Is your veterinary PMS working as hard as your team?

Veterinary practices rely on their practice management information system every day, but many still build workarounds around tools they already own. As Ryan Norton, Director of Product for MWI Animal Health, explains, “Merlin's depth is often hidden behind daily habit and the constant grind of running a successful practice.”

4 Merlin features that surprise and delight

The practices that get the most delight from Merlin are the ones who discover, often years in, that capabilities they assumed required separate tools were already there, waiting to be switched on.

1. Automated reminders

Automatic appointment reminders can be tailored by patient, reminder type, and schedule — from annual appointments to anti-parasitic follow-ups. Rather than relying on memory or separate communication tools, practices can manage email and SMS reminders directly from Merlin.

Practices may have relationships with companies that manage client communications. “They don’t realise that they could actually just utilise Merlin and they wouldn't need to have a separate partnership with some of these communication practices,” notes Ellie Waldron, formerly with MWI. Keeping everything within the same eco-system saves some of the front desk staff’s mental load from clicking between applications.

Turning on automated appointment reminders—either through email or SMS—has positive reverberations throughout the practice. In fact, one practice using Merlin lowered no-shows from 12 percent to 5 percent and reclaimed 45 minutes per day of time that receptionists spent on the phone. For the veterinary nurses, knowing which pets were coming in ensured they had adequate prep time. And for the veterinarians, this equaled fewer blank spaces in their schedules, keeping up both revenue and momentum.

2. Inventory management

Inventory is one of the clearest places where Merlin can affect profitability. Practices can order product directly through Merlin, supported by wholesale ordering, stock, and supply chain integration with MWI.

Merlin reports can show the monetary value of stock on hand, helping teams challenge whether they are tying up too much cash in slow-moving products. Reorder parameters also help the practice stay ahead of shortages without relying on someone to notice an empty shelf.

Merlin can also reduce missed charges. “They [the veterinarian] will apply a product to a patient in a consultation and then they'll forget to go and charge it up afterwards,” Norton says. Those small gaps can create stock variances and lost revenue over time.

The ordering and tracking function closes loops that many practices do not realize are costing them money. “It really is only one review you need to do with your stock to get it all up-to-date in Merlin,” says Waldron. “Then beyond that, it is much more manageable to keep on top of.”

Automatic price updates add another safeguard. “That's really beneficial, I think, for the practice as a whole, because it ensures that they are always selling at the latest list price from the wholesaler,” notes Norton. “There's never any chance that they are losing any money from paying more and not selling it at the correct price.”

3. Document and messaging management

Merlin can also reduce communication gaps between clinicians, nurses, and reception. Staff can send internal messages through the system rather than relying on WhatsApp groups or verbal handoffs.

For follow-up appointments, a veterinarian or nurse can enter the request directly in Merlin from the consult room, and it goes straight to reception. “I've never seen that in another practice management system and anyone we ever show it to, the reception team specifically really likes it,” remarks Waldron.

Those requests are becoming easier to enter as Merlin’s mobile capabilities expand.

Document features can also replace paper forms that sit in piles waiting to be scanned. Staff can enter information directly into Merlin, using merge fields and prompts to standardize what is collected and improve the value of the data.

4. Reporting capabilities

Reporting is where Merlin can shift from workflow tool to business intelligence tool. Merlin reports can answer questions like who has not visited in 12 months, which clients declined dental treatment, and what pending insurance exposure looks like without exporting to Excel. One practice ran a report on canine patients over 8 years old without a senior health check in 18 months, sent targeted reminders, and booked 35 appointments.

Task lists can also show the location of every case across consult rooms, prep rooms, operating theater, and recovery, giving teams clearer handover visibility than a stationary whiteboard.

And when comes time for invoicing, users can create procedure packages, like a neuter bundle, or dental scale and polish and extractions template to avoid rebuilding the same invoice line by line every time.

 
Is Merlin the PMS for you?

There are features that remain consistent across brands. What sets PMS apart is the customer service after the install.

“What is the onboarding like? What is the level of support that you will get? How long are people usually waiting for a ticket to be resolved? Can you actually pick up the phone and speak to someone or do you just get put in a queue?” Waldron asks.

Merlin’s strength is not only functionality; it is the service wrapped around the software. Dedicated onboarding, migration support, tailored release management, and veterinary-specialist support help reduce the risk practices often associate with changing PMS.

• RCVS record-keeping standards
• GDPR consent management
• DEFRA/APHA reporting for farm practices
• Out-of-hours handover workflows for emergency providers.

Knowing when to switch

Changing PMS is not to be taken lightly. But if you are wondering if it’s the right move for your practice, ask yourself these questions.

• Does staff maintain parallel systems for communications and reminders?
• Do they spend more time on software instead of patient care?
• Do clinicians double-key information, entering notes in PMS and insurance claims?
• Do they dread month-end reporting because data needs to be extracted manually?
• Do they spend too much time on hold with software support?

Ultimately, a PMS should make the practice feel more in control, not more constrained. Merlin helps practices protect revenue, improve visibility, reduce workarounds, and keep more of the day-to-day workflow in one trusted place. If your current system is hiding useful data, creating duplicate processes, or leaving your team without timely support, it may be time to look again at what is possible.