Help Centre › Setup & administration

Practice settings

Your practice's details, branding, which modules are switched on, billing, and how FastVet emails your clients.

Practice settings shape FastVet for your clinic. Most are set once during setup and rarely changed.

Where settings live#

Who can do this

Administrators only.

Home›Settings

The Settings menu holds everything an administrator maintains — users, reference lists, templates and the practice itself. Mint groups the tiles into four columns — Catalogue, Billing, Communications and Practice; Classic shows the same tiles in one block. It is worth reading through once: Price Groups, Suppliers, Send Letter and Integrations are all here.

The Practice Settings tile holds three screens:

Inside Practice Settings	Covers
Practice Details	Name, code, address, phone number, time zone and country.
Branding & Theme	Icon, header bar colour, and the Mint or Classic theme.
Features & Modules	Which parts of FastVet your practice uses.

Billing & Payments and Email & Notifications are separate tiles on the Settings menu. Both are described below.

Practice details#

Your practice name, code, street address, phone number and time zone. The name, address and phone number can be printed on your documents with the substitution codes. The time zone is used to work out today's date and which appointment times have passed in the client portal.

The Country keeps map lookups inside your country. FastVet finds your practice, and each client's address, on the map so that Map can give directions and the client record can show how far away they live. Without a country, an address such as "18 Willow Road" can be matched to a street of the same name on another continent. FastVet can work the country out from a South African, Namibian, Australian or New Zealand time zone; anywhere else, choose it here.

Tip

To check where FastVet has put your practice, use the Google Maps link under the street address. If it is in the wrong place, set the country and save again.

Branding & theme#

Upload an Icon (40 × 40 pixels, jpg, gif or png) — it identifies your practice in the app.
Set the Header Bar Colour to match your practice. It is used with the Classic theme; Mint keeps its own green header.
Choose the Visual Theme: the redesigned Mint look or the original Classic one.

Note

The theme applies to everybody at the practice, and takes effect when staff next sign in.

Features & modules#

Switch off what your practice does not do and those screens disappear for everybody. Nothing is deleted: switch a module back on and its records are still there.

Card	Switch	Controls
Services	Consultations	The consult queue and clinical visits.
	Hospital	In-patient admissions and daily ward records.
	Boarding	Boarding stays and their daily records.
	Grooming	The grooming queue and grooming records.
Optional Features	Quotes	Costed proposals the owner agrees to before work starts. See Quotes.
	Loyalty programme	The points programme, and the Loyalty tile on the Settings menu. See Loyalty programme.
	AI features	Voice notes and the Previous Visit Summary. See Voice notes & AI summaries.
	Per-vet availability	Whether bookings follow each vet's working hours. Off by default; see below.
	Stock receiving	Booking stock in from a photograph of the supplier invoice, with a Receive stock tile. Any staff member can capture an invoice; only an Admin books it into stock. Off by default.
	Business accounts	Farms, companies, trusts and other practices as clients, with their contacts, VAT and registration numbers, and order numbers on their invoices. See Business accounts. Off by default.
Client Portal & Shop	Client portal	Whether clients can register and sign in.
	Online booking	Whether signed-in clients can book. With it off they still see appointments you made for them.
	Repeat medication requests	Whether signed-in clients can ask for a refill online. With it off they still see their pet's medication and are asked to phone. See Refill requests.
	Online shop	The client shop and its dispatch queue. Switching it on shows Delivery, and with that a Delivery fee and Free delivery from — see Collection and delivery.

Note

Online booking and Repeat medication requests only work while Client portal is on, but they are switched on separately. You can set them before you switch the portal on.

Per-vet availability: with it off, the only limit on a booking time is the capacity of the appointment slot. With it on, bookings also follow each vet's working hours: reception sees a warning when booking outside them (and can carry on), and clients booking online are only offered times the vet is in. Enter the hours under Vet Availability.

Note

A vet with no hours entered is available at every slot, so switching this on does not empty your diary. Switching it off again loses nothing.

Billing & payments#

Home›Settings›Billing & Payments

Setting	Effect
Currency Symbol	The symbol shown on prices, invoices and statements.
Tax Abbreviation	What your sales tax is called, such as VAT or GST.
VAT Number	Your VAT registration number (the label follows your tax abbreviation, so a GST practice sees “GST Number”). It prints wherever an invoice or statement header uses `#PRACTICEVATNUMBER#` — see Templates. Leave it blank if you are not registered.
Payment Terms	How many days clients have to pay. Statements print it and overdue emails wait for it. A client can have their own terms — see Payment terms. Blank means 30 days.
Prices Read Only	Stops staff changing the unit price when they charge an item.
Hide Tax on Invoices	Shows totals including tax, without breaking the tax out.
Restrict Check Price by role	Doctors and admins see every price; other staff see only the items they can charge. Off means all staff can look up any price.
Statements	Each invoice on its own terms: each charge is due your payment terms after the day it was raised, and no routine statements go out. One statement a month: charges build up and a statement goes out on a day you choose (the 1st to the 28th, or the last day of the month), with everything on it due your payment terms after that. See Statements.
Payment Settings	Your online payment provider — None or PayFast with its credentials. Tick Sandbox mode to test without taking real money. The saved merchant key and passphrase are never shown: leave the boxes empty to keep them, or type to replace them.

