Settings — a guided tour

By the end you'll know what lives behind every tab in Settings, what you can change there, and where to go for the deeper how-to when one exists.

To open Settings, click the gear icon (or Settings) in the main menu. A list of tabs appears down the left-hand side. Click a tab to see its page. You can move between tabs freely — nothing is saved until you actually change a field, and most changes save themselves the moment you click away.

A few notes before we start:

• Most settings save automatically. When you type in a field and then click somewhere else, your change is saved straight away. There's no big "Save" button to hunt for. (A handful of pop-up dialogs — like adding an appointment type — do have a Save button; we'll point those out.)
• Some tabs are admin-only. If you're a receptionist or nurse, a few tabs may bounce you back to the home screen, or show "Coming Soon". That's by design, not a fault. See Your team & permissions.

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A quick map of every tab

The Settings menu is grouped under clear headings — Your account, Clinic, Team & access, Scheduling, Data & compliance and Subscription & system. The rest of this section walks each tab in turn.

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Account

Usually: everyone — this is your page.

This is where you open in Settings by default. It holds your personal details: your title, first / middle / last name, professional title, speciality, and post-nominals (the letters after your name). Vets and nurses also have a registration state and number.

You can also set your avatar (your little profile picture) and reset your password here.

What you can change

• Your name and titles — just type and click away; it saves itself.
• Your avatar — click the round picture and upload a JPG or PNG up to 5MB.
• Your password — click Change password.

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Appearance

Usually: everyone.

Choose how the app looks — a single Mode dropdown on the Account page with three options: Light, Dark and System. Pick one and the whole app changes instantly. "System" follows your computer's own light/dark setting.

Your choice is remembered on this device only, so you can have Dark at home and Light at the front desk.

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Clinic Settings

Usually: admin or whoever set up the practice — but everyone can open it.

Your practice's details live here: name, legal name, address (street, suburb, state, postcode), phone, email, and ABN. This is also home to your tax, fees, and calendar defaults. These details appear on invoices, estimates and emails, so it's worth getting them right.

What you can change

• Practice details — name, legal name, address, phone, email, ABN.

• Legal name — your registered business entity (e.g. "… Pty Ltd"), only if it differs from your trading name. Optional. It appears on your invoice, estimate, statement and receipt letterheads alongside your ABN. Leave it blank if your trading name is your legal name.

• GST & tax — see the note below.

• Fees — your two clinic-wide fee defaults:

  • Default dispensing fee ($) — the standard fee added when you dispense medication. Type a dollar amount, or set it to 0 for no fee.
  • Default injection fee ($) — the standard fee added when an injectable item (such as a vaccine) is billed. It starts at 0, so your clinic opts in by entering an amount. Set it back to 0 if you don't charge a separate injection fee.

  Both are just the defaults: individual catalogue items can override them with their own fee. (More on how this flows through in The catalogue & prices.)

• Inventory — Track stock by default: when on, a new catalogue product starts with stock tracking pre-selected, so it's counted in inventory from day one. You can still switch tracking off on any individual item. Off by default.

• Default calendar column — pick which column a new appointment lands in when staff create one without first clicking a slot on the schedule. Choose "No default" to leave it blank. See The schedule — booking & appointments.

Setting up GST and tax

1. Find the Tax & GST section.
2. Switch on GST Registered if your practice is registered for GST.
3. Two new fields will now appear below — this is normal. Wattle only shows the tax options once you say you're registered.
4. Set your default tax rate (the percentage) and choose a pricing mode: tax-inclusive (prices already include GST) or tax-exclusive (GST is added on top).
5. Done — it saves itself.

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Email

Usually: admin or vet. Receptionists and nurses won't see this tab.

This controls how emails from your clinic look and who they appear to come from. It pairs with Emailing clients.

What you can change

• Sender identity — the display name clients see (defaults to your practice name) and the reply-to email (where replies land; defaults to your clinic email). The from-address itself is fixed (noreply@send.wattlevet.com) and can't be edited — that's what keeps your email out of spam folders.
• Clinic signature — the sign-off block at the bottom of clinic emails.
• Personal signature — your own sign-off.

