What's new in Barkway

This release marks a major step towards Barkway’s first complete product milestone.

The client portal is now coming together as a proper self-service space for your clients, with secure magic link access, booking requests, invoice visibility, pet details, and account management. Alongside that, we’ve tightened up booking availability, invoice due dates, payment status handling, deposit balances, mobile table behaviour, and several reliability issues across the admin area and portal.

Important setup​

To use booking requests in the client portal:

• Make sure the portal is enabled and configured. See Enabling client portal.

• Edit your services and enable the ones you want clients to request. Learn how in Client-bookable services.

• Review your invoice due timing setting so unpaid and overdue invoice behaviour matches how your business works.

What’s new​

• Your clients now have their own portal - no passwords, just secure magic link sign-in.

• Clients can view bookings, check invoices, manage pets, update their details, and access documents in one place.

• The portal has been designed to feel clean, simple, and easy to use on any device.

• Portal controls have been added so you can enable or disable the portal and manage how booking requests work.

• Clients can now request bookings directly through the portal, reducing back-and-forth messages.

• Booking requests can be reviewed, accepted, or rejected from a clearer admin workflow.

• Availability suggestions are easier to understand, helping you agree a time faster.

• Services can now be controlled individually for client booking requests. See Portal booking requests.

• Added invoice due timing settings.

• You can now choose how many days after an appointment an invoice becomes due.

• Unpaid filters, outstanding counts, and client balances now respect invoice due timing more consistently.

• Added a new booking creation layout setting.

• You can choose between a step-by-step wizard or a full booking form in your profile settings.

• This is especially useful on mobile if you prefer seeing everything at once.

• Expanded branding controls give you better control over how the portal looks and feels for clients. See Settings.

• Portal-facing areas now better reflect your business identity and visual style.

Improvements​

• Improved payment status consistency across portal and admin views.

• Invoice and booking payment summaries now show clearer status information.

• Public invoice pages and PDF invoices now display payment state and totals more consistently.

• Financial summaries and outstanding invoice counts now align more closely with backend payment rules.

• Invoice due, unpaid, and overdue behaviour is now more accurate.

• Deposit-related balances are handled more clearly.

• Normal unpaid totals are now more reliable, especially where deposits are involved.

• Client balances and outstanding amounts now better reflect the real invoice state.

• Invoice visibility has been improved in client-facing areas.

• Clients can access invoice PDFs and documents directly from the portal.

• Added a “Back to Today” button so you can quickly jump back to the current day.

• Improved unpaid booking filtering so it better reflects true outstanding invoices.

• Updated booking financial breakdowns for clearer payment and deposit presentation.

• Improved slot suggestions to help you find alternative times more quickly.

• Booking terminology has been standardised across the app to reduce confusion.

• Handling cancellations is now more reliable, helping keep your diary accurate.

• Pet profile booking history now shows payment status instead of groomer for each recent booking.

• The pet booking history table now uses the shared table system for better consistency.

• Mobile table behaviour has been improved, including horizontal scroll handling and clickable rows.

• In the pets list, the Client value now links directly to that client’s edit page.

• Light mode has been refined to be easier on the eyes.

• Forms across the app have been cleaned up for a smoother experience.

• Shared table layouts have been improved for better consistency across admin screens.

• Mobile and tablet behaviour has been improved in key areas.

Fixes that matter​

• Fixed cases where cancellations didn’t behave correctly.
• Fixed issues with invoice statuses showing incorrectly in some situations.
• Fixed timezone bugs affecting booking request times.
• Fixed several payment status inconsistencies between portal, admin, public invoice, and PDF invoice views.
• Fixed unpaid and overdue behaviour so it better matches invoice due timing and booking completion rules.
• Fixed issues with the booking availability panel.
• Improved reliability of portal access and sessions.

• Create and manage reusable booking contract templates.

• Versioned templates with immutable snapshots and historical previews.

• Attach contracts to bookings with full lifecycle controls.

• Generate and revoke signing links, void contracts, and download signed PDFs.

• Public signing via secure links with name capture and consent confirmation.

• Full audit trail for signing, revokes, and void actions.

• Support for global merge tags to personalise templates with client, pet, and booking details.

• Added an example template to help you get started quickly or tweak to suit your business.

• Contracts won't attach to new bookings by default, this needs to be enabled from Manage > Contracts.

• Configurable contract consent label at booking level.

• Consent text snapshotted at sign time for audit integrity.

• Full UI rewrite from the ground up.

• Designed to work better on mobile and tablet for a quicker, smoother experience.

• A more consistent and polished look across the app.

• Improved layouts, clearer screens, and a cleaner overall feel.

• Added new settings and toggles across the app.

• Booking reminder settings can now be configured to suit your business.

• These are set to sensible defaults, but you can change them at any time.

• Made a few small refinements to the Smart Scheduler based on how groomers are using it.

• We’ve started exposing more financial stats throughout the app for better day-to-day visibility.

• This is an early step, and we’ll expand on it much further when we work on the reporting side of Barkway.

• More detailed reporting will come later as we expand this area of the app.

