Help Centre › Clients & patients
Clients & patients
Register clients, add their animals, keep contact details current, and find any record again in seconds.
A client is the person who owns the account (or, with business accounts switched on, the farm, company or practice). A patient is one of their animals. A client can have any number of patients.
Registering a new client#
There are four ways to register a client.
Home›New Client
| Option | Use it when |
|---|---|
| Take details now Classic: “Add New Client” | You are entering the details yourself. Opens the full registration form. |
| Send by email Classic: “Email Link to add client” | The client fills in their own details. FastVet emails them a secure link to a form, and their answers go straight into the record. |
| Send by WhatsApp Classic: “Whatsapp Link to add client” | The same link, sent over WhatsApp. Enter their number with the country code, or leave it blank and pick the contact in WhatsApp. |
| Hand over the tablet Classic: “Tablet Sign Up” | A walk-in fills in the form themselves on a tablet at the desk. |
The short form, step by step#
Pressing New Client while you are queueing a walk-in, logging a call-back or making a booking opens a short form that captures the client and their first patient together.
Home›New Consultation›New Client
- Enter the client's first name, last name and cell number. These are required.
- Add an email address if you have one. Without it the client cannot be emailed invoices, reminders or statements, or use the client portal.
- Enter the patient's name and pick a species: Feline, Canine, Exotic or Production Animals. Both are required. Tap the male or female symbol if you know it.
- Use Comment on Patient for something staff should know at every visit, such as “muzzle for nail trims”.
- For a walk-in, fill in Reason for Visit. The vet reads it on the queue card.
- Press Save in the footer.
Saving also completes the task you started: a walk-in goes onto the consult queue, a booking is made in the slot you chose, and a call-back is added to the queue. You land on the queue or the booking list.
Full client details#
The full form holds everything the practice needs for billing and emergencies.
| Section | What goes here |
|---|---|
| Who they are | Title, ID number, first and last name. |
| Contact details | Cell, home number, email and an alternative email. |
| Other people | A partner who may bring the animal in, and an emergency contact to call if the owner cannot be reached. |
| Addresses | Residential and postal address, used on invoices and statements. |
| Account | Payment terms, credit limit, default rate (if your practice uses price groups), client code, Account on hold, VAT number and interest. Practices with farming clients also record a zero-rating authorisation here. See Accounts & payments. |
| Notes & tags | Private notes about the client, a note printed on their invoices, and (when editing) the client's tags. |
A person needs a first name, a last name, a cell number, and a residential address and code. Press Sign Up or Update with one of them blank and FastVet names the missing fields above the buttons and jumps to the first one. Client records brought in from an older system often have no address, so expect this the first time you edit one of those.
The Client Code, under Account, is the short code you know the client by. If you moved to FastVet from VetMaster, it is the client code you used there, brought across with your data. Type it into the client search to find the client: the card shows the code when that is what matched. It is also the debtor code in the accounting export. Only staff can see or change it.
Business accounts#
A business account is for a client that is not a person, such as a farm, trust, security company or referring practice. It records the registered name, the people you deal with, and the order numbers their accounts department needs.
An administrator switches business accounts on under Settings → Features & Modules → Business accounts.
- On the full client form, press Business at the top. The form shows Who they are for the business and a Contacts section.
- Enter the Registered Name (required) and, if they are known by another name, the Trading Name, which FastVet shows in lists and queues. Add the Registration Number and VAT Number if you have them.
- Tick They need an order number on every invoice if their accounts department will not pay without one.
- Under Contacts, add the people you deal with. Mark one as the Primary contact: emails greet them and invoices print “Attn:” with their name. Tick Receives invoices for whoever pays.
- Press Sign Up (or Update).
| Ticked for a contact | What they receive |
|---|---|
| Receives invoices | Invoices, receipts, statements and overdue notices. The business’s own email address is copied on all of them. |
| Receives reminders | Vaccination and follow-up reminders. The business’s own address is not copied. If no contact is ticked, reminders go to the business’s own address. |
| Where | What changes for a business |
|---|---|
| Find a client | A building icon beside the name, with the primary contact underneath. You can search by registered or trading name, registration or VAT number, or a contact's name or cell number. |
| The client record | “Attn:” with the primary contact, and Order number required when it is. |
| Consultations, sales, hospital, boarding and grooming | An Order number box and a Brought in / authorised by list at the top of the screen. Both save as soon as you change them and stay editable after the work is finished, so you can add a late order number and send the invoice again. |
| Queueing a patient | An Order no. box on the queue form. The number carries through to the consultation. |
| Invoices and statements | Addressed to the registered name (with “t/a” and the trading name), then “Attn:”, the VAT and registration numbers, the address, and “Your ref:” with the order number. |
To find these clients, open Merge Clients and follow the link to clients that look like businesses. It lists clients whose names or numbers suggest a business and says why each is listed. Review opens that client's form for you to convert; nothing is changed automatically.
The client record#
Opening a client takes you to Account Details, which shows their patients and balance and is where most work on that client starts.
Under the contact details is the balance, with a badge if it has been outstanding 30, 60 or 90 days, or Paid up. Under that, in a tinted box, is the staff-only Notes on Client. The note also shows on the account, Pay, Debit, and the patient panel during a consultation. Add or change it with Edit.
Across the top of the record:
- Statement opens their account, where you can print or email a statement, take a payment, or reverse a charge.
- Pay goes straight to taking a payment against the balance, without reading the account first. It is the quickest way to put money on an account, and it takes the client off the payment queue as the statement route does.
