Animal Friends OS calculates late-pickup and late-checkout fees automatically from the time a pet is actually checked out, compared against the closing time you publish, on your business’s own clock. Daycare is billed per 15-minute block past a grace period you set; boarding checkout is one flat fee regardless of how late, because a per-minute meter would out-charge a night’s lodging. If nothing is configured, or the clock cannot be read cleanly, no fee is ever charged.
| Daycare late pickup | Boarding late checkout | |
|---|---|---|
| How it charges | Per 15-minute block | One flat fee |
| Why | Meters staff time kept back after close | A per-minute meter would out-price a night's lodging |
| Grace period | Configurable, 10 min default | Configurable, 10 min default |
| Ceiling per visit | $250 | $250 |
The server that runs Animal Friends OS is not necessarily in your timezone. A stored checkout time is converted to a real instant and then read back out in your business's own timezone before it is ever compared to your published closing time — so a business in a different timezone from the server is never charged, or under-charged, based on the wrong clock.
See /os/facts for the complete list of what is and is not built.
It is billed per 15-minute block past your published closing time, after a grace period you configure (10 minutes by default). A dog collected 40 minutes late, with a 10-minute grace period, bills 2 blocks at whatever your per-15-minute rate is. There is a $250 ceiling per visit no matter how the numbers add up.
Boarding checkout is one flat fee, not a per-minute meter. Checkout is usually mid-morning and pickups often happen in the afternoon, so a per-15-minute charge would routinely bill more than a night of lodging for an ordinary late-afternoon pickup. A single published fee, charged once regardless of how late, is what the code applies to boarding instead.
Yours. Every comparison is converted to your business’s own timezone before it is judged against your published hours, specifically so a business in a different timezone than the server is never charged based on the wrong clock.
Every gate fails closed by design. No configured closing time, no fee amount set, an unreadable checkout time, a pickup before the published close, or a result that comes out negative or absurd — all of those return a $0 fee rather than guessing. A charge only ever appears when a fee is deliberately configured and the clock genuinely passed it.
Yes. No single visit’s late fee can exceed $250, whether it is the flat boarding fee or the accumulated per-15-minute daycare total. If your configured rate would compute past that ceiling, the system reports why and does not charge it.
Yes. Leaving the fee amount blank or at zero is treated as a real, intentional setting — the system still flags the visit as late for your own records and any notification you have configured, it simply does not add a charge.