount actually charged on the appointment. That is deliberate. If you charge a single flat fee per service, drop the amount from the appointment — but you will then lose the record of extras (matting, difficult pet, time spent).
- Grooming interval: the example counts ten weeks. That is not a rule of the trade, it is an example — put your own in, and bear in mind that a single threshold for every pet stays an approximation: a poodle and a labrador do not share the same interval.
- Reminders: the application SHOWS what is due when you open it — today's appointments, pets you have not seen in a while. It does not send the client a text message or an email: telling them stays a human gesture, or the job of the sending tool you already use.