Switching veterinary software without losing data: a practical guide

What does switching veterinary software actually involve?

Switching veterinary software involves five steps in a fixed order: set up the practice, invite the team, bring the records across, let staff try it on real work, and only then invite clients. The order matters more than the pace.

1. Set up the practice. A practice admin sets opening hours, the reply address for client email, and the logo and colour for the owner app.
2. Invite your team. Everyone gets a role: admin, veterinarian, vet tech or front desk. Do this before importing visit history, so past visits can be assigned to the vet who saw the pet.
3. Bring your records across. Clients and pets first, then visit history, then vaccine history. Each file is previewed before anything is saved.
4. Try it on real work. Each person signs in, checks patients they know and books a few real appointments while the old system is still there.
5. Invite your clients. When the team is comfortable, start inviting pet owners to the owner app. There is no need to invite everyone at once.

A practice admin can do all of it, at the clinic's own pace, and stop and pick up again at any point. Both main imports are free.

What should you do before exporting anything?

Before exporting anything, read your current contract and ask your vendor two questions: what notice period applies, and what formats you can export in. The answers set your timeline more than any software does.

• Check the notice period. Many agreements renew automatically or need written notice. We could not read the contract terms for Cornerstone or AVImark on their vendors' public pages, so ask.
• Ask what you can export, and how. CSV or Excel is what most importers read. Ask specifically about clients and patients, visit history and vaccine history, and whether visit notes come out with the visits.
• Plan to keep the old system read-only. Do not cancel the day you move. Keep it available to look up lab results, invoices and older details for the first weeks, ideally longer.
• Pick a quiet week. The import itself is quick; checking it properly and getting staff comfortable takes a few days.

Vendor conversions can take time. Covetrus says its own AVImark data conversion takes 3 to 5 weeks for a first pass and 1 to 2 days for the final one. Capterra lists IDEXX's data conversion into Neo at US$590, a figure IDEXX does not publish. With PetGrid, you run the import yourself and pay nothing for it.

What PetGrid imports, file by file

PetGrid imports three files: clients and pets, visit history, and vaccine history. Each is read, shown to you row by row with anything it could not read, and saved only when you press save.

File 1: clients and pets. One row per pet, with the owner repeated across rows, as CSV or Excel. Headings do not have to match exactly: capitals, spaces and punctuation are ignored, and you can match any column to a PetGrid field yourself, with PetGrid making the first guess. Pet name is the one column the file cannot do without. Owners are matched by email, or by name and phone when there is no email, so a household with four pets arrives once. A pet listed twice for the same owner is left out the second time, and anyone already in PetGrid is left alone. If your old system records which owners agreed to marketing email, an optional consent column can carry that across too.

File 2: visit history. One row per visit, with headings close to these: Pet name, Owner email, Date, Time, Reason, Veterinarian, Notes. Each visit is filed as a completed appointment on the pet's chart. The note becomes a clinical entry marked as imported, naming the original clinician, and if that vet is on your PetGrid team the visit is assigned to them. Owner email is strongly recommended: without it, a pet name shared by two households is left out rather than guessed. Running the same file twice adds nothing twice.

File 3: vaccine history. One row per shot, with the pet, the owner, the vaccine, the date given and ideally the next due date, lot and manufacturer. Imported shots raise care reminders the same way as a shot entered on the chart, from the latest shot of each vaccine. A shot already on the chart is not added again, and a due date on or before the date given is dropped with a warning rather than saved wrong.

No clean export? Upload whatever you have in the same place, and PetGrid's AI reads it, including a PDF client list or photos of paper records, for client and pet details only. This uses AI, so it works when the clinic's AI setting is on. You check every row before anything is saved.

Nothing is written until you press save. If the preview looks wrong, fix the file and upload it again.

Two limits worth knowing: up to 2,000 rows are read per file, so split a larger export and import the parts one after another; and when dates could be read either way, like 03/04/2020, you are asked whether the file writes the month or the day first before anything is saved.

What PetGrid does not import

PetGrid imports weight history, care reminders and prescription history as history only, and upcoming appointments with no reminders or calls. It does not import lab results, invoice history or payments, inventory (which has its own stock import), or attachments. Staff and owner logins stay behind.

Upcoming appointments can be imported separately; every row in a visit history file is filed as a completed visit, so keep future bookings out of that file. Photos of paper record cards are read for client and pet details only, not for clinical history.

How do you check that nothing was lost?

Check the preview before saving, then compare a handful of patients you know well against the old system. A few minutes of checking finds what a summary count never will.

• Read the list of rows PetGrid could not read, each with its row number and the reason, and fix the file rather than the records.
• Compare the count of owners and pets with what the old system reports.
• Find three patients you know well and check their details, visit history and vaccines against the old system.
• Book, move and cancel a test appointment, so the first real one is not the first one.
• Vets and techs: write one clinical entry on a test patient and add an addendum, to see how corrections work. A saved entry is never edited.

Keep the old system available while you do this. PetGrid does not need it switched off, and having it to look things up in costs you nothing.

Can you get your data out of PetGrid again?

Yes. A clinic admin can download everything at any time from Settings as one ZIP file, and the records belong to the practice.

• A spreadsheet (CSV) for every table, and one data file (JSON) with all of it together, plus a README explaining the contents.
• A PDF of every patient's medical record, every issued invoice and credit note, and every signed consent form and approved estimate.
• The stored files: each pet's papers and pictures, and lab reports.

The whole-clinic export is for admins only, and PetGrid asks you to confirm it is really you before it starts. A single patient's complete record can also be released in one click, as a printable page and as data. After cancelling, the records are kept for 30 days, and the same export is free to download or to ask for. More on this is in the records and data FAQ.

The question to ask any vendor before you join is how you would leave. PetGrid's answer is one ZIP, at any time, from Settings.

How do your clients move with you?

Your clients move with you when your team invites them to the owner app, one person at a time, using the same email address you imported. Importing never emails anyone. Pet owners can also sign up for the free app on their own, with no clinic, and connect to your practice when they accept your invitation.

Invitations are sent from Clients by front desk staff or a practice admin. The email comes from your practice's name, replies go to your practice's reply address, and the link works for 30 days. When the owner accepts, PetGrid connects them to the record you already have, with their pets and history there, rather than starting them over empty. The owner app is free for pet owners, and a clinic on PetGrid gets it in its own name; see the app for your clients.

Switching from Cornerstone or AVImark

If you are leaving a server-based system, the exports are usually the familiar part. Cornerstone can export client and patient lists to CSV, and AVImark exports to CSV, both with one row per pet. Our Cornerstone alternative and AVImark alternative posts compare each system with PetGrid honestly, including where each is the better choice, and walk through the move step by step.

Questions people ask

Read the clinic questions and answers

The short version

Switching veterinary software without losing data is mostly about honesty and order: know what comes across, keep the old system for what does not, check patients you know, and only then invite clients. PetGrid's imports are free, preview every row before saving, and the export lets you leave with everything at any time.

The easiest way to see what PetGrid would make of your records is to upload your own export and read the preview before saving anything. Common questions are answered in the switching FAQ.