Inventory is the second-largest controllable cost in most practices, and it's where margin quietly erodes. Manual price overrides, stale markups, and expired drugs and vaccines all chip away at what should be a predictable spread — and the PIMS shows you what you dispensed, not what you gave away. This dashboard puts drug and supply margin under control, category by category.
What this report answers
The margin-and-COGS page answers the core economics: inventory revenue, cost of goods sold, the blended gross margin, and items dispensed, with revenue and cost compared by category — Rx pharmaceuticals, vaccines, flea/tick/heartworm, food/diets, surgical supplies, and lab/diagnostic kits. The markup-and-waste page answers the control questions: how fully your standard markup is being realized, and how much you're losing to shrinkage and expired stock.
The metrics that matter
Markup realization rate is the discipline metric — when actual sell value runs well below the target at standard markup, staff are overriding prices at the counter, and a point or two across thousands of line items is real money. Shrinkage/waste rate is the spoilage metric, and it concentrates in vaccines and refrigerated Rx where expiry is unforgiving. Inventory gross margin by category tells you which categories are worth carrying and which barely cover their handling.
Why the data is trapped across the systems
The inventory module knows cost and on-hand quantity; the invoice knows the sell price; the expiry write-off is a separate adjustment. AVImark, Cornerstone, ImproMed/Pulse and the others were never built to net these together into a realized-margin-and-waste view at the category grain — so markup slippage and spoilage stay invisible until a physical count or a year-end surprise.
How to read it
Read gross margin by category first to see where the structural margin is. Then read markup realization — a category with healthy standard margin but low realization is a pricing-discipline fix, not a vendor problem. Read shrinkage last, focused on vaccines and Rx, where waste cost rises fastest; a high waste rate there points to ordering and rotation, not pricing.
The sample on this page uses fully synthetic data — anonymized clinic ids and made-up dollars, no real financials.
Metrics it tracks
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Inventory Revenue | Sum of revenue from dispensed/sold inventory items in the period. |
| Inventory Gross Margin | (Sell value minus cost value) ÷ sell value — a SUM/SUM ratio. |
| Cost of Goods Sold | Sum of cost value for items dispensed in the period. |
| Shrinkage / Waste Rate | Expired-or-wasted cost ÷ purchased cost — a SUM/SUM ratio. |
| Items Dispensed | Sum of items dispensed across categories in the period. |
| Markup Realization Rate | Actual sell value ÷ target sell value at standard markup — how fully your markup policy is being applied. |
Used by: Hospital administrators and inventory managers controlling drug/supply cost, markup, and waste
Frequently asked questions
What is markup realization rate in a veterinary inventory report?
Markup realization is actual sell value divided by target sell value at your standard markup — it shows how fully your pricing policy is actually being applied. When it runs well below 100%, staff are overriding prices at the counter, and a point or two across thousands of line items adds up to real lost margin.
Where does inventory shrinkage and waste concentrate in a vet practice?
Spoilage concentrates in vaccines and refrigerated Rx pharmaceuticals, where expiry dates are unforgiving, and a high waste rate there usually points to ordering and stock rotation rather than pricing. Tracking waste cost as a share of purchased cost by category makes the worst offenders obvious.
Can I build this on my own inventory data?
Yes. Export dispensed items with cost and sell values from your PIMS inventory module and use this as a template — we model it into a Power BI report. The sample uses synthetic data, so there are no real cost figures here.
Build this report on your own data
Clone this Vet clinics template — describe it and we’ll generate sample data so you can try it free, or upload your own export. You get a fully modeled, branded Power BI project that opens in Power BI Desktop.
Use this as a template →