How to choose lab software: the checklist to run before you sign anything.

The checklist

Twelve things to check before you sign.

Print this, or keep it open on your phone during the demo. Ask the vendor to show each one live, not describe it.

1. Branded, white-label reports and bills. Your own letterhead, logo and lab name on every report, bill, WhatsApp message and QR page. Not the vendor’s name anywhere a patient can see.
2. Age and gender reference ranges with auto flags. Results should compare against the right range for the patient’s age and gender automatically, and flag Low, Normal or High without a staff member looking it up by hand.
3. WhatsApp delivery from the lab’s own number. Reports and bills sent from a number your patients recognise as yours, not a shared or generic sender, with delivery tracked sent through delivered through read.
4. GST-compliant tax invoices. Your own GSTIN, correct HSN/SAC codes, and a full CGST/SGST/IGST breakup on the bill, not a plain receipt you have to redo for your accountant.
5. Transparent, month-to-month pricing. A published price you can read before you talk to sales. No annual lock-in required to get a reasonable rate, and no per-report or per-test charge stacked on top of the subscription.
6. Full data ownership and export, any time. Your patients, catalogue, reports and billing history belong to you. You should be able to export all of it whenever you ask, not only when you cancel.
7. Your own isolated database. Each lab’s data lives in its own database, not a shared table separated by a filter in application code. Ask this directly: most vendors won’t volunteer the answer.
8. Doctor and referral payout handling. Per-test commission rules, one run that works out what every referring doctor and consultant is owed, and a statement you can hand a doctor who asks.
9. Data migration from what you already have. A path to bring in your existing patient records, test catalogue, price list and doctor list from paper registers or spreadsheets, not a blank system on day one.
10. Onboarding and support within one business day. Go-live measured in days, and a real answer when something breaks: not a ticket that sits for a week.
11. Cloud, nothing to install. Runs in a browser on the computers you already have, over any internet connection including a phone hotspot. No IT visit to set up a server.
12. An honest answer on security, without inflated claims. Encryption at rest and in transit, role-based access, an audit trail. Be wary of certifications the vendor claims for themselves rather than their data centre.