CounselPRO by Microsale. For schools or private practice.

As a school counsellor of 20years experience I have found the careful [and secure] keeping of records of more and more concern. The amount of paper build up in the office is incredible and then there are all the records of those clients who are no longer active. I have tended to send them to the past school records secure area but of course some students [who I’ve seen in grade 5 – when our school begins] might go dormant and then resurface in later years so I need to keep those records accessible for at least 8/9 years. And then there is the various paper reports [WISC’s, WIAT’s, Conner’s etc]. All in all I’d gradually come to the decision that I need to make the dive into the 21^st century and go paperless as far as possible. So, with my colleague [who is a psychologist], I began to look around.

It wasn’t a quick, or easy search [Google may be your friend but, despite the reputation it can’t give you the answer when you don’t even know the questions!] but eventually we were able to settle on a program that we thought would meet our needs – and you can even download a trial version.

That was two years ago and we both think it was one of the best decisions we made. The program is called CounselPRO and comes from New Zealand [all but local!] in both school and private practice versions. It already met most of our needs but it was also customisable which is a real bonus.

Rather than try to explain it all let me list some of the features.

• Fully searchable database
• Ability to choose between active/non-active and all databases.
• Future appointment making and past consultation recording
• Full client details data page [including facility to include a picture – a bonus for those of us who have trouble putting faces to names or vice a versa]
• Ability to print a complete client report of all sessions.
• Ability to scan images, reports or add any other electronic files [such as e-mail] to unique client folder.
• Ability to classify [and even sub classify] client presenting issues [eg Grief & Loss – sibling]
• Ability to graph [bar, pie, line] entire client group in any particular year according to classification, sub-classification, consultation type, ethnicity, referral – and many others. Also possible to do a comparison graph over years of practice.
• Ability to produce reports of same.
• Ability to customise business details, consultation fields, appointment times etc.
• Note writing facility with the usual formatting, spell check etc.
• Built in back up / copy file facility.
• And more that either don’t apply to my circumstance or I haven’t discovered yet!

Add to all that excellent service and backup support [the owner of the company can link to your computer if you wish it to help sort out those issues you might have on a time by time basis using a program called Team-viewer].

I don’t often write a testimonial but this program is too good to keep to myself. I’d also like to say that I receive no benefits from this review [other than know I’m possibly doing my fellow counsellors a good turn.

Adrian Hellwig FACA, M Bus [Communication], B.Theol, Dip counselling]

CouselPro is an efficient system designed for retaining confidential client notes. I have used the program since 2011 and found it to be a reliable, logical program which is easy to use. Although the notes are accessed quickly, they are kept secure using a two-level password to access this information.

CounselPro produces a range of reports which can be used to provide important data on counseling trends while still ensuring individual confidentiality. In terms of IT support, Donald provides quick and professional technical support to our team when it is required.

Kind regards
Karen Thompson
Head of Counselling and Wellbeing Department
King’s College

“Our small Plumbing Gasfitting and Drainage business has been using Microsale Invoicing System for the last seven years and have found the program to be very user friendly and cost effective, we use mainly the Invoicing and Quoting modules, and this works well with our Accounting system. Microsale service has been exceptional and they are always working on new and improved changes.”  

I have found CounselPro is a very effective program that securely holds confidential counselling notes and student information…CounselPro has become an invaluable tool, especially in regards to accessing data and statistics that helps me recognise and summarise presenting issues, year level, gender and socio-cultural trends while also assisting our school to implement year level or whole school strategies. The system is very user friendly (even for a techno-phobe such as myself!) My Principal and Board have found the charts and reports important in terms of understanding and developing ideas about student health and well-being and I have no concerns about maintaining individuals confidentiality. Donald has been an absolute star and a great support for me. He has been readily available to assist me whenever I’ve got stuck – mostly with same day service! The team-viewer aspect of the program has been very helpful and on several occasions Donald has also spoken with our ICT whiz to help support the school and make sure that we are making the most of this wonderful resource…I would absolutely recommend Donald and CounselPro to any counsellors!

Nga manaakitanga

Abbey