Counter Check

Sign in to your pharmacy’s server. You only do this once — after that it signs in automatically, and keeps working when the internet does not.

Counter Check

Starting…

Use ? for a letter you cannot make out — t?lma. Use * for a whole unreadable run — zer*ol. Spelling does not have to be right: oxymetazolin, oksimet and nasivion all find the same medicine.

Doctor’s speciality

Decode the writing

What the short forms on the slip mean. When a short form on this page is marked as risky, do not interpret it — ring the clinic and ask.

How often

Written asMeans

The 1–0–1 grid

Written asMeans

When, and with what

Written asMeans

Where it goes

Written asMeans

What form to pull off the shelf

Written asMeans

How long the course runs

Written asMeans

Never guess these

Each of these has caused real harm because two different things look the same on paper. If you see one, confirm with the prescriber before dispensing.

Written asWhy it is dangerous

Look-alike names

Pairs of names that get mistaken for each other — either because they read alike in handwriting, or because a suffix on the same brand family changes the molecule entirely. Search the list, then check the pack against the prescription.

If the slip might say……do not confuse it with

Before you hand it over

Seven situations where the correct action is to stop and telephone the prescriber. Guessing on any of these is how people get hurt.

    Say it back at the counter

    Read this out to the customer with the pack in your hand, before money changes hands. Almost every wrong-strength error is caught here.

    The four things that must match the slip

    CheckWhat goes wrong when you skip it

    Your shop’s notes

    Everything your staff add lives here: brand names the list is missing, strengths you actually stock, your own warnings, and photographs of how each doctor writes. Additions become searchable the moment you save them, and are always shown in green so nobody mistakes them for the checked reference list.

    Check the shelf

    Marg does not always say what is in a product. Where it says nothing, or says something that does not match the pack, this is where a person settles it — one item at a time, whenever the counter is quiet. A decision made here survives every future import, and reaches all your branches.

    ProductWhat Marg says it isFiled under

    Handwriting samples

    Photograph the drug name as that doctor actually writes it, file it under the medicine and the doctor, and the next illegible slip from the same clinic has something to compare against.

    Entries your shop has changed

    Changes the server refused

    These were rejected outright, so the tool stopped resending them rather than retrying forever. Usually it means the page and the database are out of step — run the latest SQL, then press Retry.

    WhatWhy the server refused it

    Register duties in your stock

    Everything you stock that needs a register entry, a retained prescription or a state authorisation — worked out from the composition, so it covers products the reference list has no clinical entry for. Not legal advice: confirm against your own state FDA.

    What the tool has learned

    Every time someone presses “Remember this match”, the tool files the scrawl they typed against the medicine they meant. Those spellings then rank first, and if a doctor was named, that doctor’s usual medicines rise for their prescriptions. It learns where to look — never what is safe. Strengths, warnings and schedules cannot be changed by use.

    Improve this entry

    These become searchable at once — including misspelt and phonetic searches.

    Photograph just the drug name on the slip. It is shrunk before saving, so the file stays small.

    Handwriting sample

    Import from Marg

    Export a CSV out of Marg, drop it here, and your real catalogue joins the search.

    Excel (.xlsx) or CSV — whichever Marg gives you. The format is detected from the file itself, not its name.

    Only the columns you map on the next screen are read. Everything else — customer names, phone numbers, addresses — is dropped in this browser and never stored or uploaded.

    From MargMatched to

    The reference list is missing 0 of the molecules you stock

    These are what your shop carries that has no checked clinical entry yet — ranked by how much of it is on your shelf, which predicts what crosses the counter far better than counting brands does. Send me this list and I will research and verify from the top down.

    Molecule / compositionUnits in stockExample

    Crop to the drug name

    Drag a box around only the medicine name. Patient name, phone number and diagnosis must stay out of it — nothing outside this box is uploaded or stored.

    This tool narrows possibilities. It never decides. It is a memory aid for trained counter staff, built from general drug references — not a dispensing authority and not medical advice. Brand names, strengths and pack presentations change; the printed pack and the prescription always win over anything on this screen. A registered pharmacist verifies every prescription before it is dispensed. When the name, the strength or the form cannot be read with certainty, telephone the prescriber.

    List compiled August 2026 — 347 molecules, 1,238 brand names. The highest-risk entries (paediatric concentrations, insulin, methotrexate, Schedule H1 tagging, brand-to-molecule mapping) were independently fact-checked against manufacturer prescribing information; the rest were not. Re-check anything that looks wrong against the pack, and correct the list when a brand or strength changes.