A Practical Guide to Vet Payment Processing for Busy Clinics

Payment processing might not be the first thing you think about when evaluating your veterinary PIMS, but it’s a crucial part of nearly every client and patient interaction. Slow checkout processes, card machine issues, manual entry errors, and end-of-day reconciliation headaches all create unnecessary friction for your team and your clients.

For practice managers, disconnected payment systems can lead to hours spent tracking down discrepancies and missed charges. For reception staff, they can cause longer client wait times and more room for error during the busiest parts of the day.

Integrated vet payment processing addresses these problems by connecting your payment tools directly to your PIMS. An all-in-one payment tool frees up valuable time that reception staff can spend on other tasks, reduces the risk of overdue or missed payments, and provides an enhanced customer service experience and greater accessibility to care with flexible and recurring payment options.

Here's how vet payment processing works and what to consider when switching to a new veterinary payment platform.

What is vet payment processing?

Vet clinic payment processing is the process by which your veterinary clinic collects, records, and reconciles client payments. For many veterinary practices, this includes card payments using a terminal, keyed-in transactions, secondary insurance or finance payments, and in some cases, online payments or card-on-file billing.

Standalone card terminals that aren't directly connected to the practice management software require a team member to manually enter a payment amount, select a payment type, and sometimes key in card numbers by hand. Then, they navigate to the PIMS invoicing system to indicate payment was made.

When reconciling the books at the end of the day, there may be errors from this manual process. Being off by just one number in a key sequence can throw everything off, leaving team members to scour the day’s transactions to find and correct the error.

The future of vet payment processing is platforms that are integrated directly into veterinary PIMS to eliminate errors. These systems connect the card terminal or online payment tool to billing, inventory, and invoicing systems, so each payment is automatically recorded against the correct client and invoice.

Modern systems also benefit pet owners by enabling veterinary practices to offer a wider array of payment options, including insurance reimbursements, financing plans, split payments, online payments, and click-to-pay links on their devices.

The hidden cost of manual payment handling 

If your clinic processes payments outside of your PIMS, your team is likely spending more time, energy, and attention on payment-related tasks than you realize. Here’s what it could be costing you:

• Time: Your team has to reconcile each transaction and track down errors at the end of the day. Printing a full list of the day’s payments, comparing each to the PIMS report, finding errors, and fixing them each day could be pushing your reception team into overtime.
• Errors: Miskeyed amounts at the card machine, mismatched records between the terminal and your software, and missed billing for items added during a visit are common in clinics running disconnected systems. 
• Team member experience: Reading card numbers over the phone, managing slow checkouts during high-traffic periods, and switching between a card terminal and the PIMS screen make checkout harder for your team and less comfortable for clients.

Veterinary reception teams interact with clients most often. An inefficient, error-prone process doesn't set these team members up for success and can lead to increased work stress, a less-than-ideal client experience, and expensive staff turnover. 

"Provet Pay has been huge for us. You just can't make mistakes with the card machine, which makes life a lot easier." — Dr. Katie Wain, BVSc, Co-founder of Pear Tree Vets

What are the benefits of integrated payment processing? 

With integrated veterinary payment processing solutions, your card terminals and online payment tools connect directly to your PIMS, and each transaction is recorded and reconciled against the correct client record. 

Online payment processing for vet clinics is increasingly accessible, and choosing a PIMS with built-in payment tools changes the day-to-day for both practice managers and front-desk teams. Here are the benefits:

• Automatic invoice reconciliation: You no longer need to cross-reference a terminal printout with their software at the end of the day. 
• One connected checkout: The entire checkout process, from generating the invoice to collecting payment, is completed from a single screen.
• Fewer errors and cleaner records: Typing less, switching between screens less often, and no longer re-entering amounts by hand can significantly reduce error rates. 

Practice managers get cleaner cash flow reporting and fewer missed charges. Front-desk staff get a faster checkout with fewer manual steps. Juggling many client care tasks at once can be stressful, so eliminating unnecessary end-of-day administrative work is crucial to their work-life balance. 

