Pharmacy Management Software - Benefits, Features, and Cost

Since the arrival of the pandemic, the healthcare industry has seen an immense rise in terms of revenue as well as up-gradation of technology. Be it a pharmaceutical store, hospital management, staff management, or keeping track of the patient's health, technology has contributed a lot to the growth of this industry. Not just growth, it has also helped in managing everything hassle-free saving a lot of time, effort, and money.

When it comes to keeping us healthy, pharmacies play an important role. And to fulfill the needs and serve the consumers and patients, pharmacies are switching to the online business with well-developed pharmacy management software.

These pharmacy management systems have led pharmacists to digitize their offline stores completely and make their services available to anyone and anywhere at their fingertips.

In this article, we will be filling you with an overview of pharmacy management, its features, its benefits, and the cost of developing the application.

So let’s get started with it.

What is a Pharmacy Management Software?

In general words, it is software designed to cater to the needs of a pharmacy and eases the workflow. Also, it can be defined as a tool that automates the management and other important tasks of a pharmacy like managing the records, prescriptions, medicine and drug stocks management, billing, customer management, and many more.

With the use of pharmacy management software now users can order medicine and other medical supplies and equipment by uploading a valid prescription and getting the items delivered to their doorstep. And on the other hand, pharmacists can keep track of all the sales, and stocks, and analyze the recorded data for future business needs via the pharmacy management system.

As per the numbers and insights, global pharmacy sales reached $1.25 trillion in 2019 and are estimated to grow to $1.27 trillion by 2023. Some of the corporate giants of his industry include Netmeds, Pharmeasy, 1Mg, and many more.

Benefits of Developing a Pharmacy Management Software

With continuous evolution, technology alone has benefited mankind. And with pharmacy management software, pharmacists have availed numerous benefits out of the software easing every possible task and minimizing their workloads. Below we have listed some of the benefits of developing a pharmacy management system.

1. Improvised control over the stocks, bills, and customer management.
2. Makes your pharmacy store accessible to your customers anytime and anywhere.
3. It aids in the simplification of work along with less paperwork and helps in storing data easily in a centralized system, which you can access from anywhere, whenever required.
4. Also benefits your pharmacy business by sending custom push notifications regarding offers, updates, discounts, and orders.
5. This automates the workflow which increases productivity, resulting in increased profitability.
6. A pharmacy management system is flexible and can be modified according to the market demands and your business requirements.
7. It also offers details about the drug, medicine, and other medical supplies which includes information like the manufacturing date, expiry date, medical composition, usage, precautions, and many more.

Although there is continuous advancement in technology while developing a pharmacy management solution you should be aware of the drawbacks so that you can plan your software accordingly and avoid all the possible risks for the betterment of the future of your business.

There are not many drawbacks, but the one disadvantage that cannot be ignored is that it lacks the physical evaluation of the product, but this can be overcome if you integrate the try and buy feature into your software or accept returns if the product they receive is not what the consumers expect it to be.

Features to Integrate into the Software

The features of an application make it stand out in the market and achieve its goals. Although it is not important that you need to add only complex features, make sure that the features that you integrate into your software are easy to use and also important for improved customer satisfaction. This in term also helps in retaining customers and also helps to draw the attention of all the potential users.

So keeping this in mind, we have shortlisted a few features which you can consider integrating into your pharmacy application.

• Social Media Login - We know that signing up and logging in is very important to access an application. But to simplify the process and make it even easier you can integrate this feature. Through this feature, the system will automatically fetch the user data from the social media handle instead of filling the details manually in the application.
• ePrescription - Sometimes when you need medicine but could not find the prescription or the copy gets lighter, ePrescription is the savior. It allows you to save your prescriptions or even help you get a digital version of the manual prescription, which lets you store it within the app itself for further use and references.

• Modules Management - This helps you to manage everything on the software be it a user, the inventory, the bills, orders, payments, and many more.

• Search, Sort, and Filter - An important part of the pharmacy software, it allows the user to search for a particular item without wasting time or filter and sort items according to their requirements.
• Reports and Analytics - To store data and create reports for you which you can refer to for your future business needs and make necessary decisions.
• In-Built call and messaging - To help your consumers with all their queries and requests whenever needed.

• Multiple Payment Methods - To make it easy for the customers to make payments according to their convenience. This can include payment wallets, credit and debit cards, net banking, and other available payment options.

Note: You can also integrate a pay later option to make it more convenient for the users.

• GPS Integration - To locate the pharmacy and track the exact location of the orders.

We have just mentioned a few of the features that you can add to the pharmacy management software. But there are numerous other features to go for and expand your app depending on your needs. These add-on features can be explored with proper market study and research on consumer demands, which is very important before developing a project.

Cost of Development

We know that budget is an important part of the project development process.

Now that we have the benefits and features of a pharmacy management application, it is also important to learn about the cost of development.

The cost of developing pharmacy management software varies and depends on certain factors, which include -

• The number of features in the app and its complexity
• The technology stack with which the software is developed
• The development team and its location
• The platforms for which the software is developed
• Third-party and other integrations
• Maintenance and support

So before developing an application make sure that you perform proper research so that you can develop a fully functional and top-notch solution for your business. And also remember it is a one-time investment that you will make which will cater to all your business requirements for a lifetime.

Conclusion

Pharmacies are an essential part of the healthcare industry and have contributed a lot to the growth of this sector. So before developing an application for your business make sure that you choose the best for your product and develop a future-ready application to stand out in the market and generate more profits and revenue from the software.