When you sell a medicine that needs a prescription, the system makes sure a prescription is attached before the sale goes through — and every controlled drug you sell is written to the Controlled Drug Register automatically.
Before you start
- The drug must be set up correctly on its Pharmacy tab: tick Requires prescription for prescription-only medicines, and set Schedule = Controlled for controlled substances.
- If you'll link a prescription, capture it first under Pharmacy → Prescriptions (or have its number to hand).
How the prescription gate works
- A sale that contains one or more prescription-required drugs cannot be completed until a prescription is linked to it.
- If you try, the sale is refused with a clear message naming the drugs that need a prescription, e.g. "A prescription is required to dispense: Tramadol. Link a prescription to this sale."
- Link the patient's prescription to the sale, then complete it as normal.
- Sales with no prescription-required drugs are completely unaffected — nothing changes for ordinary retail items.
On the POS / till
When your cart holds a prescription-only drug, the checkout screen shows a Prescription (Rx) box listing the picked patient's prescriptions. The Charge button is refused until you link one — so:
- Pick the patient (Customer) — a prescription belongs to a patient, so the anonymous Walk-in / POS Customer has none to link.
- Choose their prescription in the Rx box (capture it first under Pharmacy → Prescriptions if it isn't there yet).
- Take payment as usual.
Ordinary (OTC) items ring up on POS exactly as before — the Rx box only appears when a prescription-only drug is in the cart.
Controlled drugs are logged for you
- Whenever a sale includes a Controlled drug, an Out entry is added to the Controlled Drug Register as the sale is saved — with the quantity, the patient, the linked prescription, who sold it, the invoice number, and a running balance.
- You don't re-enter these by hand. Check them under Pharmacy → Controlled Drug Register.
Tips
- Keep the patient on the sale (as the customer) so the register and prescription history line up.
- The register balance should track physical stock — reconcile regularly.
Common problems
- "A prescription is required to dispense…" → The sale has a prescription-only drug and no prescription linked. Attach the patient's prescription and try again.
- A controlled sale didn't reach the register. → The drug's Schedule must be Controlled at the time of sale. Fix the item's Pharmacy tab; the register is a live report of stock movements, so corrected sales appear there automatically.
- A drug that shouldn't need a prescription is blocking the sale. → Untick Requires prescription on that item's Pharmacy tab.