Improving the checkout experience also means better service for clients, with shorter lines and fewer clients becoming upset with the front desk or the practice as a whole. In veterinary practice, the last impression clients have can be as important as the first.

"It has been really helpful to have our card payments reconciled with Provet so easily, and we never really have any errors with our end-of-day banking. [It] saves us loads of time." — Dr. Ellie Lee, BVSc, veterinarian and director of Manchester Cat Clinic

How do payment links work? 

Payment links let you send a client a secure URL via email or text that directs clients to a payment page displaying their invoice. The client can then enter their payment details and complete the transaction on their device, and your PIMS automatically records the payment.

Payment links are useful for follow-up invoices, deposits, or situations where the client isn't physically in the clinic. Instead of taking card numbers over the phone or waiting for a client to return, your team can send a quick link and move on.

For clients, payment links offer a familiar, convenient online checkout experience they can complete on their phone or computer. For your team, they remove the need to handle sensitive card details, reducing security risks and the time your staff spends on phone-based payments.

"What we love is the Provet Pay link. The checkout process seems swifter because the card machines automatically talk to Provet. That's all just one screen. We couldn't do that before. It would take us probably five minutes to do something like that, whereas now we can do it in 20 seconds." — Sue Towers, practice manager of Milestone Veterinary Centre

How to improve the payment experience for your clients 

A good payment experience is crucial to clients' overall impression of the practice. When they pay in a way that's convenient, fast, and safe for them, they leave happy and willing to come back. Plus, there are multiple benefits to the team and practice.

Here are a few features that may be helpful:

• Multiple ways to pay: In-clinic card payments, online payment links, card-on-file, and mail order/telephone order (MOTO) options let clients choose what’s best for their situation. 
• Flexible and recurring payments: Some clients need to split an invoice across two payment methods, or split a large bill into smaller payments over time. Built-in flexible payment options make this easy to handle within your PIMS.
• Wellness and health care plans: With recurring billing features in your PIMS, you can build and manage your own wellness or health care plans in-house rather than relying on a third-party administrator. 
• Insurance billing: For the pet insurance payment process (direct to vet or reimbursement), having all payments linked to client accounts makes claims management easier.

The more payment options clients have, the easier it becomes to afford recommended care for their pets. This improves health care for pets seen at your practice and the broader community, and it makes conversations about care easier for the team.

"We save the client's card to the system and just hit a button, and it's done. There's no having to ring up and put card details down the phone." — Dr. Ellie Lee, BVSc, veterinarian and director of Manchester Cat Clinic

How does Provet Pay work? 

Provet Pay is built directly into the Provet workspace, so your team can collect payments and track billing from the same screens they already use for other tasks, including scheduling, records, and invoicing.

At checkout, team members generate an invoice and collect payment via the card terminal, which sends the confirmation directly to the PIMS and automatically closes the invoice. Provet Pay also supports remote payments via link, a card on file, or MOTO transactions, giving clients the flexibility to pay however they’d like.

Recurring billing features let you set up and manage wellness plans, phased payments, and split invoices directly within Provet. Plus, you can also build and administer health care plans in-house, improving profitability while offering clients a more affordable way to budget for their pet's preventive care.

Provet values data security, so all card transactions are tokenized and processed through a PCI DSS Level 1-compliant processor, the highest security standard available in payment processing. Provet also holds ISO 27001:2022 certification and complies with GDPR standards, providing additional data protection across the entire workspace.

"We actually switched our practice management system to Provet specifically because Provet Pay was available. Everything is so much smoother now, and we would never go back." — Jenny Garland, veterinary consultant and clinic manager, Sweden

Rethinking payments with Provet

If your team is tired of spending evenings reconciling card machine receipts, correcting billing errors, mailing paper statements, or taking card numbers over the phone, integrated payment processing can give you that time back. 

See Provet Pay and other Provet features in action by booking a demo with our team.