How James Street Vets Spends Less Time on Reporting with Ask Provet

“Ask Provet is my favorite. It’s such an easy way to get the information you need in a really easy-to-digest format.” - Brooke Paul, CVLM (Mkt), Business Development Manager

James Street Veterinary Centre, an independent companion animal practice in Louth, England, has been caring for the town’s pets in various forms for over a hundred years. Veterinarian Sophie Bett and her husband bought the practice in 2010, and today it employs over 30 people, including ten veterinarians, and looks after around 4,700 active patients across two sites. 

The practice signed with Provet, the all-in-one veterinary PIMS, in November 2022, and went live in early 2023. In 2026, James Street Veterinary Centre moved out of its long-time ancestral home in the town centre and into a bespoke-built site about four times the size, five minutes away. Paired with a second, consult-only branch that opened in 2025, it’s the clearest sign of how far James Street has grown under Sophie’s ownership. Provet has kept pace with the practice every step of the way.

Replacing a tired PIMS that took days to run reports

Sophie never set out to run a business. “I wasn’t much interested in the business side of it,” she says. “I love the variety of my work, and that the day never works out quite the way you think it will.” But soon after Sophie took over the hundred-year-old practice, its ageing systems started to show. “We had been using a kind of bespoke practice management system that unfortunately had gotten to a stage where it was a bit old and tired,” she says. The COVID pandemic made the gaps impossible to ignore: no online check-in for clients calling in nonstop, no remote payments, and no way for staff to work from home. “I kept wondering, ‘Why can’t I do these things?’” Sophie says. “Alarm bells started ringing at that point.”

Brooke Paul, Business Development Manager, joined the practice on the same system and describes it as “almost a free-for-all,” with no set process for staff to follow and stock that was hard to track from the shelf. Reporting was just as loose. “I used to request a report to come to my email but it would be quite a long time after that it’d actually turn up,” she says, and what arrived rarely matched what she needed.

Why James Street Veterinary Centre chose Provet

The switch started with a shortlist. Sophie and Brooke compared vendors at the London Vet Show and Provet stood out for matching Sophie’s long wish list without her needing to ask twice: “The Provet salesperson was ticking all the boxes without me even prompting him.” She was sold: “Provet is like the next generation.” 

For Brooke, coming from a system that had a ‘1996 Windows’ feel, the appeal was just as practical. “Because Provet’s browser-based, it felt really intuitive and easy to follow,” she says. Just as important was the structure it gave the practice: “We found that Provet was a lot better for making sure that things were done exactly how we’d set them at the top, rather than trying to find mistakes people might be making.”

On-site training during the migration, paired with a small group of internal Provet champions who could field day-to-day questions before they reached Provet’s support team, helped the rest of the practice adjust. 

What changed day to day

The impact of changing PIMS showed up fastest on the invoice. “Things like dispensing fees, injection fees, lab fees - all go onto the invoice automatically,” says Sophie. “Fewer things are missed, which is a massive benefit.” X-ray images and lab results now transfer straight into the patient record too: “It’s quick and automatically enters the patient record. Lots of time is saved, and the clients love that I can show them results right away.”

Appointment reminders have changed how staff spend their time too. “Clients love the new appointment reminders! There’s so much more information on them, and they offer a direct link to our calendar. And I can set up those reminders at lunch hour or at night at home, rather than spending all that time on the phone.” Integrated payments have also been a huge win. “The amount of admin time that has been saved is incredible. And Provet Pay links let clients easily pay from home. The number of payments we've received that, honestly, we didn't expect to receive is quite amazing.” Sophie estimates that reducing missed charges alone has put thousands of pounds back into the practice every week, money that she’s reinvested in equipment and staff events. “When I see positive change like that from something I’ve implemented, it makes it all really worthwhile.”

Ask Provet speeds up reporting

Today, Brooke uses Ask Provet for most of the reporting that used to sit in her inbox queue: revenue, active client numbers, average transaction value, and net client growth. With two sites now, she’ll also ask for a roll-in number month-on-month for each of the clinic locations to compare how each is performing. 

“Ask Provet has definitely saved time,” she says. “It’s been really nice to ask for a certain piece of data and just get that bit of information, instead of it being like a big report.” For things like new client numbers or a full item usage breakdown, Brooke still turns to Provet’s traditional reports - Ask Provet is her go-to for a fast answer, and the reports are there when she needs the complete detail behind it. 

The practice is currently preparing for the UK’s CMA reforms, which are expected to require practices to display information like their most commonly used medications and pricing, with guidance still being formalised. For an independent practice like James Street Veterinary Centre, compliance work like this doesn’t get outsourced to a dedicated team. Brooke used Ask Provet to get ahead of it, asking for the practice’s ten most commonly dispensed medications over the past six months, along with current retail prices. “It was literally like a two-minute job,” Brooke says. Manually, the same task would mean pulling an item usage report and cross-referencing it against the price list. “It’s really helpful having AI in the background of a PIMS. It helps speed up that process.”

What’s next for James Street Veterinary Centre?

The second branch is exceeding expectations one year after opening and moving into its new custom-build. With more space at the main site, the practice is weighing further diagnostics and possibly more branches too. With Sophie at the helm, the practice’s ambitions are quickly being realised. “I’m a lot more interested in the business side of things,” she says, “and I absolutely love and thrive off changing to Provet and seeing the difference.” 

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FAQs

What is Ask Provet?

Ask Provet is an AI Agent that lets practice teams ask plain-language questions about their own data - like revenue or active client numbers - and get an answer right away, without building a report from scratch. 

Can Ask Provet help with CMA pricing transparency requirements?

Practices can use Ask Provet to pull information like their most commonly dispensed medications and current pricing in minutes, which is useful as the CMA’s pricing transparency guidance takes shape.

Does Ask Provet replace manual practice reports?

No. Ask Provet is a conversational layer over the same data. The reports stay where they are. Use Ask Provet to get an answer quickly, and use the reports when you need to dig into the details or export.

Does Ask Provet work against data across multiple clinics or departments?
Yes, Ask Provet can look at data from multiple departments, assuming the user has access to those departments.