Dispensing labels
Type the directions on the charge and print a 75×40mm label. Any item can have one - medicines, parasiticides, prescription food, a specimen pot.
A label belongs to the thing you hand over. You charge the item, type the directions, and print. Wattle fills in the rest.
A label is not just for medicines. Anything you hand across the counter or stick on a container can have one: a parasiticide, a bag of prescription food with feeding instructions, a specimen pot going to the lab. Every line on the bill offers a label.
Built to NSW dispensing requirements. If you practise in another state, it's your clinic's responsibility to confirm the label meets your state's rules. Wattle gives you a compliant starting point, not legal sign-off for every jurisdiction.
Common tasks
| I want to... | Do this |
|---|---|
| Dispense and print | Charge the item on a visit → type the directions → Save & print label |
| Record without printing | Same step → Save. Print later from the visit's billing items |
| Put a label on something that isn't a medicine | Charge it → press the sticker button in the dialog footer → type the directions |
| Read, fix or reprint a label later | The visit's Billing items → that line's ⋯ → Label |
| Remove a label | Open the line, clear the directions box, Save |
Filling in the directions
- Product - the strength is the product. There's no separate strength box, because each strength is its own catalogue item ("Amoxicillin 250mg"). Choosing the right product is choosing the strength.
- Amount - the quantity on the charge: "30 tablets", "100 mL".
- Directions - in plain words: "Give one tablet by mouth twice daily with food for 7 days." This is the only part Wattle can't write for you.
A medicine opens with the directions box already showing. Everything else opens without it, and the sticker button in the dialog footer brings it up. An empty box means no label - that's how you charge an in-clinic injection without printing anything.
What's on the label
75 × 40 mm, a standard small label. Wattle fills in your clinic, the patient and owner, the item and strength, the amount and the date. You write the directions. That's the whole job.
The "Supplied" date and the prescriber only print when they're true. On a dispensed medicine they appear as usual. On a specimen pot going to the lab they don't, because nothing was supplied to anyone and nobody prescribed it.
What you see in the preview is the label itself, not a picture of one. Wattle builds the actual print file and shows you that, so the preview can't drift out of step with what comes off the printer.
Set your printer to 75 × 40 mm stock, then measure one test print with a ruler. The label file carries its true size, but a printer left on Fit to page (a common default) will quietly shrink it to whatever it thinks the paper is - every field shifts a little and nothing on screen looks wrong. Choose the 75 × 40 label stock in the printer's own settings, set scaling to Actual size or 100%, margins to None, and check the first one against a ruler. That single test print is the only real confirmation.
Check where your label stock has things pre-printed before you run a batch. Wattle currently prints your clinic's name, address and phone at the top of the label. A lot of veterinary stock is the other way round, with a red caution band pre-printed at the top and the clinic's details pre-printed at the bottom, and on that stock the two will overlap. Being able to set your own header and footer, so blank and pre-printed stock both work, is on the way.
The safety caution is missing from the print on purpose. "Keep out of reach of children. For animal treatment only." is pre-printed on most label stock, so Wattle deliberately doesn't duplicate it. If you print onto plain stock without that caution, you'll need to add it another way to stay compliant.
Where the medicine itself is recorded
On the charge. Charging a drug on a visit is what records that it was given or dispensed, and that same line drives the bill, the stock count and the Schedule 8 register. The patient's visit history shows it, and it appears in the patient history PDF and export.
There used to be a separate Medications tab on the patient file. It has been removed: it repeated what the charge already said, and nothing on it was recorded anywhere else. A fuller prescriptions feature, covering repeats, courses and what a pet is currently on, is a separate job for later.
Gotchas
- Reprinting doesn't dispense again. It re-prints the existing directions. No new charge, no new stock movement. Reprint as often as you like.
- Printing opens the label in a new tab, and you print from there. If your browser blocks pop-ups, Wattle tells you so - allow pop-ups for the site and print again.
- Opening a label doesn't change anything until you press Save. The Label action opens the item's normal dialog, so you can read the directions, fix a typo and print a corrected label. Nothing is charged and nothing is saved unless you save it.
- Removing the charge removes the label. They're one thing now, so there's nothing left behind to tidy up.
- Reissuing an invoice to a different payer keeps the label. The new line carries the same directions, and the original keeps its own.
- A strength that isn't an option doesn't exist as a catalogue item yet. An admin needs to add it in the catalogue.
- Clicked Save instead of Save & print? No problem. Open the line's ⋯ menu, choose Label, and print from there.
Related
Consultations - Patients - The catalogue - Inventory - Schedule 8 register - Printing & PDFs