🚀 New Features & Capabilities
✨If you only have time to read about one feature, make it this first one.✨
We’ve completely reimagined how invoices, payments, refunds, and returns work in Shepherd - and it’s a game-changer for your daily workflow.
Invoice & Payments | Workflow Optimization
We’ve redesigned how invoices, payments, refunds, and returns are managed in Shepherd to make financial workflows more intuitive, guided, and error-resistant.
This update introduces a modern Financial tab layout, clearer invoice and payment views, and streamlined refund and return flows empowering teams to process billing tasks more confidently and efficiently.
Modernized Financial Tab
The Financial tab now features a cleaner, more organized layout with four focused sub-tabs:
Invoices
Payments
Invoice Line Items
Payment Methods
A centralized More Actions menu consolidates key actions such as Quick Invoice, Issue Refund, and Print Statement for faster access.
Invoices: Intuitive, Editable, and Actionable
In-line editing for production users, discounts, and pricing directly on Active invoices - no more secondary modals, meaning fewer clicks and faster updates.
Simplified patient and item groupings for cleaner viewing. Sub-organization by item type has been removed for improved visibility and less scrolling.
Collapsible invoice sections with a new total row allow for quick financial review - see more key details at a glance.
Enhanced Payments section now displays dedicated tiles for Payments, Refunds, and Goodwill Refunds, improving clarity and ease of use.
Clear visual indicators highlight Refunded and Partially Refunded invoices, so financial status is always visible at a glance.
Payments: Streamlined and Guided Flow
New Payment Type section clearly differentiates Shepherd Pay and Non-Shepherd Pay methods.
Tile-based design with intuitive icons and short descriptions for each payment option.
Guided payment creation flow with visible Pay All Invoices, Add to Credit Balance, and Payment Summary panels.
Send Payment Link option for Shepherd Pay enables text-to-pay directly from checkout.
Simplified modals for Cash, Check, and Custom Payments to support faster entry.
Refunds: Clear, Consistent, and Contextual
Unified Refund workflow accessible from both invoices and the Financial tab.
Clear differentiation between Payment Refunds, Credit Balance Refunds, and Goodwill Refunds.
Refund pages mirror the new payment layout for intuitive navigation.
Refund Successful modal now summarizes key details and links directly to the originating invoice.
Goodwill Refunds can now be processed with fewer steps and greater emphasis on the refund action, making the workflow faster and more intuitive.
Returns: Smarter Checked-Out Invoice Actions
New Return Items button with a guided, step-by-step modal for restocking and lot selection.
Updated instructional messaging clarifies how to process returns accurately and efficiently.
By breaking out each financial action into clear, guided workflows, Shepherd enables your team to resolve billing tasks faster, with greater confidence, and fewer errors - delivering a smoother experience for both clients and staff. Learn more about Invoices and Payments in Shepherd.
Reporting | Client Communication Report
We’ve added a new Client Communication Report that provides a centralized, filterable view of all client message activity - both successful and failed. This report fills the visibility gap between successful communications and failed notification tracking, allowing clinics to confirm that reminders, confirmations, and other client-facing messages are sending as expected.
This new report gives full visibility into client communication workflows, ensuring that critical messages - such as reminders, appointment confirmations, and invoices - are delivered reliably. It supports operational transparency, improves client engagement monitoring, and reduces the need to contact support for message delivery verification. Learn more about the new Client Communication Report.
SOAP | New Single Page Comprehensive Format
We’ve introduced a new Single Page SOAP format that consolidates all SOAP sections into one continuous, vertically scrolling page. Designed in response to your feedback, this new layout streamlines navigation, reduces tab switching, and improves usability across desktop and mobile devices.
What’s New
Single Page Format Option - you can choose between Tabular (current Comprehensive SOAP) and Single Page formats for comprehensive SOAPs. Preference is user-specific and set under User Profile → Preferences → SOAP Format and will apply to all Comprehensive SOAPS (past, present, and future).
Streamlined Layout - all SOAP sections (Summary, Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan, Prescriptions, Discharge Instructions, and Invoicing) appear on a single scrollable page.
Collapsible Sections - each major section can expand or collapse, allowing you to focus only on what’s relevant. Commonly used sections (e.g., Subjective, Vitals, Assessment) load expanded by default while secondary areas (e.g., Imaging, Forms, Laboratory) load collapsed for a cleaner view.
Toggles - enabling quick navigation between sections.
Improved Navigation - a fixed header at the top shows the SOAP title, status, check-in time, and section icons. Clicking an icon scrolls to that section, and the current section highlights as you move through the page.
Optimized for Mobile and Tablet Use - vertical scrolling replaces tab navigation for faster input on smaller devices. Touch-friendly collapsible fields improve accessibility in mobile charting.
