# Glossary

Short explanations of the words used in Veterian.

Most of these words are ordinary. What matters is what they mean *here*, because several of them are used more precisely in Veterian than in conversation — and two or three of them are the difference between finding a record and not.

Each entry links to the guide that covers it properly.

## People and Patients

| Term | What it means in Veterian |
|---|---|
| **Customers** | The pet's owner: the person who books, pays and receives messages. Every other record hangs off this one. See [Add a client](/patients/add-a-client) |
| **Pets** | The patient. A pet belongs to exactly one client, so the client is created first. See [Add a pet](/patients/add-a-pet) |
| **Customer Group** | A label for reaching a set of clients at once — "boarding clients", "large animal". A client can belong to several |
| **Tags** | Free-form labels for grouping and filtering records |
| **Protocol Number** | Your clinic's own reference number for a patient. Veterian can assign it automatically, or you can type it |
| **Microchip Number** | The chip number. Optional, and useful on its own even without the implant date or location |
| **Private** | A badge on a field meaning staff-only: it is never shown to the client |

## The Clinic Day

| Term | What it means in Veterian |
|---|---|
| **Appointments** | A booking on the calendar. It is not yet a medical record. See [Create an appointment](/appointments/create-an-appointment) |
| **Visit/Appointment Types** | The kind of work being booked. It decides which staff can take the booking and the default slot length. See [Visit and appointment types](/settings/visit-types) |
| **Patient Check-in** | Marking the patient as arrived. This is what creates the visit record, so it is the moment an appointment becomes a visit |
| Visit | Everything the clinic did for one patient on one day: notes, treatments, prescriptions, and the invoice at the end. See [Record a visit](/visits/record-a-visit) |
| **Patient Checkout & Invoice** | The last step of a visit, where the treatments become invoice lines and the client pays |
| **Flowboard** | Today's visits as a board, one column per stage. Its columns *are* the visit's statuses, so moving a card changes the record. See [The Flowboard](/visits/flowboard) |
| **Request** | A booking a client made themselves, waiting for the clinic to confirm or reject it |
| **No Show** | The appointment time passed and the patient did not arrive |

## The Medical Record

| Term | What it means in Veterian |
|---|---|
| **SOAP Notes** | The examination record, in a fixed order: complaint, history, findings, assessment, diagnoses, plan |
| **Symptoms** | What the owner reports or the examination observes. Pet owners also pick from this list when booking online, so these are written in an owner's words. See [Symptoms and result templates](/settings/symptoms-and-result-templates) |
| **Diagnoses** | The clinician's conclusion, as opposed to the reported symptom. Picked from your clinic's list. See [Diagnoses](/settings/diagnoses) |
| **Examination Result Templates** | A small form your clinic defines once — a blood panel, a urinalysis — so the same test is recorded the same way every time |
| **Administered Treatments** | What was given to the patient. The same line is also the stock movement and the invoice line, which is why it is harder to undo than a note. See [Record a treatment](/visits/record-a-treatment) |
| **Prescription** | Written on the visit. An editable draft until you issue it, a fixed document afterwards. See [Write a prescription](/visits/write-a-prescription) |
| **Vaccination Interval (days)** | The gap to the next dose. The vaccination calendar is built from it |
| **Administered & Plan Next** | Marks this dose given and plans the next one. See [Record a vaccination](/visits/record-a-vaccination) |
| **Hospitalization** | In-patient stays. A patient occupies a *New Box* from admission until you empty it. See [Hospitalization](/visits/hospitalization) |

## Catalogue and Stock

| Term | What it means in Veterian |
|---|---|
| **Products** · **Medications** · **Services** | Three views of one catalogue. Everything a treatment, prescription or invoice line can name comes from it. See [Set up products and services](/inventory/products-and-services) |
| **Included in Medical Record** | The switch that lets an item appear on a visit. This is the usual reason a product cannot be found when recording a treatment |
| **Critical Stock Limit** | The level at which Veterian starts warning you that an item is running out |
| **New Stock Adjustment** | How you correct a count after a stocktake, rather than editing the original quantity |
| **Product Purchase** | An expense type that also puts the goods into stock — as opposed to a general expense, which only records the money. See [Record an expense](/billing/record-an-expense) |

## Money

| Term | What it means in Veterian |
|---|---|
| **Invoices** | What the client owes for what the clinic did. Adding a product to one deducts it from stock. See [Create an invoice](/billing/create-an-invoice) |
| **Outstanding Balance** | What a client still owes across all their invoices |
| **Credit Balance** | Money the client has paid that is not yet applied to an invoice — what a payment in advance becomes |
| **Payments** | Money received. A payment is a separate record from an invoice, which is why one payment can settle several. See [Record a payment](/billing/record-a-payment) |
| **Expenses** | What the clinic spent. The other direction from invoices and payments |
| **E-Invoice** · **E-Archive** · **E-SMM** | Legal electronic documents issued from an invoice, in Turkey. Issuing one freezes the invoice. See [E-documents](/integrations/e-documents) |

## Reaching Clients

| Term | What it means in Veterian |
|---|---|
| **Enable sending reminders to the customer for the appointment.** | The per-record switch deciding whether this one appointment or vaccination messages the client |
| **Reachable (notification opt-in)** | How many people on a list can actually be messaged. The rest have that channel switched off on their own record |
| Template | A message approved by WhatsApp Business (Meta) before it can be sent. WhatsApp does not allow free text to someone who has not written first. See [WhatsApp messaging](/integrations/whatsapp) |
| Credits | The balance bulk SMS and WhatsApp draw on. When it runs out those messages stop while other channels carry on |

## Access

| Term | What it means in Veterian |
|---|---|
| **Clinic Admin** | The setup area, visible only to clinic administrators |
| **User Roles** | A user holds one role, and the role carries the permissions. See [Users and roles](/settings/users-and-roles) |
| **Permissions** | What a role can reach, grouped by area of the system |
| **Doctor of Veterinary Medicine** | Marks a user as a veterinarian, which is what allows them to be assigned on visits and medical records |
| **Professional Number** | The veterinarian's registration number, printed on prescriptions above the signature line |

## Related

- [What is Veterian?](/getting-started/what-is-veterian) — the modules these words belong to
- [Your first week on Veterian](/getting-started/first-week) — the order they come up in