Signatures: auto vs custom

Each signature has two modes:

• Auto (the easy default) — Wattle builds the signature for you from your clinic and personal details every time an email goes out. If you later change your phone number or address, the signature updates itself. You don't have to touch anything.
• Custom — you write your own signature in the rich-text editor. This stays exactly as you wrote it and won't auto-update if your details change.

If you switch to custom and change your mind, a Revert to auto button appears — click it to go back to the automatic version.

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Branding

Usually: admin or vet.

Upload the images that make your documents and emails look like yours. There are three slots, each with a preview so you can check it before relying on it.

What you can change

• Clinic logo — used on invoices, estimates, PDFs and email headers. Accepts JPEG, PNG, WebP or SVG, up to 500KB.
• Document letterhead — sits at the top of invoice, estimate and medical-history PDFs. Optional: leave it empty and Wattle composes a tidy header from your logo and clinic name automatically.
• Email signature graphic — an image embedded under your email signature. Use PNG or JPG only (SVG breaks in many email apps).

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Appointment Types

Usually: admin or front-desk lead — but everyone can view it.

These are the kinds of bookings that appear on your calendar: a Consultation, a Vaccination, a Surgery, a Lunch break, and so on. Each has a name, a colour, a default duration, an optional description, and on/off switches.

Add an appointment type

1. Click Add Type.
2. Fill in the dialog:
   • Name (required) — e.g. "Dental check".
   • Colour — pick from the palette of swatches. Hover over a swatch to see its name; the one you pick gets a ring around it.
   • Default Duration — in HH:MM, e.g. 00:30 for half an hour.
   • Description (optional).
   • Active — leave on so it shows on the calendar.
   • Requires Patient — leave on for normal appointments. Turn it off for blocks that aren't about an animal — breaks, admin time, meetings. (With it off, you won't be asked to pick a patient when booking.)
3. Click Save. The new type appears in the list and is ready to book.

Other ways to manage a type

• ⭐ Edit: click the three-dot menu on the row → Edit → change anything → Save.
• Turn on/off quickly: click the Active / Inactive badge on the row. Inactive types vanish from the calendar but aren't deleted.
• Delete: three-dot menu → Delete → confirm. You'll always be asked to confirm first.

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Visit Statuses

Usually: admin or vet — but everyone can view it.

These are the stages a consult moves through — for example Waiting, In progress, Ready for discharge. They help everyone see at a glance where each visit is up to. (In the underlying records these are sometimes called "consultation status types", but the screen calls them Visit Statuses — same thing.)

It works just like Appointment Types, only simpler — each status has a name, a colour, and an active switch.

What you can do

• Add: click Add Status, fill in name and colour, Save.
• Edit: three-dot menu → Edit.
• Turn on/off: click the Active / Inactive badge.
• Delete: three-dot menu → Delete → confirm.

These statuses show up while you're working through a visit — see The consult (a visit).

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Import & Export

Usually: admin or vet only.

Import and export live together on one page — Settings → Import & Export — with an Import tab and an Export tab. (If your account only has one of the two permissions, you'll just see that section, without a tab bar. Old Data Import / Data Export links land in the right place automatically.)

Import brings your existing clients, patients and catalogue items into Wattle from a spreadsheet (CSV file). The Import Wizard walks you through it step by step: upload your file, preview the rows, fix any problems, then confirm. An Import History panel below shows your past imports with their status and how many rows came in.

Export downloads your clinic's data — clients, patients, appointments, catalogue and more — as a CSV (for spreadsheets) or JSON (for technical use or migration) file. Handy for your own backups or for moving to another system. Pick what you want and the format, then Download; the file saves to your computer.

Both are big topics with their own section — start there for the full walkthrough, file templates and how often to back up: Exporting & backing up your data.

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Audit Log

Usually: admin or vet only.

A searchable record of activity across the system — who changed what, when, and what changed. You can filter by user, action type, date range or the thing that was changed. It's read-only: you look, you don't edit. This is your compliance and record-keeping trail.

