Signing off
How a vet finalises pending entries, one at a time or working down the queue, and how to correct a finalised entry afterwards.
Captured entries sit in the Pending sign-off card until a vet reviews and finalises them. Only vets can do this - nurses and reception can see what's waiting, but not sign it.
What each row tells you
Signing off is your signature on a legal record, so the queue shows enough to know what you're signing without opening anything:
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Date | When the drug was given - not when the entry was typed. A visit written up three weeks later still reads as the day it happened. |
| Drug | The drug as it's named in your register. |
| Patient | The animal, with its owner underneath. Blank as a dash for stock you received from a supplier, which has neither. |
| Type | Supply, receipt, administration and so on, with where it came from underneath - billing, a consult, or entered by hand. |
| Quantity | The amount, in the drug's own unit. |
| Entered by | Whoever created the entry. A dash if it was captured before the app started recording that. |
The search box covers all of it. Type an owner's surname, a patient's name or "billing" and the list narrows - you're not limited to searching by drug.
This matters most when the same drug is used on the same day for several patients. Four euthanasia ketamine entries used to look identical; now the patient and owner tell them apart at a glance.
Common tasks
| I want to... | Do this |
|---|---|
| Sign off one entry | Click the row in Pending sign-off → review → Sign and process |
| Sign off several | Process queue → Process N entries → review and Process each in turn |
| Fix a quantity first | The pencil in the pending list, or just correct it when the entry opens at sign-off |
| Fix an already-finalised entry | Register entries → Correct |
Signing off one entry
- In Pending sign-off, click the row. There's no separate button - clicking anywhere on the row opens the dialog.
- It shows the drug, type and quantities, and warns that this is permanent.
- The quantities are editable right here - your last chance to correct them. Out-entries show Quantity given and Wastage separately (the register records given + wastage leaving the safe); stock-in entries show a single Quantity received.
- If your clinic has balance declaration turned on, type what the balance will be after this entry. See below.
- If a vet outside your clinic authorised it - a referring or locum vet - name them in Authorised by an outside vet. Leave it blank if you authorised it yourself, which is almost always. The name is added to your prescriber list so it is one click next time.
- Sign and process. The entry moves into the Register entries with a running balance, recorded under your name. Being signed in is the signature - nothing asks for a PIN.
Declaring the balance (optional)
Settings → Controlled drugs → Signing off → Declare the balance when signing off. Off unless you turn it on.
With it on, sign-off asks what the balance will be after the entry, and Wattle checks your answer before writing anything. Wattle deliberately doesn't show you the expected figure - a declaration you can read off the screen isn't a declaration.
What this catches is the entry made against the wrong drug. The arithmetic is right, the quantity is right, the page is wrong, and nothing else in Wattle would notice: the balance just moves on a page it shouldn't have. If your number doesn't match, Wattle refuses, tells you both figures, and nothing is written - which matters, because once an entry is finalised the only way to fix it is a correction entry sitting on the record forever.
This is not a stock count. If the figures differ it means the entry is wrong, not that the shelf is. Never "fix" a declaration by adjusting stock - do a stock check if you think the shelf and the register disagree.
It's off by default because it adds a step to every single sign-off. That trade is worth it for a clinic with a dozen similar-looking pages, and probably not for one with three.
Working through the queue
When there are two or more pending entries, a Process queue button appears in the card and opens a dedicated page listing every pending entry.
From there, either Process N entries at the top to take the whole list, tick rows and Process selected, or click a single row to sign off just that one.
Entries are signed one at a time. Each opens in turn, headed Process entry 1 of N, showing everything the single sign-off dialog shows: the drug, the patient and owner, the quantities, and the same warning that this is permanent. Correct what needs correcting, then Process puts that entry on the register and moves straight to the next.
Nothing asks for a PIN, at the start or on any entry. Each one is signed by your account as it goes on the register.
