Shepherd automatically generates a Sterilization Certificate when an eligible service is administered and updates a patient's status to Female Spayed or Male Neutered. Certificates can be downloaded or emailed from the patient's profile, and pet owners can access them through the Pet Portal.

Navigate to: Admin > Clinic Settings > Practice Management > Sterilization Certificate

For those who need to create a spay/neuter certificate for a prior sterilization:

This feature has two settings, and both need to be on for certificates to generate automatically.

Enable Sterilization Certificates under Admin > Clinic Settings > Practice Management, and separately turn on Include Sterilization Certificate on Invoice under Invoice Settings. If only the first setting is on, certificates won't generate automatically — staff will need to add them manually from the invoice each time.

A supervising doctor is required for automatic generation.

If a SOAP doesn't have a supervising doctor assigned when an eligible service is administered, a certificate won't generate. Your team will need to open Tx History, select a doctor, and click Save. Assigning a doctor to the SOAP after the fact does not trigger generation.

Shepherd creates one certificate per patient.

Even if multiple qualifying services are administered, Shepherd generates only one Sterilization Certificate per patient.

Reversing the treatment automatically removes the certificate.

If the originating treatment is reversed or its invoice line is deleted, Shepherd removes the associated certificate — regardless of who holds Delete permission.

Navigate to Admin > Clinic Settings > Practice Management > Sterilization Certificate and toggle Enable Sterilization Certificates on.

Additional settings:

If you later disable certificate generation, any certificates already on file are preserved, and your saved Certification Statement is retained.

A Sterilization Certificate is generated when an eligible service updates a patient's status to Female Spayed or Male Neutered. How that happens depends on how the service is recorded.

When an eligible service is administered through a SOAP that has a supervising doctor already assigned, Shepherd automatically generates the certificate.

When the SOAP doesn't have a supervising doctor assigned at the time of administration, the certificate won't generate automatically. To generate it:

If Include Sterilization Certificate on Invoice is off, certificates won't generate automatically after an eligible treatment is confirmed. Staff will need to generate the certificate manually from the invoice:

Each Sterilization Certificate includes:

Certificates follow Shepherd's standard PDF layout with branding and page numbering. Long descriptions continue across pages. Line breaks entered in the Certification Statement are preserved. Default filenames use the format MM_DD_YYYY.

To edit a certificate, open the patient's profile and select the Certificates tab (to the right of Vaccinations).

Users with Edit permission can update the following without changing the original treatment record:

If the doctor is updated through Tx History, any certificate-specific descriptions, filenames, and the original certificate date are preserved.

The Procedure Date CANNOT be edited.

From the Certificates tab on a patient's profile, you can:

Manually emailed certificates are logged in the Client Communication Report under Email > Manual Communications, with client and delivery status details.

Pet Portal access: Pet owners can download the certificate from their pet's profile in the Pet Portal, listed between Weight and Vaccinations. Portal access is read-only. Certificates remain downloadable by pet owners even if the clinic later disables Sterilization Certificate generation.

Sterilization Certificate access is controlled separately under Admin > User Management > Roles > Records > Sterilization Certificate. Edit and Delete permissions are managed independently.

Certificates can be removed in two ways:

Manually — Users with Delete permission can remove a certificate from the Certificates tab. Deleting a certificate does not reverse the procedure or change the patient's reproductive status.

Automatically — If the treatment that generated the certificate is reversed, or the associated invoice line is deleted, Shepherd removes the certificate automatically — regardless of Delete permission.

If a patient was spayed or neutered before being seen in Shepherd — or if a certificate is needed outside of the native workflow — you can use Shepherd's manual certificate form to generate one.

To create a certificate manually:

This button will take you to a screen where you'll need to:

4. Download the form as a PDF, and then

a. Upload it into the SOAP

b. Print

c. Attach and send the form as an email

A certificate generates when an eligible service updates the patient's status to Female Spayed or Male Neutered. If no certificate was created, check the following:

Yes — but the step must be completed in Tx History, not on the SOAP itself. Open the SOAP's Tx History, select a doctor, and click Save. Assigning a doctor to the SOAP after the treatment has already been administered does not trigger generation.

Reversing the originating treatment or deleting its invoice line automatically removes the associated Sterilization Certificate, regardless of permissions. This cannot be undone, so review the source record carefully before making changes.

No. Shepherd supports one Sterilization Certificate per patient, even if multiple qualifying services are administered.