Newsletter – October, 2002 * Volume 15, Issue 10
You can now use Lifelearn Client Handouts with ClienTrax!
Great News! We have just signed an agreement with Lifelearn Corporation of Ontario Canada to allow us to integrate their Illustrated Client Handouts with ClienTrax at a reasonable price (see below). This means that with ClienTrax version 6.0b4 or greater, you will be able to list, view and print your Client Handouts from within ClienTrax. Even better, we have made it possible for ClienTrax to “suggest” to you what handouts you may want to print for the client based on what items you have entered into their New Visit.
This is done by associating the specific handouts with your inventory items. This is done from the notes section of each Inventory Card. From there, you can select and store a link to the specific document you want. From then on, ClienTrax will always ask you if you want to print that document when the item is entered into a client’s New Visit screen. (You will be prompted just before the invoice prints.)
But, you can also print your documents at any other time. Simply select Reports / Handouts and ClienTrax will pop up a window from which you can browse, preview and print any of the handouts you wish.
There are six different sets of Lifelearn Handouts: Canine, Feline, Behavior, Exotics (including birds), Equine and Pharmacy. Each set is priced at a one-time cost of $79.95 in US Dollars. Here is some information from Lifelearn’s Website.
Promote your practice with these professionally written articles for your clients. Six separate CD-ROMs contain over 500 pet health articles and over 1000 images.
Features include:
- Automatic install of your clinic letterhead or logo
- Search feature built-in
- Fully editable and customizable articles
- You can even add your own to the mix!
Topics include:
Canine (126 topics)
Feline (84 topics)
Behavior (62 topics)
Exotics and Pet Birds (120 topics)
Pharmacy (111 topics)
Equine (47 topics - no images)
Clients retain only a fraction of what you explain without the benefit of a 'handout'.
****************
Upcoming Events...
During the 1st quarter of 2003, we will be exhibiting at the following veterinary conferences:
North American Veterinary Conference
Orlando, FL
January 18th-22nd
Booth #507
Western States Conference
Las Vegas, NV
February 17th–20th
Booth #1252
Midwest Veterinary Conference
Columbus, OH
February 20th–23rd
Booth #745
****************
Keeping Your Inventory Counts On Track
Once in a while we will get a call asking if we have had any problems with the part of the program that keeps your inventory on hand counts not working. The truth is that although we have had calls regarding counts not staying correct, we have always found the cause to be training. That part of the program is a simple calculation. If you sell 2, it subtracts 2 from the on hand count. If you receive 5, it adds 5 to the on hand count.
So what training has come up? Let’s start with the basics. Do a quick check of your inventory list to make sure every item that you actually want to keep track of the count on has a checkmark in the Qty Control field, and everything that is a service does not. Also, item numbers set up to actually deduct inventory from another number should not have a checkmark in Qty Control.
This means if you have canned food that you sell both by the single can and by the case, that you should have the item number for single cans set up with the On Hand count and a checkmark in Qty Control. You should always do your purchasing to the single can number and receive quantities from that order to the single can number. The item number for selling whole cases should NOT have a checkmark in Qty Control, and the On Hand count should always be zero on this card. Instead, to keep your counts accurate when you sell whole cases, you should set up the Deduct From on the case item number to deduct the quantity of cans that is in a case from the single can item number.
After you verify your Qty Control settings, check to see if there are items that still never seem to get removed from inventory when you use them. If so, do these items actually get entered directly on a client’s invoice and show up in the patient’s transaction history? If the item number is entered on an invoice, then ClienTrax knows it was sold, so it will reduce the inventory quantity if that item has Qty Control turned on. However, if the item is something that you want to keep track of, but never actually enter on an invoice, ClienTrax does not know to deduct it from inventory unless you set it up through Deduct From.
This means you need to connect that item so an item that actually is charged on an invoice when it is used. For example, if you do a feline neuter (let’s say it is item #06001) that always uses a specific suture pack (item # 78020), and you want to keep track of using those suture packs, but don’t want the client to see suture pack on their invoice, open the inventory card #06001 for the neuter surgery, click on the Deduct From button on the right side of the inventory card, click on the edit button, then enter item #78020 with a quantity of 1 on the Deduct From table. OK then close the Deduct From window. Now, every time you enter item #06001 on a client’s invoice, it will know to automatically remove 1 item # 78020 from inventory also even though that item is not on the invoice.
