Best Pharmacy Software in 2024

What is Pharmacy Software?

Pharmacy software is a comprehensive solution to manage and automate your pharmacy operations. It streamlines as well as automates activities like filling up prescriptions, inventory management, invoice generation, and more.

Owners of drug stores and pharmacists can use pharmacy software to map accurate medicines with prescriptions, automate claims processing, generate invoices, etc. With its centralized repository, it helps you store and access complete patient information in one go.

Apart from that, pharmacy software can also be used as a POS system (point of sale) to manage online and in-store patients/customers from a centralized platform.

Why do We Need Software in Pharmacy?

Pharmacy software is majorly used for the below-stated points:

• Stock Management: You can track and manage the expiration of drugs with the use of pharmacy software and plan your stock accordingly. Moreover, you can check the stock history to identify medications that are frequently bought and drugs that sell quickly during any season.
• Minimizing Medication & Billing Errors: Automates accounting and purchasing calculations. Thus, managing supplies and pricing becomes much easier. Also, it lessens the incidence of drug/medication errors due to manual entries.
• Improving Patient Health: Patients can receive counseling from pharmacists with the help of pharmacy software. Using the patient portal, patients can ask questions to pharmacists and receive clarification regarding any drug and dosage. Additionally, this software enables pharmacists to review prescription history and suggest the best treatment.
• Increased Efficiency: Pharmacy management software can assist with prescription dispensing, drug interaction screening, prescription verification, and deciphering a doctor's handwriting. It simplifies everything and gives pharmacists more time to communicate with patients toimprove efficiency.

What are the Types of Pharmacy Software?

• Point of sale (PoS) software: Automatically captures details regarding sales/financial transactions to keep track of accounts of your drugstore. It tracks every detail regarding accounts payable, receivable, new purchases, inventories, etc. Apart from that, you can also generate purchase invoices and accept payments via payment gateway. This allows customers to make payments from credit cards, debit cards, online wallets, UPI, etc.
• e-Prescribing software: Assists in the generation of electronic prescriptions to avoid any misunderstanding in the name or dosage of the medicine because of doctors’ poor handwriting. These prescriptions are then shared digitally with patients and pharmacists, as well as stored centrally for easy access.
• Patient management software: It helps manage the list of patients along with their complete details like name, contact number, medical history, consulting doctor, prescribed medicines, reports, etc. This is useful for doctors and other medical professionals to search for any patient by their unique identification number, name, contact number, etc.

What are the Key Features of Pharmacy Software?

• Recognizes Expired Items: The pharmacy management software is a great way to manage pharmacy operations as the medical store software does not make bills for expired products. This software alerts the staff at the counter about expired medicines and helps the store owner to systematically purchase new items.
• Systematic Sales: The expiry dates of products get displayed when the billing is done for different batches of the same product. The right batch of the item is chosen based on the FIFO (First In, First Out) and LIFO (Last In, First Out) policy.
• Maintain Separate Registers/Folders: The store owner or pharmacist can maintain a separate register that has details of all the drugs stored in the store with the help of the pharmacy folder. This is a great feature as it keeps track of the composition of medicines and provides substitutes of the medicine that is not available for sale. This is a life-saving alternative in case of emergencies.
• Patients' Medical History: With the help of pharmacy software, store owners and pharmacists can monitor the patient’s treatment as per defined safety standards. Pharmacists can also access and review the medical history of patients.
• Barcode Labels: A barcode label is applied to all products before they are distributed to pharmacies and stores. Automate the labeling of medication and print expiry dates of medicines with the help of the latest pharmacy software for pharmacy stores. Also, pharma billing software helps calculate the number of labels needed.
• Influence Customer Shopping Behaviour: Customer relationship management module of the pharmacy software stores all details about the customer. The pharmaceutical software helps owners send emails and SMS alerts to customers about lucrative offers and promotional schemes. This wins a customer’s trust and increases the owner’s customer base.
• Automatic Delivery: The pharma distribution software has an interesting feature of automatically assigning orders to various distribution channels depending on the supply date of the items and the number of days needed to deliver the order to the customers.
• Web-Based Ordering: This enables your customers to search the product directory for any specific medicine they want to order and choose their preferred payment method. They can download the entire list of medicines they have ordered along with the barcode/label so they can double-check the items when they are delivered.
• Inventory Management: Helps in the automatic updating of your inventory for sold items, outdated, and expired items. One can simply scan the barcode made on the medicine package so that the system can capture all the necessary details. It helps maintain the electronic record of all the items in your inventory.
• Barcode Management: Manage your stocks in inventory, automate billing, and keep track of all your orders just by scanning the label/barcode made on the package of items. You can also search for any specific drug to check its expiry date, availability, etc.
• e-Prescribing: Prescriptions can be created, shared, stored, and managed electronically in a single location that employees of the pharmacy can access at any time. To prevent any misunderstanding due to handwritten prescriptions, patients can get digital prescriptions straight from the hospitals.
• Prescription Processing: The system automatically reads multiple e-prescriptions simultaneously to correctly map all the medications according to the dosage mentioned in the prescription.
• Recognizes Expired Products: The software doesn’t produce bills for medicines that have expired and notifies the staff regarding the expiry. It also sends an alert for stock replacement.
• Systematic Sales: One can view the product expiry date while carrying out invoicing for different batches of the same product. FIFO (first-in-first-out) and LIFO (last-in-first-out (LIFO) policies are used to make systematic sales and avoid incidences of medicine expiry.
• Medical History: Pharmacy software enables pharmacists and store owners to monitor patient care in accordance with established safety standards. Also, pharmacists can examine a patient's medical history using this software.
• Automated Emails/SMS: Sends automated alerts and notifications to customers via emails and SMS about attractive deals and marketing initiatives. This helps in gaining customers’ trust and growing the clientele.