Email & notifications#

Home›Settings›Email & Notifications

Here you choose what FastVet sends automatically, and which mailbox it sends from.

Setting	Effect
Email Server	The mail server and the address your practice sends from. The saved password is never shown: leave the box empty to keep it, or type a new one to replace it.
Email invoices & receipts automatically	Sends the invoice when a consultation, sale, hospital or boarding stay, or groom is finished.
Email reminders	Sends reminders to clients as they fall due.
Email overdue account statements	Sends statements to clients with an overdue balance.
Email the client their account statement when a payment is received	Sets the default. The receptionist can untick it on any payment.
Text reminders	Sends reminders as a text message too.
Text clients the day before an appointment	An appointment reminder by text.
Text clients with an overdue account balance	A text stating the balance. The statement itself is still emailed.
CC the client's alternative email address	Copies the client's second address, where they have one, on every email.

Note

The text options only appear once you have connected an SMS account, and each is off until you switch it on. Texts are paid for from your SMS account.

Note

Turning the automatic options off does not stop you sending things by hand.

Tip

If clients say they have not received something, check the email history report first. It shows whether the email was sent.

Reference lists#

These lists keep your data consistent. All are on the Settings menu.

Settings tile	Used for
Breeds Classic: “Breed”	The breed options on a patient record.
Colours	The colour options on a patient record.
Vitals	Which measurements appear on clinical screens. See Setting up vitals.
Consultation Reasons	The reasons offered when booking or queueing.
Client Tags	Labels you put on clients. See Client tags.
Boarding Locations Classic: “Boarding Location”	Your runs, kennels and pens.
Boarding Descriptions Classic: “Boarding Description”	The kinds of boarding stay you offer.
Appointment Slots	The shape of your appointment book.
Suppliers	Who you buy stock from. A supplier cannot be deleted while stock is assigned to it — move those items first, under Suppliers & levels.
Price Groups	Alternative mark-ups — staff rates, senior discounts, rescue rates. See Price groups.
Discharge Sheets	Standard client advice you attach to a visit. See Discharge sheets.

Tip

Keep these lists short. Near-duplicate breeds or reasons make reports less clear and data entry slower.

Setting up vitals#

Home›Settings›Vitals

A vital is one measurement your practice records — temperature, heart rate, a pain score, mucous-membrane colour. The vitals in this list are the ones staff see on consultations, hospital days and boarding days.

Each vital has a Name and an Input type, which decides what staff see:

Input type	What staff see	Use it for
Named scale	A slider with labelled points you define — Normal · Elevated · Critical.	Anything judged rather than measured: pain score, hydration, demeanour, mucous membranes.
Numeric range	A slider over a number range, with an optional unit.	Measurements: temperature, pulse, respiration, weight.
Free text	A box they type into.	Anything that fits neither. Free text cannot be compared between visits, so use it sparingly.

Press Add on the vitals list, or open an existing vital.
Enter the Name staff will see.
Choose the Input type.
For a named scale, list the Points along the scale in order, lowest first. For a numeric range, set the Minimum, Maximum and Unit / suffix (°C, bpm, kg).
Optionally choose a Colour and an Icon to make the vital easy to spot.
Tick Allow a comment alongside each reading if staff need to add notes.
Check the Preview, which shows the control as staff will see it, then save.

Tip

Set the minimum and maximum to the realistic clinical range. A temperature slider of 35–43 °C is much easier to use than 0–100 °C.

Note

Editing or deleting a vital does not change readings already recorded — past visits keep showing them as they were taken.

Integrations#

Home›Settings›Integrations

Connections to outside systems: IDEXX for laboratory work, and an SMS provider for text messages.

Screen	What it is for
IDEXX Settings	Your IDEXX VetConnect PLUS credentials. Set up once. See IDEXX integration.
IDEXX Test Mapping	Links an IDEXX test to an item on your price list, so ordering the test charges the item.
IDEXX Reference Data	What IDEXX holds for your account — species, breeds, genders, tests and in-house analysers. Read-only.
SMS	Your text-messaging provider, its account details, your balance, and a test message. See SMS.

