The 60-minute test for any pharmacy system
Seven things to make every vendor demo live — including us.
Before choosing pharmacy management software, run the same 60-minute script with every vendor and make each one demo seven things on screen with your own data: an insurance claim rejected and recovered, a Wasfaty batch reconciled to the ledger, e-invoice clearance with your real commercial registration, serialized scanning at receiving, an inter-branch transfer that keeps batch and expiry, a point of sale that survives the internet being unplugged mid-sale, and a full data export you own. A vendor who fumbles insurance claims or offline point of sale is out, regardless of price. This is the script dawaTech asks to be judged by.
Why we publish the test we could fail
Every pharmacy system in this market shows you the same logo strip — the regulator, the e-invoicing platform, the track-and-trace platform, the government prescription service. A logo means an integration exists somewhere. It does not tell you whether the workflow closes: whether a rejected claim comes back with its reason, gets corrected, and reconciles to the payment that eventually lands in your account.
That gap is where the money goes. Rejected and unreconciled insurance claims are the largest silent loss in retail pharmacy, and they do not appear on a feature list. Neither does a transfer that moves a quantity between branches but drops the batch number, nor a point of sale that stops selling the moment the line goes down.
So here is the script. Run it with us, with Aumet, with Juleb, with anyone else you are considering. Give each vendor the same hour and the same data. We would rather lose to a fair test than win a demo that flatters everybody.
The seven tests
Same hour, same data, every vendor. Ask for the screen, not the slide.
- 01
An insurance claim, rejected and recovered
Ask to see
Submit a real claim through the national insurance exchange. Have it rejected. Read the rejection reason on screen. Correct it, resubmit it, and then reconcile the settled claim against the payment in the accounting ledger.
Why it decides
This is the single biggest silent loss in retail pharmacy. Submission is easy and every vendor can show it. Recovery and reconciliation are the parts that decide whether you are paid, and they are the parts that get skipped in demos.
How dawaTech answers
dawaTech runs the full NPHIES lifecycle: eligibility at the counter, submission from the dispensing screen, rejection reasons attached to the original claim, correction, resubmission, and reconciliation to the payment — with a per-branch view of what is submitted, rejected, resubmitted, and still unpaid.
- 02
A government prescription batch, reconciled end to end
Ask to see
Dispense against a government e-prescription, then build the period's batch and reconcile it line by line against the accounting ledger. Ask what happens to the lines that do not match.
Why it decides
Dispensing is the easy half. Reconciliation against your own books is the half that determines whether the revenue is real, and it is where unmatched lines quietly age into write-offs.
How dawaTech answers
dawaTech pulls the Wasfaty prescription at the counter, dispenses against it while updating batch-level stock in the same action, builds the period batch, and reconciles it line by line — surfacing mismatches for investigation and resubmission rather than letting them age.
- 03
E-invoice clearance with your real registration
Ask to see
Onboard with your actual commercial registration and certificate, then clear a standard invoice through the tax authority's platform before it reaches the customer. Ask what happens when clearance fails.
Why it decides
There is a large difference between an invoice that carries the right fields and a live API integration that clears. The first looks compliant; only the second is. Retrofitting the second is painful and expensive.
How dawaTech answers
ZATCA Phase 2, integrated. dawaTech onboards with your CR and certificate, clears standard invoices through the Fatoora API, reports simplified invoices within the required window, shows clearance status per invoice, and queues and retries failures rather than dropping them.
- 04
Serialized scanning at goods receiving
Ask to see
Scan a real delivery. Confirm the system captures GTIN, batch, expiry, and serial — not just a product code and a quantity. Break a case down and watch the aggregation. Introduce a discrepancy and see whether it is caught before you accept the delivery.
Why it decides
Track-and-trace obligations are tightening, and serialization is one of the hardest things to add after the fact because it changes how receiving physically works. Batch-level handling passes a checklist and fails an audit.
How dawaTech answers
dawaTech scans GTIN, batch, expiry, and serial at receiving and dispensing, handles aggregation and disaggregation, reports serial-level events for receiving, dispensing, transfer, and return, and flags discrepancies before the delivery is accepted — all on GS1 standards, so supplier labels scan as they are.
- 05
An inter-branch transfer that keeps its batch
Ask to see
Move stock from one branch to another. Then check the receiving branch: is the batch number and expiry date still attached to that stock, or did a bare quantity arrive? Then pull one consolidated stock and profit-and-loss view across every branch.
Why it decides
Multi-branch pharmacies discover this after go-live, when a recall or a near-expiry sweep needs to know which batch went where. A transfer that drops the batch turns every future expiry question into a manual investigation.