Because every entry opens properly, everything you can do signing one off you can do here: correct the quantity and wastage, choose which safe the drug came out of, declare the balance, and name an outside vet who authorised it. There is no faster path that skips those questions, which is deliberate. Sign-off is a legal attestation each time, and a batch that quietly asked less was signing a weaker record than the slow route.
Skip leaves an entry pending and moves to the next, for anything you can't resolve right now. Stop ends the run: everything already processed stays on the register, and the rest keeps waiting.
Correcting a finalised entry
You can't edit or delete a finalised entry - that's what keeps the register trustworthy. Instead you record a correction, a new reversing entry linked to the original.
- In the Register entries, find the entry.
- If it can be corrected, a Correct button shows on the right.
- Type a Reason ("Wrong quantity entered").
- Record correction.
A reversing entry is added, the original keeps its place untouched, and the balance returns to what it was before.
The correction says which entry it corrects, everywhere it appears. Open it and you'll see a Corrects line naming the original by its entry number. It's a column in the CSV export, and a line underneath the entry on the printed register. That last one matters most: the printout is the copy an inspector is handed, and without it a correction reads as an unexplained entry going the other way.
A correction is final. It can't be undone, and it can't itself be corrected. If you correct the wrong entry, put it right with Adjust stock, which records the change with its own reason. The dialog tells you this before you commit.
No Correct button on a row means it's already been corrected (look for a "Corrected" badge), it is itself a correction, or you're not a vet.
In the ACT and the Northern Territory, only the vet who signed an entry can correct it.
The rules there give the correction to the person who made the original entry, so Wattle asks that vet to do it. If they're not available, put the balance right with a stock adjustment instead - it's witnessed and recorded like any other entry, and it's what you'd do on paper.
Everywhere else, any vet at the practice can correct any entry.
Which product an entry came out of
A register page is a drug - "Ketamine 100 mg/mL injection" - and several of your catalogue products can draw on it, so a second supplier's ketamine joins the same balance instead of starting a rival one.
Open a finalised entry and you'll see a Product line under the quantity, naming the catalogue product the drug came out of. It's the paper register's description column: the page is the balance, the product is a note on the line.
- It's the name from the day it was signed. Rename the product in your catalogue, or delete it entirely, and the entry keeps saying what it said - the same rule as the drug name and the safe name.
- It doesn't split your balance. Your holding of ketamine stays one number.
- Entries made before 6 August 2026 have no Product line, and neither do entries typed in by hand. That's deliberate: there's no honest way to work out afterwards which carton a past draw came from, and a guess doesn't belong on a legal record.
This is the groundwork for breaking a page down by product, and for stock-checking by counting cartons instead of working out millilitres in your head. Neither is built yet.
Writing a note in the register
Sometimes the thing worth recording isn't a movement at all - the safe lock was changed, the pharmacist rang about an order, a discrepancy was investigated and explained.
⋯ → Write a note → the page it belongs on, then the note.
The note gets its own entry number and sits in the ledger with everything else. It doesn't change any balance. Like every register entry it can't be edited or deleted - the way to change a note is to write another one.
Gotchas
- Nothing happens when you click a row? Check you're clicking in the Pending sign-off card, not the finalised list below it.
- No Process queue button with one pending entry is expected - it only appears with two or more. Click the row instead.
- One entry won't go through? The reason shows on that entry, and where there's a fix to offer (like taking the drug from a safe that has enough) the buttons are right there. Sort it out and carry on, or Skip it and come back. Everything you've already processed stays processed.
- Stepped away and came back to a lock screen? That's the app's inactivity lock, not the register's - your PIN puts you straight back. Anything already processed is on the register.
- A nurse or receptionist opening the Process queue page sees it read-only, with a note explaining only vets can process.
- Still being asked for a PIN here? Your browser is showing you an old copy of Wattle - reload the page (Ctrl/Cmd + R). Since September 2026 sign-off asks for nothing beyond being signed in, and on that old copy processing an entry will fail rather than just look wrong. Nothing already on the register is affected.
Next
Recording movements · Stock checks · How the register is signed