Note

Open IDEXX Reference Data when a test you expected is not offered, when you need a test's exact IDEXX name to map it, or to check that an in-house analyser is connected. Each test is marked Reference or in-house.

SMS#

Who can do this

Administrators only.

Home›Settings›Integrations›SMS

FastVet sends text messages through your own account with a provider: SMS Portal, a South African provider that sells prepaid credits, or Twilio, an international provider that charges each message to a money balance. You open and fund the account, and enter its details here.

Choose the Provider at the top of the screen. Only one is used at a time; the other's details are kept if you switch back.

Using SMS Portal:

Sign up at smsportal.com and buy some credits.
In the SMS Portal control panel, go to Settings → API Keys and create a key.
Copy the Client ID and API Secret into this screen. SMS Portal shows the secret only once, so copy it straight away.
Set a Sender ID: the name clients see the message from, up to 11 letters and digits.
Set your dialling code — see below.
Send yourself a test message, then tick Enable SMS for this practice.

Note

Some mobile networks replace the Sender ID with their own number, so a client may see a number rather than your practice name.

Using Twilio:

Sign up at twilio.com, add funds, and buy an SMS-capable phone number.
Copy the Account SID (it starts with AC) from the top of the Twilio Console dashboard into this screen.
In Twilio, go to Account → API keys & tokens → Create API key, choose type Main, and copy the key's SID (it starts with SK) and Secret here. Twilio shows the secret only once.
Choose your From number from the list of numbers on your Twilio account, or press Type one manually instead. Clients' replies go to this number.
Set your dialling code, send yourself a test message, then tick Enable SMS for this practice.

Note

A Twilio trial account can only text numbers you have verified with Twilio, and only with Twilio's sample messages — choose one on the screen for your test. An upgraded account can send anything.

Your Balance is read from your provider: in credits for SMS Portal, or in money for Twilio. A standard text uses one credit or one message charge; a longer one is split into parts, each charged separately. Press Refresh balance to update it. Twilio trial accounts do not show a balance.

Test mode checks and prices messages without delivering them, so nothing is spent. Leave it on while you set up, and turn it off when you are ready to send for real.

Your dialling code, and who can be reached#

Client mobile numbers are stored the way you dial them locally — 082 123 4567. To send a text, FastVet converts them to the international form — 27 82 123 4567 — using your dialling code: 27 for South Africa, 264 for Namibia, 61 for Australia. No texts are sent until it is set.

Once it is set, the screen shows how many clients can be reached — for example “1,842 of 2,332 clients can be reached by SMS”. The rest have no mobile number on file, or one that cannot be read, and still receive email only.

Tip

Check that figure before you switch on text reminders. If it is lower than you expect, correct the mobile numbers on your busiest clients' records.

Note

Once your dialling code is set you can type test numbers the local way (082…). Until then, use the full international number.

What has been sent, and what it cost#

Home›Text Messages

This screen lists every text your practice has sent, what it cost, and why any failed. Its tile appears on the home screen, next to Follow Up, only when something needs attention: you are low on credits, texts are waiting, or some have failed.

Note

When your credits run out, texts wait rather than being lost. Top up and they go out by themselves within a few minutes.

Careful

Don't send these deletes the waiting texts, and your clients will never receive them. Use it only if they have waited so long they are out of date.

Tip

A failed text says what went wrong — usually a mobile number that cannot be reached. Correct the number on the client record.

Once you have read the failures, press Mark as seen. The home-screen tile stops warning about them, for everyone in the practice. The failed texts stay in the list, marked Seen, and a text that fails later brings the tile back.

What the texts say, and what they cost#

Home›Settings›Manage Templates›Text Messages

The wording of every text your practice sends is on one screen, under Manage Templates. The Manage Templates button on the SMS settings screen opens the same list. Keep the supplied wording or write your own.

Message	Sent when
Reminder	A reminder falls due. The vet's own reminder message is the text; the template adds your practice name and phone number after it.
Overdue account	A client has an overdue balance.
Appointment reminder	The day before an appointment.
Hospital update	Staff text an owner about an admitted patient. It is a starting point that staff finish.
Ready to collect	Staff tell an owner their animal can go home. Staff can edit it before sending.

Every text message on one screen, each with its own credit counter.

Codes such as #PETNAME# are replaced with the real details when the message is sent. Tap a code under the box to insert it. The shaded box below shows how the message will read.

A standard text is 160 characters and uses one credit.
A longer message is split into parts, each using a credit.
The counter under the box shows the length and credits.

Note

Curly quotes and dashes pasted from Word are not standard SMS characters. One of them cuts the limit from 160 characters to 70, so a message costs more. The screen names the character — retype it in the box.

Once you have changed a message, a Default button appears among its codes. Press it to go back to the supplied wording.