How dawaTech answers
Transfers carry batch number and expiry with the stock rather than moving a quantity, and dawaTech gives you one consolidated stock and P&L view across all branches alongside the same view per branch, per employee, and per product.
- 06
The counter, with the internet unplugged
Ask to see
Start a sale. Physically pull the internet cable or turn off the router mid-transaction. Finish the sale. Plug it back in and watch the resync. Then check that stock and the ledger both agree.
Why it decides
Connectivity fails, and it fails at the busiest hour. A point of sale that stops selling is lost revenue and a queue of customers who go elsewhere. This test takes two minutes and eliminates vendors faster than any other question.
How dawaTech answers
The dawaTech point of sale keeps selling offline and resyncs automatically once the connection returns, with nothing lost. Pull the cable during your demo — this is a test we ask people to run rather than one we would rather they skipped.
- 07
Your data, on the way out
Ask to see
Ask for a full export of your own data, right there in the demo. Then ask who owns it, what the exit terms are, whether there is a fee, and how long the notice period is — and ask for the answer in writing before you sign.
Why it decides
Every vendor is easy to join. The terms that matter are the ones that apply when you want to leave, and they are the terms nobody volunteers. A vendor who hesitates here is telling you something.
How dawaTech answers
You own your data. It is exportable in full at any time, without asking us first and without an exit fee, and subscriptions are monthly per branch with no lock-in. Our pricing is published rather than quoted per deal: SAR 200 per branch per month for up to 6 users, SAR 260 for unlimited users, no setup fee.
Get these in writing
A demo shows what the software can do on a good day. These are the commitments that matter on a bad one — ask every vendor, including us, to put them in the contract.
- Who owns your data, and how you export all of it if you leave
- Whether there is an exit fee or a minimum term, and the notice period
- What the support response time is, in hours, and in which language
- Which regulatory integrations are live today versus on the roadmap
- Who pays when a regulatory change requires a system update
- What the migration takes, in days, and who does the data cleaning
- What happens to your historical data after the subscription ends
Score all three, side by side
Print this and take it into every meeting. Mark each test as the vendor demonstrates it — not as they describe it. A test only passes if you watched it happen on screen with your own data.
| Test | Vendor 1 | Vendor 2 | Vendor 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01An insurance claim, rejected and recovered | |||
| 02A government prescription batch, reconciled end to end | |||
| 03E-invoice clearance with your real registration | |||
| 04Serialized scanning at goods receiving | |||
| 05An inter-branch transfer that keeps its batch | |||
| 06The counter, with the internet unplugged | |||
| 07Your data, on the way out |
- Pass — demonstrated live, on your data, end to end
- Partial — shown, but part of the workflow was described rather than demonstrated
- Fail — not shown, deferred to a later call, or answered with a slide
Tip: print this page, or save it as a PDF, to take the sheet with you.
Choosing a pharmacy system — common questions
What matters most when choosing pharmacy software in Saudi Arabia?
Insurance claims. Rejected and unreconciled NPHIES claims are the largest silent loss in Saudi retail pharmacy, and the workflow that recovers them — rejection reason, correction, resubmission, reconciliation to payment — is the one most likely to be missing behind a logo on a website. After that: ZATCA Phase 2 clearance and serialized track-and-trace, both of which are expensive to retrofit, and an offline-capable point of sale.
Is the cheapest pharmacy system the right choice?
Not on its own, and not if it fails tests one or six. But price transparency tells you something real about how a vendor works. dawaTech publishes SAR 200 per branch per month for up to 6 users and SAR 260 for unlimited, with no setup fee and monthly cancellation — so a three-branch pharmacy knows its cost before booking a demo rather than after three rounds of negotiation.
Should I pick the largest vendor?
Size buys you two genuine things: supplier negotiating power, and the confidence that the company will still exist in five years. It does not buy you depth in the specific workflow that decides your margin. Run the seven tests. If a larger vendor passes them and we do not, choose the larger vendor — and if the reverse is true, size was the wrong question.
How long should a pharmacy software migration take?
Ask for it in days and get the answer in writing, along with who does the data cleaning. dawaTech migrations typically take about two days. What matters more than the number is whether your batch numbers, expiry dates, and supplier history survive the move intact — ask to see migrated data, not a migration timeline.
What should I ask about offline point of sale?
Do not ask. Test it. Start a sale, disconnect the internet mid-transaction, complete the sale, reconnect, and confirm that stock and the accounting ledger both agree afterwards. It takes two minutes and it is the fastest way to separate a real offline mode from a cached screen.
Put dawaTech through all seven
Bring your own stock list, your own commercial registration, and a rejected claim if you have one. 60 minutes, in Arabic or English.
Book the 60-minute test