• Address autocomplete is now working again powered by Google, we’ll keep refining it over time.

• The good news is this is now on a more stable setup and won’t be disappearing again.

• The booking calendar has had a major overhaul for smoother performance and more consistent behaviour.

• Appointments are easier to read at a glance, with clearer spacing and improved layout.

• Short bookings (like 15-minute appointments) are now much easier to see and interact with.

• Scrolling and switching between days and weeks feels faster and more stable.

• Switch between light and dark themes anytime.

• Easier on the eyes in low light, with improved contrast across the calendar, tables, and forms.

• Many screens now feel more responsive.

• Fewer visual quirks and more consistent behaviour throughout the app.

• Smoother date and time selection on desktop and mobile.

• Clearer visual feedback when creating and editing bookings.

• Upcoming Availability section reworked to be more helpful.

• Card payment processing is not being actively worked on right now. It’s still planned if enough groomers request it.

• SMS messaging is paused until Barkway moves to paid plans. When introduced, SMS will be available as an optional add-on using SMS credits.

• General polish across forms, buttons, and empty states.

• Performance improvements in key booking flows.

• Dashboard stat improvements.

• One balance per client - overpayments automatically roll forward.

• Deposits and full payments now live in the same ledger, with deposits clearly labelled.

• Record deposits directly from the booking screen using the same payment drawer.

• One source of truth for money received, owed, and credited.

• Fewer workarounds, clearer totals, and better accountability at a glance.

• Prevent “image not found” errors when cleaning up pets.

• New booking option: Unavailable - block out time without creating a full booking.

• Only show the Assigned groomer option when multiple groomers are set up.

• Search improvements - smarter results throughout the app.

• Added option to exclude pets from recall reminders.

• New action in Booking Photos: Set as profile photo to copy a booking photo into the pet’s profile image.

• Payments now handle full, partial, and refund scenarios with ease.

• Deposits are no longer “separate” - they’re recorded as proper payments, giving you one clear ledger.

• Every transaction (payments, deposits, refunds) feeds into a single source.

• You’ll always know exactly what’s been paid and what’s outstanding.

• Flexible handling of refunds, part-payments, and adjustments means fewer workarounds.

• This foundation unlocks powerful reporting and insights we’re building next.

• Thumbnail images now display correctly in bookings and pet profiles.

• Fixed a visual quirk in discount calculations on the price breakdown.

• Pets without a linked client no longer break booking pages.

• Date formats are now correctly respected in the calendar (previously US date formats weren’t displaying properly).

• Dashboard stats now process and update in real time as expected.

• Date of Birth field added to Pets - paving the way for upcoming birthday automations.

• Each booking now supports its own set of photos, so you can keep a record of the groom.

• Think of it like a mini portfolio for each appointment - useful for client updates or just tracking progress.

• Added preferred time window options to nudge the system toward your ideal working hours.

• Scheduling suggestions are still flexible, but now better aligned with when you want to work.

• Pet photos and profile images are now processed with a new system that makes them sharper quality while loading quicker.

• Thumbnails and previews are lighter, so pages open faster without losing detail.

• The Smart Scheduler has been tuned to suggest more practical slots.

• It balances “soonest start” with your preferred hours and avoids awkward gaps more intelligently.

• Still, your manual choices always take priority.

• The Settings page has been reorganized so options are grouped more logically.

• Explanations are clearer, making it easier to understand what each option does.

• No more hunting around - it should feel quicker to adjust how Barkway works for your business.

• One calendar, many groomers. Easily switch between different staff schedules with a picker at the top.
• If there’s only one groomer, the picker stays hidden for a cleaner view.
• Groomers only see their own bookings, while Admins can view everyone’s.
• Bookings display neatly with start time, duration, and buffers.
• No more “surprise” time changes - your chosen time always sticks.
• Switching between groomers is instant without page reloads.
• Cleaner calendar layout with a tidy toolbar.

• Choose between Normal scheduling (simple, first available slot) or the new Smart Scheduler, which suggests the most efficient times based on your day.

• Built-in conflict detection ensures bookings don’t overlap.

• Automated emails and SMS for booking confirmations, reminders, thank-yous, and overdue pets.

• Messages are mobile-friendly, branded, and look professional.

• Background sending means the app stays fast while messages go out.

• Cleaner main menu for quicker access to important pages.

• Consistent Create Booking button, always where you need it.

• Inputs, checkboxes, and pickers are more consistent across the app.

• Client and pet search is faster with live results.

• Calendar now respects your Opening Hours, so closed days stay closed.
• Weekly view fixed for more predictable planning, optimised for iPad in landscape.
• Deposits can be set as a fixed amount or a percentage, with clear totals.
• Recall list shows how overdue pets are, with one-click “Send Reminder”.
• Pet and client names are clickable throughout the app.
• Default images appear for pets without photos.
• Notes can be updated directly on a booking.
• Breed picker improved with live search and free-text entry.
• Clean, branded PDF invoices added.

The basics:

• Manage clients, pets, services, and bookings.
• View everything in a simple calendar.
• Add pet photos and notes.
• Booking form with service selection and totals.
• Local storage for images.