Veterinary Inventory Management: Best Practices for Improving Efficiency

Effective veterinary inventory management is crucial for a veterinary clinic to operate smoothly. Stocking too much can lead to product expiration, resulting in wastage and lost revenue. Stocking too little can put team members in a tricky situation, where they cannot treat a pet or provide clients with necessary food, medications, or convenience items. Clunky inventory management systems also distract team members from other essential tasks. Here are some strategies to optimize veterinary inventory management and boost your practice’s efficiency.

Establishing inventory thresholds

Over- or under-stocking can impact the clinic’s bottom line or cause frustrations on the floor. Identifying inventory thresholds by evaluating product usage and value can help practices maintain proper stock levels with less effort. Start by running reports in your veterinary software to determine how many items you purchase in a given period. Then, estimate how much you use in two weeks—this is the minimum inventory to keep on the shelf.

Automating inventory processes

Many veterinary practice inventory managers use a manual or “want list” order system. They populate the order based on information others have added to the list, and then walk around looking at critical areas to see if a restock is necessary. This process is not only inefficient but also can result in forgotten items.

Software with integrated veterinary inventory management tools can automate the manual order process by populating the order list with real-time tracking of stock, usage, and sales. When order day arrives, the manager can quickly review the list and submit the order rather than start from scratch. However, do not substitute automation for quarterly hard counts, because these help reconcile discrepancies and account for consumables. Keeping up with quarterly counts reduces the time and energy required to reconcile at year’s end and helps ensure efficiency.

Training the staff

Veterinary inventory management is more complex than it initially seems. Most team members elevated to this position are left to devise an order process that meets clinic needs. However, investing in a training program or CE course for your inventory manager can get them up to speed quickly. Also, reducing the trial and error period can significantly improve overall hospital efficiency and ensure everyone has the necessary supplies to care for pets and pet owners. Additionally, all team members should understand how the inventory system works and their role in reporting low stocks or expired items.

Implementing technology

If your PIMS lacks the functional inventory features your hospital needs, consider a dedicated veterinary inventory management software that integrates with your existing software. Like software-based systems, standalone inventory platforms can provide real-time data on stock levels, track usage, generate automated reorders, and enhance efficiency.

Veterinary distributors can also provide clinics with technological solutions to their inventory woes. Barcoding and radio-frequency identification (RFID) systems can improve inventory tracking and reduce human error during the order process, especially for larger hospitals. This strategy works well if your clinic partners closely with one distributor instead of many, which can also help streamline order day.

To supplement tech-based tracking systems and ensure accuracy, inventory managers can tag inventory throughout the hospital to indicate the reorder level has been reached. When the tagged item is sold or opened, team members put it into a designated bin for review.

Streamlining unpacking

In addition to tracking and ordering, unpacking boxes can be inefficient. To reduce the physical workload of unpacking and breaking down boxes, consolidate orders to once weekly. Work with your distributor to find local warehouses that offer reusable packaging to minimize waste and eliminate box and packing material clean-up.

Inexperienced team members can find veterinary inventory management time-consuming and frustrating, because they are pulled away from other important hospital tasks and overall team efficiency is reduced. Training inventory managers and providing them with capable veterinary software empowers them to own their role and establish new processes that solve the practice’s inventory problems.