# The Dashboard

See today's appointments, active visits and the clinic's key numbers on the screen Veterian opens on.

**Dashboard** is where Veterian opens. *Here's what's happening with your clinic today.*

It is a starting point rather than a place to work: everything on it is a shortcut into the screen that actually holds the record.

## Where to Find This Section

**Dashboard** in the left menu, and the page you land on after signing in.

## The Four Counters

Along the top sit the numbers that decide whether today needs anything from you.

- **Today's Appointments**
- **Active Visits**
- **Critical Stock Warning**
- **Expiring Invoices**

| Counter | What it is telling you |
|---|---|
| **Today's Appointments** | How many patients are booked today |
| **Active Visits** | How many visits are open right now, not yet completed |
| **Critical Stock Warning** | Products that have fallen to or below their critical stock limit |
| **Expiring Invoices** | Invoices that have passed their due date and are still unpaid |

**Active Visits** is the one to watch during the day. A visit still open at closing time is usually one nobody checked out, and an uncompleted visit has no invoice. See [Record a visit](/visits/record-a-visit).

## Today's Lists

Two cards fill in the detail behind the first two counters:

- ****Today's Appointments**** lists the day's bookings with the **Customer**, **Pet**, **Duration** and **Status**.
- ****Active Visits**** lists visits under way, with the **Veterinarian / Staff** and where each has got to.

Both are read-only summaries. To move a patient through the day, use [The Flowboard](/visits/flowboard), which is built for exactly that.

## Vaccine Status

**Vaccine Status** groups the clinic's vaccinations by when they are due — **Today**, **This Week**, **Next Week** and **Overdue** — each split into **To Do** and **Done**.

**Overdue** is the number that matters. It is the backlog, and it only shrinks if someone works it. See [Client follow-ups](/communication/follow-ups) for sending the whole list a reminder at once.

## Product Stock Status

**Product Stock Status** is the early warning: **Zero Stock** and **Below Critical** counts against **Total Products**. **View All** opens the full picture in [Reports](/reports).

A product only appears here if stock tracking is on and it has a critical limit set. If a product you expect to see is missing, that is the reason. See [Set up products and services](/inventory/products-and-services).

## Notification Health

If messages failed today, the dashboard says so rather than leaving you to find out from a client: *There is an issue with notification delivery.*

> **Note**
> *Delivery errors may occur due to invalid contact information, unreachable numbers, or service provider issues.* So the usual cause is a wrong number or address on one client record, not a fault across the clinic. See [Notification settings](/settings/notifications).

## Quick Actions

The shortcuts cover the records a clinic creates most often — **New Appointment**, **New Customer**, **New Pet**, **New Invoice**, **New Payment**, **New Expense**, **New Product** — plus **Clinic Statistics**.

They open the same forms as the left menu. They save a click, nothing more, so use whichever you find faster.

## The Setup Checklist

A new clinic sees a checklist on the dashboard instead: billing info, visit types, a first customer and pet, a product, an appointment, and finally a visit checked in and out — *Complete your first visit with invoice — Experience the full workflow!*

It disappears as you complete the steps, and [Your first week on Veterian](/getting-started/first-week) is the same path written out, in the order the records depend on each other.

> **Caution**
> **Dismiss** hides the checklist for good: *Are you sure you want to hide the onboarding checklist? Once dismissed, it will not appear again.* Nothing is lost — the steps are ordinary screens you can still reach — but the checklist itself does not come back.

## Related

- [Your first week on Veterian](/getting-started/first-week) — the setup path the checklist follows
- [The Flowboard](/visits/flowboard) — where the clinic day is actually run
- [Reports](/reports) — the numbers behind the counters