Key Modules of Pharmacy Software

• Pharmacy Billing (POS): The pharmacies pos software module helps to generate billing and invoicing accurately. This pharmacy GST billing feature directly files their bill and invoices to the GST portal. This feature is mostly used by wholesalers & distributors and medical stores.
• Pharmacy Accounting: This pharmacy accounting software module helps medical shops and pharma software companies (pharmaceuticals) in the process of GST billing, filing tax returns, and accounting operations like payable, receivables and stock management.
• Pharma Sales Force Automation: Software is used in the pharmaceutical industry that performs all functions such as email and SMS marketing, inventory tracking and invoice management, barcode and scanning management, managing payment reminders, etc. must be used in medical stores. This SFA software will ease the pressure on store owners and ensure quick and reliable operations in a cost-efficient and timely manner.
• Pharmaceutical Marketing: For every business to grow proper marketing is necessary, and pharmaceutical marketing automation software does that for you. Boost your visibility and approach new customers.
• Pharma CRM: Pharma CRM helps the pharmaceutical industry to maintain and build relationships with doctors, physicians, chemists, hospitals, medical stores, and retail pharma shops. this pharma CRM software creates loyalty vouchers and other attractive offers to attract more customers.
• Pharmacy Stock Management System: This feature helps you track the movement of your inventory. Pharmacy inventory management software helps you check which medicines you are running out of and give you a low-stock alert.
• Pharmacy Workflow: Pharmacy workflow management software, can manage your entire pharmacy seamlessly. The pharmacy workflow module even helps you check for your employee’s performance.
• Electronic Prescription: Electronic prescription software module is a digital dashboard that provides managers with updated information about cash flows, profit details, best customer lists, product details, and vendors.
• Pharmacy Dispensing: This pharmacy dispensing software module is streamlined drug dispensing, encourages patient medication adherence programs,s and manages medical benefits and medical claims.
• Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: The pharmaceutical manufacturing software module provides process manufacturing functionalities to leading pharmaceutical manufacturing organizations. These functionalities include multi-level formula and recipe management, expiration management, forward and backward lot traceability, production and compliance management, and scheduling and control.
• Pharmaceutical Compliance: Government authorities set compulsory regulatory guidelines that every pharmaceutical-compliant software needs to follow. This compliance gives them legitimacy in the market.
• Pharma Reporting: Get comprehensive details of all the transactions, inventory movement, database, and sales performance of your employees with pharma reporting software. access to minute business details to make progress and growth in the long run.
• Pharmacy PMR System: Patient Medication Record (PMR) system is used by pharmacists to deliver pharmaceutical care as well as manage patients. With a web-based pharmacy PMR system, data is no longer saved on local servers. PMR system is very important for the pharmacy business.
• Report Generation: Reports such as medical history, billing, purchasing, inventory, etc. can be easily printed whenever required.
• Drug Records Management: Any good pharmacy software helps manage the medical history of all your patients. It’s crucial for any pharmacist to be aware of the medical history of their regular customers, so they can be served at best.
• Inventory Management: If you can’t serve your customers because of low inventory, it won’t be good for your brand image. However, pharmacy software allows you to monitor your inventory in real-time.
• Medicine Detail Management: One of the most crucial features of pharmacy software is medicine detail management. It helps in presenting drug details like the date of manufacturing, purchase, expiry, ingredients, supplier details, company name, etc.

What are the Benefits of Pharmacy Software?

