Schedule H1 Register Software: Patient and Prescriber Captured at Billing Time

What the register must contain

Rule 65(3)(h) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules 1945 — inserted by G.S.R. 588(E) of 30 August 2013, in force 1 March 2014 — sets the substance, and it is short: the supply of a Schedule H1 drug “shall be recorded in a separate register at the time of the supply giving the name and address of the prescriber, the name of the patient, the name of the drug and the quantity supplied”, and those records “shall be maintained for three years and be open for inspection”. Four particulars, one separate register, written as you hand the medicine over.

That separate register is in addition to the ordinary record of the same sale, not a substitute for it. Under Rule 65(3)(1)(a)–(g), a supply made on a prescription is entered in a prescription register, or on a serially numbered cash or credit memo, with the serial number, the date of supply, the prescriber's name and address, the patient's name and address, the drug and its quantity, and — for Schedule C, H and H1 drugs — the manufacturer, batch number and date of expiry, signed by the registered pharmacist who supplied it. So for an H1 sale the serial number, the patient's address, the batch, the expiry and the pharmacist's signature are statutory too, even though clause (h) itself names only four particulars. The columns below are what an inspector reads across:

• Serial number — consecutive, no gaps; required by Rule 65(3)(1). A missing serial is the first thing an inspector looks for, because it is the only field that cannot be explained away.
• Date of supply — the date the medicine was handed over, not the date on the prescription.
• Name of the drug — as printed on the pack.
• Salt / composition — not in the rule, but it makes the entry findable when the brand changes but the molecule does not.
• Manufacturer — required for Schedule C, H and H1 drugs under Rule 65(3)(1).
• Batch number — required for Schedule C, H and H1 drugs under Rule 65(3)(1); it ties the entry to a specific pack, which is what a recall or a quality complaint is traced through.
• Expiry date — month and year as printed; required alongside the batch.
• Quantity supplied — state the unit and stay consistent: strips or loose units, not both in one register.
• Patient name — as given on the prescription.
• Patient address — clause (h) names only the patient's name, but Rule 65(3)(1) asks for the patient's name and address in the record of the same supply, so keep the column.
• Prescriber name and address — the registered medical practitioner who wrote it; both are named in Rule 65(3)(h).
• Prescriber registration number — state medical council registration. Not named in the rule, but strongly advisable: it is what distinguishes a real prescription from an unverifiable one.
• Signature of the registered pharmacist — Rule 65(3)(1) requires the record to be signed by the registered pharmacist who supplied the medicine; it is also what ties an entry to the person accountable for it.
• Bill / invoice number — links the register to the sale so the two can be reconciled; if a serially numbered cash memo is your Rule 65(3)(1) record, it is that record.

Schedule H1 itself is a defined list — antibiotics such as cefixime and levofloxacin, habit-forming drugs such as alprazolam and tramadol, and the anti-TB drugs. If you are unsure whether a specific medicine is on it, the Schedule H1 checker answers for a named brand, and the glossary entry explains the classification.

What register software actually changes

Software does not make the register optional and it does not make an entry legal. What it changes is the order of work. A hand-kept register is written after the sale, from a memory of the sale. A register produced by the billing system is written during the sale, from the sale itself — the same batch and the same quantity that moved off the shelf.

That reordering is the whole benefit, and it fixes exactly the failures listed above:

• Serials cannot skip, when the number is issued by the system rather than by whoever picks up the pen.
• The batch is the real one, when it comes from the batch the bill deducted rather than from a second reading of the pack.
• The prescriber fields are asked for at the counter, while the prescription is in the pharmacist's hand and can still be read.
• Reconciliation becomes possible — every H1 line on a bill must have a register entry, and any mismatch is a question you can answer in the shop instead of in front of an inspector.

What it does not change: you still decide whether a prescription is valid, you still sign, and you still keep the record for three years. No software is a substitute for the pharmacist, and any vendor implying otherwise is describing a product that would not survive an inspection.

What Nesayo records, and what it leaves to you

Nesayo logs Schedule H1 sales as an output of billing, not a separate module you remember to open. Here is exactly what it records today, and what it does not.

• The medicine's schedule is resolved when it goes on the bill, from a catalogue of 2,54,034 medicines carrying schedule flags, so an H1 line is recognised at the counter, not at closing.
• Each H1 line is logged automatically when the bill is saved: date, medicine, batch, quantity and bill number, with the patient and prescriber names entered on the bill.
• On a bill made in chat, an H1 line needs the patient's and prescriber's names before the bill is saved. At the counter the doctor's name box is optional, so make it a habit to fill it for every H1 sale.
• Batch and quantity are taken from the batch the sale actually deducted under FEFO, so the log agrees with the shelf by construction.
• An H1 sale cannot be saved without the patient's and the prescriber's names — the save screen asks for them, online or offline
• Nesayo does not record the prescriber's address yet, so the pharmacist adds it to complete the Rule 65(3)(h) register. The patient's address, the manufacturer, the expiry date and the pharmacist's signature that Rule 65(3)(1) asks for are not in the log either.
• The register opens in the app (👤 Menu → Schedule H1 Register) for any date range, headed with the shop's name, licence and address, and lists each entry's date, patient, prescriber, medicine, batch, quantity and invoice number. It prints on A4 and downloads as a CSV that opens in Excel.
• Nesayo refuses to bill a batch once its expiry month has passed, so a batch recorded as expired does not reach the log (a batch saved with “No expiry” has no date to check and is never blocked).

Billing is free forever on Nesayo, including Schedule H1 sale logging — it is part of billing, not a paid add-on. Paid plans start at ₹399/month as of September 2026 and add voice billing, prescription scanning and the AI agents, not the log.

What to check before you trust any register feature

Most Indian pharmacy packages list "Schedule H1 register" on a feature grid. The listing is easy; the behaviour is what matters. Four questions separate a real implementation from a checkbox, and they are worth asking of us as much as of anyone else:

1. When is the entry created — at billing, or in a separate screen? A separate screen is a second job, and a second job gets skipped on a busy evening.
2. Where do the batch and expiry come from? If they are typed again rather than taken from the batch that was sold, the register can disagree with the stock, and one of the two is wrong.
3. Can the serial ever skip? Ask what happens when a bill is cancelled or edited after the entry exists.
4. Can you export three years of it, in a form you could hand over? A register you cannot produce on demand does not do the one job it exists for.

If a package fails question 1 or 2, its register is a data-entry form with a legal name on it. Our answers to questions 2 and 3: the batch comes from the batch the sale deducted, but the log does not carry the expiry; and Nesayo does not number register entries separately — each entry carries its bill number instead. Our own answer to question 4: open the register for any date range, then print it or download it as a CSV. It does not yet hold the prescriber's address, so keep each prescription with the printed register — the prescription is where that address is.

If you are still on paper

Paper is legal and always has been. If your shop is not ready to change how it bills, use a correct format rather than a ruled notebook — the columns are what an inspection turns on.

The free Schedule H1 register format is an Excel and CSV download with every column above, no signup, no email. Print it, bind it, and keep the serial unbroken. The same page explains what goes in each column and why. There is also a Schedule X register format for the narcotics list, which has stricter storage and record rules, and a stock register format.