A mobile practice, or any practice that does home and farm visits, asks a question of its records system that a clinic never does: what happens when the consult is in somebody's kitchen, the signal is one bar and the next appointment is twenty minutes away. Mobile vet software is not a separate category so much as a set of demands most systems meet badly, because they were designed for a desk. This page is what those demands actually are, what tends to break, and what to test in a driveway before you commit a practice to a system on the strength of a demo run over office wifi.
What has to work with one bar of signal
Three things: reading the patient's history, writing the note, and recording what came out of the car. If any of those needs a round trip to a server the visit stops while the phone thinks, and after the third time it happens the notes get written in the evening from memory, which is worse than paper. Ask specifically what the system does offline, and do not accept a demo over office wifi as an answer: ask for it on a phone with the data turned off.
Stock in a car boot is still stock
A mobile vet carries a dispensary in a vehicle, and the drugs and consumables used at a visit need to leave that stock and land on the patient record the same way they would in a clinic. Systems built for a single site often assume one stock location and cannot tell the car from the shelf. If your practice runs both, ask directly whether stock can be held by location and whether a visit can draw from the right one, because a count that ignores the car is a count that is always wrong.
Getting paid at the doorstep
The invoice is easiest to settle while you are standing there, which means the system has to raise it on the phone and take payment on the phone, or send a link that arrives before you have driven away. Ask whether payment is part of the visit or a job for the office the next morning, because the difference shows up in the practice's debtor days rather than in any feature comparison. Patientvo takes payment through your own connected Stripe account, so funds go to you directly.
What the seat count looks like for a mobile practice
Mobile practices are often smaller in headcount and still need a full set of logins: the vet in the car, whoever answers the phone, and whoever does the books. Per-seat pricing does not get cheaper because the practice has no building. Put the real number into the free comparison sheet on this site along with the migration quote and the training days, and read the per-vet-per-month figure over the term you expect to keep the system.
Questions people ask about mobile vet software
What makes software mobile vet software?
Working on a phone with poor signal, holding stock by location so the car is not the shelf, and letting the visit be invoiced and paid at the doorstep. Very few systems are sold as mobile; most simply do these three things well or badly.
Does it need to work offline?
Reading history and writing a note do. If either requires a live connection, notes get written from memory in the evening, which is a worse record than paper. Test it on a phone with data switched off, not on office wifi.
Can I take payment at a home visit?
With most modern systems, yes, either on the phone or by a link sent from the visit. Patientvo does it through your own connected Stripe account, so the money reaches you rather than passing through us.
Is mobile software cheaper because the practice is small?
Not usually. Per-seat pricing counts logins, not buildings, and a mobile practice still needs the vet, the phone and the books covered. The free sheet on this site prices that properly over the term.