5 Tips + Platforms for Veterinary Practice Management (2026)

By Kim Lam

23 March 2023• 6 min read

Key Takeaways

Veterinary practice management is the day-to-day oversight of a clinic’s operations, people, finances, client experience and systems.
A veterinary practice manager often owns scheduling, front-of-house standards, PMS use, reporting, staff development, payroll support and practice strategy.
The highest-impact improvements usually start with communication, missed charges, planning, training and brand clarity.
Veterinary practice management software can reduce admin, improve reporting and give the whole team cleaner workflows.

If you’re a veterinary practice manager, kudos to you for being the multiple hat-wearer that you are.

Veterinary practice management is the administration and oversight of all the work that keeps a clinic running: operations, finances, people, clients and systems.

This guide shines a bright light on what the role covers, five practical ways to improve practice management for the veterinary team, and how the right software can reduce admin pressure.

What Is Veterinary Practice Management?

Veterinary practice management is the administration and oversight of a clinic’s daily operations, including scheduling, billing, inventory, people, client experience and business performance. It helps the clinic deliver consistent patient care while staying financially healthy and operationally organised.

In practice, it sits somewhere between clinical outcomes and business performance. A well-managed clinic gives vets and nurses clearer workflows, gives clients a smoother experience, and gives owners better visibility into revenue, costs and team capacity.

A veterinary practice management system supports that work, but practice management itself is broader than software. It is the discipline of keeping the clinic moving in the right direction.

What Does a Veterinary Practice Manager Do?

A veterinary practice manager keeps the clinic running across operational, financial, people and client-facing work. The exact role changes by practice size, but common responsibilities include:

Overseeing day-to-day clinic operations
Supporting future practice development
Managing client relationships and front-of-house standards
Owning the veterinary PMS and related workflows
Managing support teams, rosters, client complaints and workplace processes
Supporting finances, payroll, banking and reporting
Coordinating recruitment, onboarding, CPD and performance reviews
Improving client acquisition, loyalty and retention
Producing reports that guide practice strategy

Training note: Practice managers in Australia and New Zealand can build formal skills through veterinary-specific training, short courses and practice management programmes. This is useful for new managers, senior nurses moving into leadership, and owners who want stronger operational structure. Covetrus also offers training and onboarding support for clinics adopting new software.

5 Top Tips for Veterinary Practice Managers

Some improvements create quick wins. Others build long-term stability. Both are important, but the best starting point is to remove friction from the workflows your team touches every day.

1. Optimise Your Communication Channels With Customers and Use Automated Reminders

Client communication can quickly overwhelm a busy front desk. Appointment reminders, recalls, self-serve online bookings, newsletters and follow-up messages are all useful, but only when they are easy for the team to manage.

Start by reviewing which communications are still manual. Then check whether your PMS or communication tools can automate the repeatable parts. For example, reminders can reduce missed appointments, recalls can bring clients back at the right time, and online booking can help pet owners take action outside opening hours.

The idea here is not to remove human communication. It is to reserve your team’s time for conversations that need care, judgement or reassurance.

Broadford Vets offers a good example. The clinic used VisionVPM with Rapport to support SMS reminders, email communication, online bookings and templates tied to clinical workflows.

“The client can see all of their reminders, appointments, they can request medication or ask for copies of certificates. It’s freed up reception time massively and now we can engage with our clients to a much higher standard,” says Nyree Williams, Broadford’s registered veterinary nurse and practice manager, praising the online booking and self-service access.

Clinics using Covetrus Ascend should review automated communication alongside the wider workflow: booking, reminders, consult notes, billing and follow-up. This guide to using automated software to reduce admin gives more practical examples.

2. Get on Top of Missed Charges and Unbilled Revenue

Missed charges are one of the easiest ways for revenue to leak out of a busy clinic.

A diagnostic item is missed. A medication is not added. A procedure code is skipped because the team is moving between consults, phone calls and discharge conversations. Each one may look small, but the pattern can turn into significant unbilled revenue over time.

Practice managers should review missed charges as an operational issue, not only a finance issue. Start with a simple audit: compare medical records against invoices for a small sample of consults, procedures or diagnostics. Look for repeated gaps, unclear item mapping, or steps where staff need to remember charges manually.

Your PMS can help here. For example, Ascend’s Estimates function, reporting suite and billing workflows support more consistent charging, especially when teams use templates and review KPIs regularly.

