Best Animal Shelter Software: Features That Boost Efficiency

Between managing a high volume of animals, tracking the medical and behavioral history of animals, handling adoptions, and maintaining relationships with volunteers and fosters, animal shelters certainly face unique challenges. Animal shelter software can help animal shelters streamline operations, reduce administrative workload, and limit reliance on paper trails. We’ll help you understand what features to look for in animal shelter software so that you can meet your shelter’s needs.

What Is Animal Shelter Software?

Animal shelter software is designed to track the intake, care, and movement of animals throughout a sheltering organization. By using animal shelter software, organizations can streamline their processes, allowing for more time to provide care for animals and engage with the community.

Shelter software comes with several key benefits:

• Saves time and improves efficiency
• Reduces error
• Improves animal care
• Allows for quick, accurate reporting and tracking
• Increases record accessibility across the organization

Animal shelter software can be either a cloud-based or on-premise program. Cloud-based software is hosted externally and can usually be accessed from anywhere with internet connection. IT support and technology updates are often provided by the vendor.

On-premise software can only be accessed at the shelter or through set-ups for remote access. They may have limited IT support and require manual updates.

Key Features of the Best Animal Shelter Software

The best animal shelter software programs have several key features:

• Animal Intake Management: When an animal is taken into the shelter, the system should populate their record with all intake care to be completed, including vaccinations, microchipping, and parasite preventatives.
• Pet Adoption Tracking: Animal shelter computer software should simplify the adoption process, quickly finishing the pet’s outcome in the system and providing adopters with all the information they’ll need to continue their new pet’s care at home.
• Medical and Health Record Management: The best systems allow quick access to electronic records, which may include the ability to create templates for common entry types, such as physical exams.
• Volunteer and Staff Management: Some animal shelter computer software programs allow for assigning specific tasks to volunteers and shelter staff. For example, if a veterinarian or veterinary assistant logs on, they should immediately have access to any medical exam requests.
• Donor and Fundraising Management: Shelter systems can help manage relationships with donors by tracking donations and simplifying fundraising campaigns.
• Inventory Management: The system should be able to tell you where animals are located, how many animals are in a location, and show you an animal’s movement through the shelter from intake to adoption floor .
• Mobile Accessibility: Ideally, the best software for animal shelters would have mobile accessibility, allowing shelter staff to access the system remotely for real-time updates.

Best Animal Shelter Software on the Market

Here's a breakdown of shelter management system features from four popular brands:

PetPoint Professional

• Cloud-based
• Efficient pet inventory management
• Instant access to 24Petwatch microchip registry
• Shelters may get discounts and benefits if participating in the company’s microchip and lost pet recovery program
• Allows for automated transfer of pet records
• Allows for direct posting to website (lost/found and adoption) or social media platforms
• Appointment set-up and tracking available
• Mobile checkout for adopters and foster parents
• Customizable medical entry with automatic scheduling for next treatment
• User-friendly, customizable reports
• User support available via phone, live chat, email, or Engagement Services
• Charges a monthly fee
• Can serve organizations of any size and considered effective for large organizations

Chameleon

• Primarily an on-premise solution but WebChameleon and WebLicensing allow for access from any device with an internet connection
• Allows for management and tracking of staff and volunteers
• Can automatically upload pet information to multiple animal search websites
• Allows for donor solicitation and campaign management
• Allows for inventory tracking of resources
• Hundreds of reports available and unlimited custom reporting
• Combination of subscription and licensing fees depending on features chosen
• Highly customizable system effective for large, complex organizations, including those with on-site animal control

ShelterBuddy Pro

• Cloud-based
• Centralized, streamlined records for each animal
• Includes modules for management of staff and donors
• Includes a wildlife module
• Receive IT support through email, phone call (location-dependent), or by opening a support ticket
• Intended for use by animal shelters, rescues, animal control, and enterprise shelters
• Monthly or annual subscription fee
• Also available as ShelterBuddy Express (simpler) or ShelterBuddy Gold (additional features)

How to Select the Right Animal Shelter Software

When picking your pet shelter software, you’ll want to consider your shelter’s intake, adoption, and medical record needs. If you need highly customizable software for a complex organization, for example, you might consider PetPoint or Chameleon.

When choosing, consider your shelter’s budget. Would it be better to pay more upfront than to use a subscription model, keeping in mind that you’ll have less IT support and may need to manually upgrade your system? If so, consider an on-premise solution.

If your shelter can budget for the subscription fee of a cloud-based system, which is PetPoint’s model, you’ll get the IT support, automated updates, and data back-up that comes with it, not to mention accessibility anywhere.

The best way to find out if the software will meet your needs is by giving it a try! The software provider may provide demos or training that can help you determine if the software is a good fit.