The Single Page SOAP format significantly reduces navigation time, especially in high-volume or emergency settings. By eliminating excessive tab switching and optimizing scrolling, it enables faster, clearer, and more intuitive clinical documentation - whether on desktop or mobile. Learn more about the Comprehensive SOAP.
🛠️ Existing Feature Updates
Estimates | Min/Max Price Range
You can now define both a minimum and maximum price range per unit for estimate items. This gives your clinic greater flexibility and aligns estimates with real-world scenarios where procedure costs may vary.
Key Benefits
Custom Unit-Based Price Ranges – Enter a minimum and maximum custom unit price for any estimate item that automatically multiplies by your defined minimum and maximum quantity range.
For example, a tooth extraction can be set at $50–150 unit pricing to account for variability in extraction complexity. The total estimate value will automatically adjust based on the item’s quantity range.
Custom Price Handling for Injections & Medications – When custom pricing is defined, injections and medications calculate as administration events per quantity, rather than by dosage. This ensures custom unit pricing is always applied consistently when transferring estimates to plan administration.
Easy Editing – Use the pencil icon in the item’s price cell to open the new Define Custom Pricing window and adjust values as needed.
Reset to Automatic Pricing – If you prefer to return to system-calculated pricing, you can reset with one click.
Clear Client Presentations – Clients will see only the price range you’ve defined (e.g., $100–300 total based on 2 teeth at $50–150 each), while your team can review manual adjustments in the estimate activity log.
This enhancement builds on your clinic’s existing ability to define min/max quantity ranges, giving you even more control over how estimates are calculated, presented, and customized - ensuring accuracy, transparency, and flexibility with every client interaction. Learn more about Estimates in Shepherd.
Inventory | Smarter Lot Handling & Clearer Returns
We’ve made significant improvements to how Shepherd manages lots during returns and administration. These updates make inventory tracking more intuitive, prevent confusion, and ensure accurate lot allocation.
Create New Lot Button - Now Smarter & Context-Aware
Previously, the “Create New Lot” button appeared even when it wasn’t needed - now it only shows when it should.
What’s New
Accurate Button Visibility: The “Create New Lot” button only appears when the original purchasing lot is unknown.
Automatic Lot Selection: If an original sale lot or lots are known, Shepherd automatically selects them for the return and disables the “Create New Lot” option.
Static Bundle Support: Lot return logic now applies consistently within static bundles, showing the modal only for items missing lot data.
Clarity for Non-Linked Items: For clinics that enabled lot tracking after sales, products must now be linked to an inventory item before quantities can be returned.
These updates ensure Shepherd reflects the real state of your lots, reducing confusion and keeping your inventory accurate.
Enhanced Lot Selection Modal - Better Visibility & Control
We’ve redesigned the Lot Selection modal to make it easier to understand how quantities are distributed across lots, prevent negative inventory, and improve First-In-First Out (FIFO) accuracy.
What’s New
Automatic Display of All Lots: All active lots now appear as separate rows with complete lot details - including Lot Number, Serial Number, Expiration Date, and Bottle Number - for full traceability.
Smart FIFO Allocation: Shepherd now automatically allocates administered quantities using first-in, first-out (FIFO) logic, drawing from the oldest available lots first to minimize the risk of negative balances.
Enhanced Negative Quantity Warnings:
A yellow banner alerts you when proceeding will result in negative inventory quantities.
A red caution icon appears next to affected lots, with hover text that clearly explains the overdraw (e.g., “Administering this amount exceeds available quantity by 2 mL.”)
These updates give teams greater confidence during treatments and prescriptions, helping prevent accidental overdraws while maintaining flexibility for valid edge cases.
Together, these enhancements bring clarity, accuracy, and consistency to Shepherd’s inventory workflows. Teams can return items, allocate doses, and manage bundles with fewer clicks and fewer errors.
Inventory | Units in UOM Now Support Decimal Quantities
Shepherd now supports decimal quantities in Unit of Measure (UOM) configurations, allowing clinics to accurately manage inventory items sold or packaged in non-integer amounts. This enhancement reflects the growing need for precision in veterinary inventory tracking, especially for items measured in fractional volumes or weights (e.g., 16.7 mL or 0.25 kg).
Click here for an Inventory Overview.
Invoice Notes | Improved Notes Behavior
We’ve updated how notes behave on the Invoice page to make it easier to keep internal communication separate from client-visible notes. Previously, when adding a note, the modal opened to Invoice Notes by default, which sometimes led to internal comments being mistakenly shared with clients.
What’s New
Internal Notes First – The Internal Notes tab now appears on the left and opens by default.
Consistent Behavior – When clicking the “+” or “Add Note,” the modal remains in the Internal Notes section.