Good veterinary KPIs to watch include average transaction charge, revenue by service type, missed-charge patterns, unpaid invoices and client retention. Covetrus’ missed charges article explains the gap around unbilled veterinary revenue.

3. Get Better at Planning and Don’t Be Afraid to Raise Your Prices

Practice managers are often pulled into the urgent work first: staffing gaps, client complaints, booking pressure, bills, supplier issues and reporting requests.

But the practice still needs someone thinking ahead.

Strong planning means stepping out of the daily rush long enough to ask practical questions:

Which services are profitable?
Which appointment types are underpriced?
Where is the team stretched?
Which clients are returning, and which ones are drifting away?
What does the next quarter need from the roster, the fees and the workflow?

Pricing is part of that work. Veterinary teams are compassionate by nature, so fee increases can feel uncomfortable. But profit is not a dirty word. It is what allows the practice to pay staff fairly, invest in training, upgrade equipment, maintain standards and keep serving clients sustainably.

In our interview with Gemma Barmby, a Veterinary Business Consultant at Vet Dynamics and Senior Vet, we discuss why it’s important to work “on your business” and not in it.

A simple starting point is to review prices by service type, compare costs and margins, and use reporting to understand where the practice is absorbing too much pressure. Covetrus’ guide to measuring the right veterinary practice metrics can help managers connect pricing decisions to real practice performance.

4. Train Your New and Existing Employees

A large part of the practice manager’s role is people management. That includes hiring, onboarding, training, rosters, performance reviews, salary discussions, benefits and CPD.

Training should not only happen when something goes wrong. It should be part of how the practice keeps standards consistent and helps people feel supported in their roles.

New employees need structured onboarding so they can understand the PMS, phone process, client handoffs, billing expectations, safety procedures and clinical workflow. Existing employees also need regular refreshers, especially when the clinic updates software, adds services, changes pricing, or reviews missed-charge and reporting processes.

There is another reason to prioritise training: many powerful PMS features are underused simply because the team has never been shown how to use them well.

Crampton Consulting Group offers veterinary business training, including its Practice Management School programme. It includes topics such as leadership fundamentals, managing people, marketing for results, retaining people and improving practice profitability, with online and in-person learning options.

Training also signals that the practice is investing in its people. That can support morale, confidence, staff retention and day-to-day performance.

5. Invest in Your Veterinary Practice Brand and Critical Marketing Efforts

Marketing is more than flyers, ads or social media posts.

For a veterinary practice, brand is the reason a client chooses you, remembers you and trusts you with repeat care. It shows up in your website, online reviews, reminder tone, reception experience, community presence and the way your team explains value during consults.

Start with the basics. Keep your Google Business Profile up to date. Ask happy clients for reviews. Make your website clear about services, opening hours, booking options and emergency guidance. Build community partnerships with groomers, trainers, shelters or local pet businesses. Make sure the team can explain what makes your practice different in plain language.

A clear brand also helps with recruitment. People want to work for a clinic that knows what it stands for and treats its team consistently.

The final step is connecting a strong brand to operations. Marketing brings people in, but policies, processes, tools and technology carry the experience. The right systems and software make it easier for the team to deliver what the brand promises.

How Veterinary Practice Management Software Supports Your Practice

Good practice management software helps the team act on the priorities above. The best systems reduce manual work, improve visibility and give managers cleaner ways to run the clinic.

It Reduces Admin Across Everyday Workflows

Admin builds up when reminders, client messages, invoices, notes and follow-ups all need manual handling.

Veterinary practice management software can bring these tasks into a clearer workflow. Automated reminders can reduce repetitive reception work. Templates can make notes and estimates faster to prepare. Better task visibility can help the team see what still needs action before the end of the day.

Covetrus Ascend supports cloud-based workflows across bookings, consults, records, billing, reminders, reporting and inventory. AU/NZ practices report saving up to 16+ hours per week with Ascend.

It Helps You Catch Missed Charges Earlier

Missed charges are rarely caused by one big failure. More often, they come from small workflow gaps: an item missed during the consult, a treatment not added to the invoice, or a diagnostic charge left out during handover.

A PMS can help managers review those patterns more consistently. Ascend supports estimates, billing workflows and reporting, which can help teams compare what was recommended, what was delivered and what was charged.

The goal is better visibility, not blame. When the system makes charge capture easier, the team has a better chance of protecting revenue while keeping the client experience clear.

👉 See how Covetrus Ascend helps veterinary teams reduce admin and improve workflow visibility in the on-demand demo.

