In this guide 6 sections
Make the vendor demonstrate your own work, not a sample. Insist. A vet clinic should see a patient card with weight history, a booster reminder and a split invoice. A training school should see a class pack, an attendance mark and a lapsed package.
Start with the patient or the dog, not the owner
Most general software stores a customer and stops there, yet a clinic needs the animal as its own record, linked to a household with three cats and a rabbit. Test that first. It sets the tone for everything after.
Open a patient card and look for species, breed, date of birth, microchip number, weight at each visit and allergy notes. A trainer needs the same shape with different fields, such as temperament, trigger behaviours and the handler who signed the waiver.
Next, check what happens when a pet changes hands. Records should follow the animal. They should not vanish with the old owner. Short answers here tell you plenty.
- Several animals under one household account
- Weight and dose history across visits
- Microchip, tag and insurance numbers
- Signed consent and waiver copies on file
- Behaviour notes visible to every trainer
Test the vaccination and recall reminders
Reminders fill the diary. Without them, the quiet weeks stay quiet and the owners forget what the vet said at the last visit about the next injection. Ask how the system knows a booster is due: does it read the vaccine given, the batch and the species interval, or does someone type a date by hand?
Next, find out who receives the message and by which channel. SMS, WhatsApp and email behave differently, and some owners never answer one of them. A good system stops sending once the pet is booked. A bad one nags.
Dog schools have the same need in another form. A puppy class often wants proof of the first vaccine before the first session, so ask whether the certificate can sit on the record and block a booking.
Check how billing handles packages and splits
Clinic billing is untidy and full of exceptions. One visit can mix a consultation, a lab panel, a dispensed drug, a hospital stay and a deposit. Ask for that invoice to be built live, then take part payment.
A trainer sells in blocks: six lessons, a board-and-train week, a monthly pass. Test the cases where a dog misses two lessons, a pack expires, or a family shares one pack across two dogs.
Stock matters too. A clinic needs batch and expiry on every vial. A school may only sell leads and treats. Even so, count them.
- Part payment and deposit on an open case
- Itemised invoice with drugs by batch
- Class packs with expiry and shared use
- Credit when a lesson is cancelled
- Stock count with expiry alerts
Ask about attendance, scheduling and staff
For a school, attendance is the revenue record. Find out how an instructor marks it from the training floor, on a phone, with a weak signal, and what the system does with a no-show.
For a clinic, the diary is the pressure point. Check how it copes with an emergency walk-in, an overrunning surgery and a vet on leave, and whether nurses and receptionists see only what they need.
Both trades need roles, with a different screen for the vet, the nurse, the groomer and the person at the desk. The front desk should not edit a clinical note. Look for the audit trail showing who changed what, and when.
Run the demo against your own scripts
Write three scenarios from last month: one messy invoice, one reminder that went wrong and one disputed record. Send them to every vendor before the demo so nobody can retreat to the standard tour. Vague answers show up fast.
Ask each vendor to import a small sample of your real data, then watch how it treats duplicate owners and missing fields. Find out where the data lives and how you export it if you leave.
Score each answer on one sheet, on the same day. Memory of the first demo colours the third. Write it down while it is fresh.
Vendor demo scorecard
A scorecard sheet where each question has its own row and each vendor has its own column. Rows fall into five blocks: patient or dog record, reminders, billing and packages, attendance and diary, and data export. Each cell holds a mark between zero and three, a short note and a tick if the vendor showed it live.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Can one system serve a vet clinic and a dog school?
Sometimes, when both run under one roof. The record, billing and reminder tools overlap. Class attendance and pack expiry rarely do, so ask to see both flows on screen before you accept the claim.
How many vendors should we demo?
Three is enough, and two can do. More than that blurs the memory of each one. Give all three the same scenarios so the answers can be compared fairly.
Should we ask for a trial with real data?
Yes. Use a small sample and no live patients. Real names and breeds expose duplicate and spelling problems that a clean sample hides.
What is the biggest red flag in a demo?
A vendor who dodges your scenario and returns to the standard tour. If a pet record or a class pack cannot be shown, assume it cannot be done.