This improvement was made directly in response to user feedback - thank you to everyone who shared suggestions and experiences around note visibility.
Reporting | Sales Tax Report by Zip Code
We’ve enhanced the Sales Tax Report to better support mobile and multi-region clinics that report sales tax by client Zip Code. Previously, all Zip Codes sharing the same tax rate were grouped into a single row, limiting visibility into where each sale occurred.
This change provides precise reporting for clinics operating across multiple cities, counties, or states - reducing reconciliation risk and ensuring compliance with jurisdiction-specific tax requirements. Learn more about the Sales Tax Report.
Scheduling | Update Confirmation Phrasing in Message Center
We’ve improved the SMS confirmation process for clients with multiple appointments to make replies clearer and confirmations more reliable. Previously, clients needed to include the word “Confirm” in their reply for Shepherd to process it, which often led to unrecognized responses. This update expands accepted reply formats to include number-only responses for smoother confirmation handling.
What’s New
Simplified SMS Replies: Clients can now confirm multiple appointments by replying with only the appointment numbers (e.g., “1”, “1-2”, or “1,2”).
Expanded Recognition Logic: Both number-only and “Confirm” phrased replies (e.g., “Confirm 1” or “Confirm 1,2”) are now accepted to ensure message compatibility.
Improved Client Experience: Reduces confusion and failed confirmations when clients respond using only appointment numbers.
This update ensures that clients’ SMS confirmations are processed correctly, even when they omit the word “Confirm.” It streamlines the appointment confirmation workflow, reduces manual follow-up, and improves reliability for multi-appointment clients. Learn more about Scheduled Appointment Notifications.
System-Wide | Pinning Behavior Update
We’ve standardized pinning interactions across Shepherd to improve consistency and ease of use. Previously, some modules required a double click to pin or unpin items, while others used a single click. This inconsistency caused confusion and slowed down workflows. With this update, pinning is now unified to single-click behavior across all areas where pinning is available.
Calendar View – Single-click to pin or unpin provider columns; pinned columns move to the front and stay visible while scrolling.
List View – Pin icons added next to provider names; single-click moves pinned providers to the top and syncs with Calendar View.
Prescriptions – Single-click to pin or unpin rows; pinned prescriptions move to the top and appear in the sidebar automatically.
Patient History Notes – Single-click pinning from the notes table; pinned notes move to the top for quick access.
✨Shepherd AI Updates
TranscribeAI | Accuracy & Workflow Improvements
In this release TranscribeAI adds background session refresh while the side panel is open, new in-line SOAP editing controls, and stricter placement rules for SOAP and physical exam content. These updates make transcription sessions more reliable and give veterinary staff more control over final note text.
Silent session refresh when side panel is open
TranscribeAI now silently refreshes your session token while the side panel is open. This prevents unexpected timeouts during long reviews or edits so veterinary staff can review and refine their work without reauthenticating or risking data loss.
In-line SOAP field feedback, formatting, and regeneration controls
Veterinary staff can now refine AI-generated SOAP content directly inside the chart. New in-line controls let users:
Give feedback on an individual SOAP field.
Reformat text for punctuation and layout.
Regenerate alternative phrasing or phrasing variations.
Restore the original transcription if you want to revert changes.
All actions can be done in the side panel so you decide exactly what text to place in
the patient note using your usual workflow.
SOAP and physical exam placement rules
TranscribeAI now follows stricter mapping rules when placing dictated content into SOAP fields and the physical exam area. Examples of the behavior you will see:
Weight, vitals, and discrete exam findings populate the physical exam (PE) fields automatically.
Subjective history items are placed into the Subjective section.
Assessment and plan items are separated into Assessment and Plan sections.
The result is more consistent and structured charting with less manual cleanup required after review. Learn more about TranscribeAI.
🧩Integrations & Data Connection Updates
CSI-360 Integration | Controlled Substance Management
Shepherd’s CSI-360 integration is now in open beta. This integration connects controlled substance cabinets directly with your Shepherd account streamlining patient assignment, ensures DEA-compliant reporting, and improves accuracy across clinical and inventory workflows. Learn more about CSI-360 Integration.
PetDesk Direct Booking | Simplified Client Scheduling
PetDesk Direct Booking allows clients to book, reschedule, or cancel appointments online anytime, with automatic synchronization to Shepherd. Clinics can define services, provider preferences, and hours for accurate real-time availability. Automated reminders and deposits help reduce no-shows and keep schedules running smoothly.
Shepherd User Exclusive: Purchase PetDesk Communications and/or Direct Booking by November 30, 2025 and receive your first six months free.
Learn more about the Shepherd and PetDesk integration and explore interactive demos here.
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