Use Case

A counter sale is a common sales workflow for veterinary practices where a full consultation and veterinary visit is not required. Items such as foods, toys, or other supplies can be efficiently billed and sold through the counter sale functionality. For these reasons, Provet Cloud offers an independent counter sale workflow separate from the consultation functionality.

Set-up

No specific set-up is required. Counter sales come as a standard feature in Provet Cloud. There are, however, various settings that allow for unique customisations of the process and user interface. These settings are discussed below within appropriate sections.

The counter sale process

1. Start a new counter sale

Open a new counter sale from the main dashboard using the green “Counter sale” button.

2. Select the client

By default, counter sales are anonymous (meaning the sale is not connected to a specific client in the system), but it is recommended that each counter sale should be identified to a specific client and patient (animal) if possible. Once you are on the counter sale page, select the client or create a new client using the blue “New client” button. If a client with existing patients is selected, a patient list will prompt on the right so you can easily review a patient’s medical history if needed.

3. Add items

Scroll down to the items' section and use the general search field or the blue buttons to add items to the counter sale. In the simplest configuration, the selected item will be added to the counter sale with a default quantity of 1 (one).

4. Link items with patients

Once the items are added, you can use the question mark link under the patient column to link items with specific patients. This creates a proper patient history entry for selected animals.

5. Finalise

Finalise the counter sale by clicking the green “Finalize invoice” button from the bottom or top right corner of the page. Once the sale is finalised, it is no longer possible to freely edit the sale. The counter sale transaction can only be edited with the use of a credit note.

6. Add payment(s)

After finalising the counter sale, you will see a payment selection dialogue (by default). Select the appropriate payment method or select “Finalize - Not yet paid” if the client wishes to use several payment methods. You can then add payments using the blue “+Payment” button under the payments section. Any existing payments are displayed in a table, along with the invoice summary status. When all appropriate payments have been added, the counter sale is completed.

Product Sales History

The product sales history is readily available on both the client and patient pages and contains a summary list of all products - medicines, supplies and food items which have been sold. It provides a quick way to search for items sold and purchased. This is especially helpful when seeking to identify the last time a specific item was purchased such as a bag of food or when needing to generate a list of all medicines sold to safely manage medication dispensing.

Several filter options are available to refine results which include options to filter by item type and/or invoicing method - consultation vs counter sale. Additionally, a search field is available, as well as a filter option to refine duplicates of items to the most recent.

Frequently Asked Questions

I need to delete the counter sale because the client decided to cancel the purchase or return the item

It is not possible to delete or remove a counter sale. This is to ensure the financial integrity of sales transactions is maintained. A credit note will need to be created to make any adjustments or modify a finalised counter sale.

I need to change the payer of the invoice, but the invoice is already finalised

If a client wants a finalised invoice to be addressed to someone else (their personal business, for example), you can easily edit the payer information using the blue pen button next to the payer information on the counter sale page. This does not change the client’s general information data, and only affects the invoice PDF (and thus the printout). Note that if you choose to select another client when editing the payer info, the invoice will be listed under that client’s page in Provet Cloud.

NOTE: This workflow can be enabled or disabled using the department setting “Allow editing payer of finalized invoice”.

I accidentally selected a wrong payment method

You can replace the incorrect payment method with the correct form using the small red trash can button on the payment row. This brings up a payment cancellation dialogue that requires an additional confirmation. After cancelling the payment, add the correct payment using the blue “+Payment” button.

NOTE: This workflow can be enabled or disabled using the department setting “Enable payment cancellation”.

What are the options to customise the process?

Set the default medicine quantity

You can use the department setting called “Default medicine quantity on consultation, written prescription and counter sale” to define the default quantity.

Enable/disable invoicing status

You can enable or disable the use of the “Invoicing” status of counter sales with the department setting “Enable Invoicing status for consultations and counter sales”.

Set the responsible seller to be the current user by default

Each counter sale row can be assigned to a user using the “Veterinarian” column so appropriate commission functionalities could work. You can use the department setting “Default current user as responsible person on counter sales and on invoice page” to make sure that each row would have the current user (the user who created the counter sale) as the responsible seller as a default.

Require selecting patients

You can force users to always tie counter sale items with patients when the sale is not anonymous (a client is selected). Use the department setting “Always require a patient for rows in non-anonymous counter sale.”

Require veterinarian for medicine sales

You can force users to always select a veterinarian as the responsible person if selling medicines. Use the department setting “Always require a veterinarian as counter sale responsible person for medicines”.

Allow editing the payer information

You can choose who can edit the payer information of a finalised counter sale using the department setting “Allow editing payer of finalized invoice”.