It Gives Managers Cleaner Data for Planning

Practice managers need numbers they can use without spending hours cleaning up reports.

A good PMS should help track revenue, appointments, unpaid invoices, missed-charge patterns, inventory, client retention and team workload. These numbers support better decisions around pricing, rosters, service mix and capacity.

For clinics that want deeper business intelligence, Vetlytics is a separate Covetrus solution that helps track revenue, invoices, retention, compliance and care plans in a dashboard environment.

It Improves Inventory and Stock Control

Inventory affects cash flow, client experience and clinical readiness.

When stock control sits outside the PMS, teams can lose visibility over usage, ordering, pricing and charge capture. Practice management software can help connect inventory to the work happening in the clinic, so managers can review stock movement, reduce leakage and understand where margins are being affected.

This is especially useful when paired with regular KPI reviews. If the clinic is already checking revenue, average transaction charge and missed charges, inventory should ideally sit in the same conversation.

It Supports Training After Go-Live

Software adoption does not end after implementation.

New employees still need to learn the system. Existing staff still need refreshers. Managers still need a way to track support issues, assign learning and keep team knowledge current.

The Covetrus Customer Portal gives Ascend, RxWorks and VisionVPM users one place for support, training, knowledge resources and account management. Teams can use AI-powered search, submit and track support cases, enrol staff in self-paced courses and monitor training progress.

That makes software support part of ongoing practice management, rather than something the clinic only thinks about during setup.

3 Best Veterinary Practice Management Software

The right software depends on clinic type, workflow complexity and support needs. These three options cover the main pathways a practice manager is likely to consider.

Covetrus Ascend

Covetrus Ascend is best for AU/NZ clinics that want supported cloud-based practice management software with onboarding, training and customer success built around the switch.

Key capabilities include:

Cloud-based access for bookings, records, billing, reminders, inventory and reporting
Simple 3-step onboarding with configuration, training and go-live support
24/7 customer support and dedicated customer success
Covetrus Customer Portal access for support, learning and account management
No lock-in Ascend contracts
Reported savings of up to 16+ hours per week

Best for: Companion animal clinics, start-up practices, mobile teams and growing AU/NZ clinics that want to reduce admin without managing a cloud transition alone.

VisionVPM

VisionVPM is best for practices that need more advanced workflow depth across mixed animal, equine, farm or large animal care.

It supports small animal, large animal and mixed practices, including clients such as pet owners, farm staff, herd or flock managers, syndicates, stables and equine owners. VisionVPM is also a good fit where advanced financial control, field work and long-standing practice processes need careful support.

Key capabilities include:

Practice management for small animal, large animal and mixed practices
Support for equine, farm and large animal workflows
Advanced management tools for financial control and operational efficiency
Australian and New Zealand support
VisionVPM-specific articles, training videos, webinars and release walkthroughs

Best for: Equine, farm, large animal and mixed practices that need specialist workflow depth beyond a simple companion animal PMS.

ezyVet

ezyVet is a strong choice for larger or more complex practices that need configurable cloud software and a broad integration ecosystem. It supports workflows across clinical records, billing, inventory, diagnostics, reporting, reminders and client communication.

Key capabilities include:

Cloud-based veterinary practice management
100+ integrations across practice, diagnostic and business tools
Configurable clinical records, invoicing and inventory workflows
Reporting across finance, appointments, stock and client information
Reminder and communication workflows
API options for custom integrations

Best for: Specialty hospitals, emergency clinics, equine teams, universities and corporate groups that need deeper configuration and integration breadth.

Simplify Veterinary Practice Management With Covetrus

Veterinary practice management is easier when the team has the right workflows, training and visibility behind them.

Covetrus supports AU/NZ practices with cloud PMS software, established practice management solutions, customer success, training, support and business intelligence tools designed around real clinic operations.

👉 Book a demo to see how Covetrus can support your practice.

FAQs

What is the difference between veterinary practice management and a practice management system (PMS)?

Veterinary practice management is the overall discipline. A PMS is the software that supports bookings, records, billing, reporting and workflows.

What qualifications does a veterinary practice manager need in Australia or New Zealand?

Usually, experience counts first. Formal practice management training, leadership courses or business qualifications can help managers build stronger operational skills.

How do you measure good practice management?

Track a small set of KPIs: revenue per FTE, missed charges, no-show rate, client retention, stock control and team workload.

Can AI support veterinary practice management?

Yes, prudently. AI veterinary practice management tools can help with search, documentation and admin support, but clinical judgement still stays with the team.