Medicines: pack codes, expiry and Ministry prices

Pack codes

A medicine pack carries a square 2D code (a GS1 DataMatrix) holding the product's barcode number with its expiry date, lot and serial. A carton may carry the same in a long barcode (GS1-128). The till reads both, from a scanner or typed in their printed form, (01)…(17)…(10)…. It finds the product by the barcode number inside, so the product needs only its ordinary barcode: the 13-digit one, the full 14 digits, the 12-digit UPC of a pack made in the United States or Canada, or the 8 digits of a small pack's EAN-8. A product saved with the whole scanned code as its barcode is found too. A code that also carries fields the till does not use, such as a national reimbursement number, is still read.

When the pack's own code says it has expired, the till says so: This pack of … expired on …. With the setting below on, it refuses to add the pack, and says to take it off the shelf and write it off as Expired.

The lot in the code goes with the line, so the sale takes that lot's batch rather than whichever expires first; packs of two lots of one medicine are two lines. A lot the shop does not hold, or not enough of it, sells from the earliest-expiring stock instead of being refused.

Never selling expired stock

Settings›Workspace›Stock defaults has Do not sell stock past its expiry date. It is on from the start for a business set up as a pharmacy, and off for every other shop.

With it on, a sale takes the earliest-expiring stock that is still in date and passes over expired batches. The day is your business's calendar day, and a batch that expires today still sells. When only expired stock is left the sale is refused, naming how many are in date, and the expired stock waits to be written off. A till not tied to a stock location applies it to the business's stock as a whole. While the till is offline, a medicine whose stock is all past its expiry is refused however it was scanned, judged by the till's own date against what it last downloaded. Batches with lots and expiry dates come from receiving stock with batch tracking on.

A sale taken while the till was offline is recorded when it is sent even if its stock has since expired, because it has already happened at the counter.

Ministry prices

Otura keeps the Ministry of Public Health's list of registered drugs, with each one's public price in lira, and the earlier prices when the Ministry changes one. In a pharmacy, open Products›Ministry prices. Each product is shown beside its drug: the Ministry's price in lira, the same in dollars at today's exchange rate, and your own price, marked As the Ministry, Differs, Not linked, No Ministry price or Withdrawn (a drug the Ministry no longer lists). To remove a wrong link, choose Unlink (U). A line above the list counts how many differ and how many are not linked.

The Ministry publishes no barcode, so each product is linked to its drug once: select it and choose Link to a drug (L), search by name or ingredient, and pick the drug with the right dosage and pack. To charge the Ministry's price, select the products that differ and choose Use the Ministry's price (M): each takes the Ministry's lira price in dollars at today's rate. The page is part of the Pharmacy setup, and needs the right to see the Ministry's prices; linking and applying need the right to change them.