• Simplifies Complex Business and Takes Charge: Pharmacy software allows the user to gain control of various business activities and simplifies complex business operations quickly and conveniently.
• Better inventory management: It helps manage inventory efficiently which leads to revenue generation, Sales data reflects the market demands as well as products that are selling more. This allows companies to update stocks of the products that are sold most so that they never run low on stocks. Updating stocks while billing, holding the new stock as the old stock is still available, scrap management, managing challans, dump stocks and shortages all can be taken care of by the pharmacy stock management software.
• Secure transaction: Earlier methods of maintaining notebooks for managing transactions are no longer effective. With pharma software, the entire transaction process has become swift and products are accurately scanned for their price to avoid any ambiguities. Transactions have also become safe as pharma software eases out the entire payment process. Retail pharmacy software can be used in one or many stores simultaneously to manage sales and prices.
• Constant Alerts: Pharmacy stock management software sends store owners constant alerts reminding them about the stocks. The owners also get customer prescriptions through this software to ensure that they have all medicines as per customer requirements.
• Create Happy Customers: Pharmacy software helps store owners keep their customers happy. Pharmacies process transactions faster and eliminate the risk of incorrect prices. Pharma software also facilitates the use of different payment methods for making payments. Transactions can be carried out using debit cards, credit cards, mobile wallets, and other online transaction modes.
• Calculate Taxes and Generate Reports: The pharma billing software takes your tax calculation worries away. You can relax as pharmacy software is usually GST-enabled. This means that one need not worry about GST calculations because as soon as the production values are entered, the pharmacy billing software automatically calculates the GST value and files GST returns. The software also assists in generating financial reports.
• Stores Customer Details: The pharmacy management software system enables pharmacy owners to store a customer’s personal information. The software for pharmacy shops also manages operations related to customer billing, shipping products, employee salaries and vendor listings. Billing software manages a pharmacy better and attracts customers and increases sales and profits.
• Medicine Specifications: The pharmacy management system provides all specifications of the drug and allows druggists to identify the medicines to take for different medical conditions.
• Connect with Wholesalers: The pharmacy management software system facilitates pharmacists to communicate with their wholesalers and get updates about the inventory and product prices. The wholesaler interface sends the wholesalers’ orders electronically to the pharmacists.
• Check Deals and Rewards: Pharmacy Software helps store owners and pharmacists check several offers and deals from suppliers on a day-to-day basis. It also helps check reports, reminders and pending returns. Additionally, the software effectively manages gift cards and coupons to monitor and track the success of any loyalty program
• Processing of Prescriptions: Reduces the time required to read electronic prescriptions and provides patients with accurate medication. When prescriptions are read electronically, problems in manual processing including misreading medication names or incorrectly mapping medications or dosages are eliminated.
• Ensures Medical Compliance: Assists you in abiding by legal requirements (set by the Government) while selling medicines. You can find out whether a drug is over the counter (OTC), a prescription-only medicament, or a prohibited one. Maintaining compliance ensures the sale of proper drugs and prevents any fines brought on by improper pharmaceutical practices.
• Simplifies Payment: Helps in simplifying the process of bill generation and accepting online payments through an integrated payment gateway. Furthermore, it automatically generates invoices to keep accurate records and minimize any delay in payment processing.
• Automatic Account Management: Assists in keeping track of your daily transactions, including orders issued and payments received or made. Further, it automatically captures all the transactions to keep your financial records updated for audit.

Who Uses Pharmacy Software?

Pharmacy software is majorly used by big and small hospitals, medical stores, wholesale pharmacies, and retail pharmacies.

• Software for Medical Store (Medical Store): Medical store software is a comprehensive medical management system that handles every aspect of the patient experience, including scheduling appointments, invoicing, reporting, and ordering prescriptions.
• Pharma Wholesale Software (Wholesale Pharmacy S): Software for pharma wholesale assists pharma distributors, wholesalers, stockists, and dealers to manage orders, sales, inventory, accounting, etc. It helps with automation for effective management of the pharma wholesale business.
• Retail Pharmacy Software (Retail Pharmacies & Stores): Retail pharmacy software assists in managing the activities of your retail pharmacy including the management of medicine expiries, pharmacy billing, accounting, inventory management, and more.
• Hospital Pharmacy Software (Small to Large Hospitals): Pharmacy software designed for hospitals helps in compounding, storing, and dispensing drugs/medicines and other medical devices and equipment.

Offline vs Online Pharmacy Software

The table below showcases the major difference between offline and cloud-based pharmacy software in terms of their deployment, remote access, data accessibility, and security.

Factors	Offline Pharmacy Software	Online Pharmacy Software
Deployment	Hosted on the company’s server	Hosted on the web or cloud server
Remote Access	You cannot access the system from any remote locations	Software can be accessed from remote locations, at any time.
Security	The pharmacy data remains completely secure with the company’s server.	Your data remains safe. However, there is still a slight chance of data breaching as it is accessed through the internet.
Data Accessibility	You can access all the data on your system without any network connection	An internet connection is required to view and analyze the complete data.