If you use purchase orders (POs) to track your inventory purchases, make sure the person entering the POs is properly trained on how to enter orders for items that you buy in bulk, but sell individually. For example, if you buy two 500 count bottles of an antibiotic that you dispense by the tablet, you need to tell ClienTrax how to handle this by how you enter it on the PO. On the white line, you want to enter the quantity (2), unit of measure (BTTL for bottle), and each price for the unit entered on this line ($29.97 for the bottle). You enter the top line this way so you don’t have to worry about converting the price per tablet and still have the PO come out to the correct total (considering rounding issues that may come up). But you still need to tell ClienTrax that when you receive those TWO bottles, it should actually add 1000 to your inventory count. You do this in the yellow fields for that line item that pop up after you tab past the description field for that line. By entering 1000 in the yellow quantity field, and TABS or EACH in the Unit field, ClienTrax will know to add 1000 tablets to that inventory number, and adjust the cost (divide the total cost by 1000) when you receive the order. Specifically note that the units in the white and yellow fields MUST be different for ClienTrax to retain the different quantity entries. If the units on both lines are the same, i.e. both say EACH, when you save the PO, ClienTrax will change the yellow quantity to match the white quantity since if the unit is the same, the quantity should be the same, as they would be if you were buying and selling bags of food. You buy whole bags and sell whole bags, therefore the white and yellow fields would be the same.
If your inventory items are set up properly, received properly, and invoiced properly, your inventory on hand counts should always stay on track.
****************
The Benefits of Bar Coding
Some clinics have found that they have their inventory set up correctly to do what they want it to do, and have made sure their purchase orders are entered correctly, but their on hand counts still manage to be off. In three or four practices, they have noticed this to be a bigger problem in foods more than any other area. One item would still say they had 48 cans when they were out of it. Another item higher in the list (thus quicker to be found) had a negative quantity when they still had some cans on the shelf. Further investigation found several examples of the same problem.
At this point, the problem appeared to be not selecting the proper item to charge on the invoice, reducing quantities of an item that was not sold at that time instead of for the product that the client actually carried out the door.
For these clinics, I have suggested a bar code scanner. The receptionist does not have to look up the food item in the list. They only need to scan the bar code on the can or bag, enter the quantity, and OK it. ClienTrax matches the bar code on the food to the correct item number in the inventory list so the person doesn’t have to look it up. This can be used for any item that has a bar code, or if the item does not come with its own bar code, you can print a bar code label from ClienTrax to your file label printer to stick on the item. The bar code that prints on this label matches the item number of the inventory item you print it from. It can also be used for services if a Bar Code circle sheet is printed for the receptionist to scan from.
The practices that have implemented bar code scanning have reported much improvement in inventory tracking.
So, how do you go about implementing bar code scanners? You need to purchase two things. Firstly, you need the Bar Code font, which can be purchased from us. Secondly, you need a bar code scanner, which can be purchased from a number of places. (We bought ours, a WASP, for testing at Micro Center, but then found it cheaper at Microwarehouse.com because they offered it without the unneeded software.) The scanner needs to be a simple device that works in line with your keyboard. Choose one that you are comfortable with, but don’t get talked into spending money on extras. You do not need any other fonts or software for your scanner or for printing bar code labels.
****************
Proper Inventory Adjusting
Of course, you still may lose items to in house use. Sometimes items have to be used for hospitalized animals, then people get busy and forget to charge them out. This is why we recommend having two separate client cards for tracking these items. One for in house use, items that you know for a fact were used for a patient. The second for general inventory adjustments, for adjusting quantities when items are noticed as “lost” or “found”. This helps identify items that are consistently “lost” so they can be given more attention to track down the cause. Make sure that these cards have a 100% discount set on them so any invoices created to “sell” or “return” items on them always have a zero total. This is so they do not affect your sales figures for the day.
We recommend that you never change inventory counts on the inventory card itself. This is because you don’t have any tracking to help identify problems. If you use a client card for these adjustments, you can then look at the transaction history on that card. If you see amoxicillin is being frequently adjusted, you may want to look at it more closely for a while to try to determine why. A pattern of adjustment would not turn up if the inventory count is simply edited at the card.
It is especially important not to ever edit the count on the card if you are using ClienTrax accounting. Editing the card does not tell your general ledger that your inventory GL account value should change. Entering invoices on the recommended client cards creates all necessary general ledger transactions to keep everything in sync.
****************
Humor Is Healthy…
This month’s chuckle