- Purchases lists what this client has bought, as opposed to what they have been charged. See Purchase history.
- Return credits something the client is bringing back. It only appears for a vet or an administrator. See Returns and credit notes.
- Sale starts an over-the-counter sale on their account.
- Map opens their residential address in Google Maps, ready for directions. If the client has no address, the button is greyed out and a note under it says so, with an Add an address link.
- Delete marks the client as deleted. The button then becomes Undelete.
In the footer:
- Send Update Link opens WhatsApp with a private link the client can use to update their own contact details, without a portal login. The link can add an email address if none is on file, but it cannot change one: to change a client’s email, use Edit.
- Send Text sends an SMS, if your practice has text messaging set up.
- Edit changes the client's details.
- New Patient adds another animal to this client.
Each patient's row carries its name and sex, its age, colour, breed and species, and its last recorded weight with the day it was taken. The weight is the one from the most recent consultation the animal was actually put on the scale at, so it stays put through a visit that skipped the weighing, and a cancelled visit's reading is never shown. Nothing appears if the animal has never been weighed at a consultation.
Under that are the patient's open reminders, its open diagnoses and its upcoming appointments. Reminders are listed from ten days ago onwards, so what is due now or has just slipped stays in view. Anything older drops off the row; to find it, open the follow-up list on the day it fell due. Only the five most recent diagnoses are listed, with a line underneath saying how many older ones there are: a patient brought across from another system can carry a hundred, which buries the patient's own buttons. Tap that line, or History, to read the whole list.
Tap … on a patient's row to show its actions:
| On the patient row | Does |
|---|---|
| Queue | Puts this animal on a queue. See Putting a patient on a queue. |
| Booking | Makes an appointment for this animal. |
| Sale | An over-the-counter sale recorded against this animal. |
| Visits | Every consultation this animal has had. |
| History | The full clinical history. |
| Medications | The animal's medications and prescriptions. |
| Quotes | Quotes for this animal, if your practice uses quotes. |
| Patient Data | Documents and photographs. See below. |
| Edit | The patient record: species, breed, colour, microchip, photo. |
| Reminder | Sets a follow-up reminder. |
| Move owner | Moves the animal to another client. |
| Boarding | Checks this animal into boarding, if your practice uses it. |
| Deceased | Records the date and cause of death, and cancels the animal's future reminders. |
Patients with a date of death stay on the list, greyed out, with their history intact.
Adding and editing a patient#
Each animal has its own record with species, breed, colour, date of birth, microchip number and a photo.
- Open the client, then press New Patient, or tap … on an existing patient and choose Edit.
- Fill in the name, species, breed and colour. Species, breed and colour come from lists; choose Other to type one that is not listed.
- Enter the date of birth if known, or pick an approximate age from Auto and FastVet works out the date.
- Add the gender, whether the animal is sterilised, and the microchip number.
- Press Save.
Setting a reminder for a patient#
A reminder puts a patient on the follow-up list on the day it is due. Vets usually set one at the end of a consultation or stay, but you can also raise one directly on the patient, for example for a six-month weight check.
Home›Search Client›the client›the patient’s …›Reminder
- Open the client who owns the animal.
- Tap … on the patient's row, and under Manage choose Reminder.
- Set when it is due: a number, then Days, Weeks or Months.
- Choose Client Reminder to contact the owner, or Doctor Reminder for a note to the vet.
- Type what it is for in Reminder Message, and press Save.
Moving a patient to another client#
When an animal is rehomed, move it to the new owner rather than creating it again, so its clinical history goes with it.
Home›Search Client›the client›the patient’s …›Move owner
- Open the client who currently owns the animal.
- Tap … on the patient's row, and under Manage choose Move owner.
- The patient you opened is ticked. If the client has other patients, they are listed too: tick any that are moving, or use All and Just this one.
- Search for the new owner by name, phone number or ID and tap them.
- Press Move Patient (or, for several, for example Move 6 Patients).
Documents and photographs#
Patient Data holds files kept against the animal, such as referral letters, x-rays, consent forms and insurance paperwork.
- Open the client, tap … on the patient's row, and choose Patient Data.
- Press Add, choose one or more files, and type a short description under Please enter comment. Staff see this description in the list.
- Press Add again to upload. All the files you chose are saved under that one description.
- Tap a row to open the file, or the red bin to remove it. Press Done to close the screen.
Clinical history#
History on a patient row opens everything that has happened to the animal in date order, newest first: visits and notes, lab results, medication, vitals, weight and files, with filters and a search box.
See Clinical history for more.
Merging duplicate clients#
Merge when the same person has two client records, for example after being registered twice or with a misspelled surname. The duplicate's patients, account entries and history move to the record you keep, and the duplicate is marked as deleted.
Home›Search Client›Merge Clients
- On the client search screen, press Merge Clients in the footer.
- Under Client to KEEP, search for the record you want to keep and tap it. Deleted clients are included in the search.
- Under Duplicate client to MERGE FROM, search for the duplicate and tap it.
- Read the summary of what will move.
- Press Merge Clients in the footer and confirm.
Find potential duplicates in my practice finds likely duplicates for you. It groups clients that share an ID number, the same name and cell number, or the same name and email address, and shows which matched. The client with financial history (then the most patients) is selected to keep; change it if needed, then press Merge into kept on the others.
If the two clients share no phone number, email address or ID number, FastVet warns you and offers to move a patient instead. You can still merge if they are the same person.