What Are the Key Considerations When Purchasing Pharmacy Software?

Planning to buy a software solution for your independent pharmacy? Well, it sure may look difficult and overwhelming as there are so many things to consider when buying one for you. Keeping track of the pharma business is not easy and most certainly, it requires time, skill, and effort to achieve success. But fret not! We have listed 4 things that you should consider before buying pharmacy software.

• Customer support: First and foremost, you should check out if the software vendor offers customer support. Those who have no prior experience in the trade, require some handholding in terms of navigating through the software. Unless you buy pharma retail software that doesn’t have proper customer support, you will continue to struggle with it. This is a key factor for independent pharmacies that have positioned themselves in caregiving.
• Choosing the right software: It is the foundation step, and so it is important for you to decide which company’s software you buy because, in the end, that software will be responsible for your business growth. The software for a medical store with the right support infrastructure can help you retain not only your customers but also provide efficiency to your business.
• Innovation and technology: What would be a step up for your pharmacy software would be innovation and technology. Having said that, it doesn’t mean you should go for a medical store software with a myriad of options. Software for medical stores should allow you to grow your business and build other services into your pharmacy.
• Software price: The most deciding factor in all kinds of selling, it is something that should decide whether you should buy a particular product. Just as you feel hesitant in choosing the most expensive software, you should also be cautious in choosing the cheapest solution. For example, you should look if, in the name of low cost, you are getting limited features with additional hidden fees and horrible customer support. In that case, buying the cheapest pharmacy software will cost you more in the long run.
• Analyze the type of pharmacy: Before you purchase any pharmacy software for yourself, always try to understand the type of pharmacy you run. For example, if you own an e-commerce pharmacy, then you would require pharmacy software that offers facilities for accepting orders online and a payment gateway. On the other hand, if you have a retail pharmacy, then you must particularly look for software that offers multi-store management facilities, etc.
• Assess the inventory management system: Check if your system helps with the automatic management of your inventory or if you need to update your inventory manually. Also, ensure that your software offers you important features like a label/barcode scanner for updating your inventory, controlling your stock, product categorization, etc.
• Barcode Scan: Check to see if the pharmacy software you've chosen enables you to use mobile devices like smartphones and tablets to scan and collect product codes. This will help in automatically updating your inventory.
• Multi-Store Management: Find out if the pharmacy software you've chosen enables you to simultaneously manage multiple stores (online, offline, or both) from a centralized platform. Also, look for the subscription plan you're choosing because several software companies charge clients based on the number of stores.

Latest Pharmacy Software Market Trends

According to a report on the pharmacy management system market, the pharmacy management system market will witness a compound annual growth rate of 10.73% by 2026. The report suggests that in the future, the market will provide efficient and personalized care via a distinguished range of online pharmacy software. Let’s take a look at the latest pharmacy software market trends:

• Automated dispensing: These days a lot of pharmacy management systems help with automated delivery dispensing. This new-age technology in pharmacy management software not only reduces the stress on the pharmacist but also ensures that any incorrect delivery parcel is not being dispatched.
• Data capturing in real-time: Real-time data capturing is also a new trend that has been seen in recent times. Latest software updates understand the importance of user data, and therefore, developers have launched an intelligent feature that tracks health issues. With this feature, pharmacists can send an aged customer his/her medicine without him coming to the store.
• Predictive analysis: With predictive analysis technology, your pharmacy software becomes more agile and it helps you increase the effectiveness of your business. The best pharma software eradicates the errors that occur due to the large volume of complex data. There are many best pharmacy software in India that helps in predicting the drug behavior of a customer and improving the pharmacist’s success rate.
• E-prescribing integration: As one of the key features for any pharmacy company, software for medical stores helps pharmacists maintain a log of patients’ experiences post-consumption, usage, or medication. E-prescription makes billing more efficient. Further, retail pharmacy software helps make a successful delivery.
• Inventory management: In your pharmacy business, you develop a robust system for handling pharmacy inventory. This is done by monitoring purchase orders, supplies, and the remaining stock of medicine. Therefore, inventory management software is essential to the pharmacy business.
• Mobile applications: Mobile applications improve consumer accessibility and let pharmacists take orders and payments from mobile devices directly. Apart from that, this also lets pharmacists handle orders or replenish supplies on the go.
• SaaS (Software-as-a-Service): It is predicted by Forbes that by 2020, 78% of US SMEs will be using SaaS and cloud computing in the domain of pharmacy. This will help save capital expenditure, improve digital infrastructure agility, as well as make it simpler for owners of pharmacies to open and oversee many branches.