There's a dedicated walkthrough here: The audit log.

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Schedule 8

Usually: admin or vet only.

This is the settings home for your controlled-drug register (Schedule 8 / S8 medicines). The main control is a single switch: Capture controlled-drug entries. When it's on, S8 lines from billing and consults are collected into the register for a vet to sign off, and three more cards appear:

• Safes Manager — add, edit or remove the safes where you store controlled drugs (each tracks its location, custodian and contents).
• Compliance — a read-only summary of your reconciliation cadence (how often you must reconcile) and retention period, both based on your clinic's state, plus your legal register status.
• Audit Log — a read-only trail of recent changes to the register, for your compliance records.

The day-to-day register itself — finalising entries, stocktakes, reports — has its own full section: The Schedule 8 register.

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Security

Usually: everyone (your own PIN); admin or practice manager (the clinic-wide lock timeout).

Two things live here now:

• Your PIN — set or change the 4-digit PIN that unlocks the screen after inactivity and signs off controlled-drug register actions. Changing it needs your current PIN; a forgotten PIN is reset from Settings → Team. Full guide: Your PIN & the lock screen.
• Inactivity lock — how long a computer can sit untouched before the screen locks behind the PIN: 15, 30 or 60 minutes (15 by default). One setting for the whole clinic, and there's deliberately no "off" — the lock is part of keeping records private on shared computers.

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Billing & your subscription

Settings → Subscription is where you see what you're paying and manage your payment method. (This tab was called "Billing & Subscription" until July 2026 — same page, shorter name.)

Wattle is priced per vet, per month. Only users with the vet role count as billable seats — nurses, reception and practice managers are free, however many you have. Every clinic is billed for at least one vet seat.

The panel leads with your plan and its status, then a row of three figures:

• Seats — how many vets you're being billed for. This follows your team: add a vet and the seat count goes up from your next billing cycle; suspend or remove one and it goes down.
• Per-vet price — your current rate.
• Monthly total — seats × rate.

Below the figures you'll see your next renewal date, so you always know when the next charge is coming.

Founding clinics — if you joined during our founding period, you're on the founding-clinic rate for your first 12 months. After that, it steps down to a smaller permanent founding-clinic discount for as long as you stay subscribed — it never reverts to the full standard rate. Both figures are shown before you subscribe and on this panel, so the change never arrives as a surprise. Your invoice shows the standard price with the founding discount as its own named line.

To change your card, see your invoices, or cancel, click Manage subscription — it opens our payment processor's secure billing portal. (Only accounts that can manage clinic settings see this button.)

Cancelling your subscription

You can cancel any time from Manage subscription. Cancelling doesn't cut you off on the spot:

• You keep full access until the end of the period you've already paid for — no mid-month lockout, no refund needed.
• Wattle shows a notice with the exact end date, plus an Export your data link so you can take a full copy before then.
• Changed your mind? Reopen the billing portal and renew before the end date — everything carries on as if nothing happened.
• Once the paid period ends, your clinic closes and your records are kept for 90 days, then deleted.

If you'd rather close your clinic immediately (everyone signed out now), use Settings → Account → Delete Account instead.

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Coming-soon corners

Almost everything in Settings is live now. The remaining "coming soon" spots:

• Integrations is a real page — a grid of integration cards (click Zenbooker to set up booking intake). The dotted "More coming soon" card is the placeholder for future integrations, such as Idexx.
• Two-factor sign-in (within Security) is still on the way — its toggle is visible but not yet active.

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When a tab sends you back home

If you're a receptionist or nurse and you reach Import & Export, Audit Log or Branding directly, the page may load for a moment and then jump back to the home screen. You haven't broken anything — those are admin/vet features, and the app is quietly keeping them locked.

Can't see a button or tab you expected? Your account may not have permission — ask whoever set up your clinic. More on what each role can do: Your team & permissions.

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Related sections: Signing in & your account · The schedule — booking & appointments · The catalogue & prices · Emailing clients · The Schedule 8 register · The audit log · Exporting & backing up your data · Your team & permissions · If something looks wrong — troubleshooting & FAQ