Compliance → Licenses

Purpose

Track every license your clinic and its prescribers must hold to handle controlled substances — DEA registrations, state pharmacy permits, state veterinary licenses, technician registrations. CS Logbook surfaces them in two scopes: facility licenses (the clinic's own DEA registration, state pharmacy permit) and individual licenses (each DVM's personal DEA practitioner registration, state veterinary license).

This is general product information about CS Logbook, not legal advice. CS Logbook tracks the licenses you record; it does not issue, validate, or define which licenses are required. Verify current registration and licensing requirements with the DEA Diversion Control Division and your state veterinary/pharmacy board.

Where the requirement lives: DEA registration rules are in 21 CFR Part 1301 (covering registration and modification of registration); state licensing is governed by your state veterinary and pharmacy boards (varies by state).

When to use it

• Initial setup: enter every license held by the clinic and every prescriber at onboarding
• License renewal: when a license is renewed by the issuing authority, record the renewal so the new expiration date drives the Expiring tab and its status markers
• License retired: when a prescriber leaves the clinic or a license type is no longer applicable, soft-delete the license (the audit trail is preserved)
• Audit prep: a DEA inspector will ask for the registration certificate first; CS Logbook gives you a one-page rollup of every active license

Walkthrough

Step 1 — Open the licenses page

Navigate to /home/<your-clinic>/compliance/licenses. Three tabs:

• Facility Licenses — the clinic's own registrations
• Clinic Member Licenses — individual DVM/staff licenses (visible to the clinic but stored in each user's personal account)
• Expiring — combined view of any license expiring within 90 days, sorted by urgency

Step 2 — Add a license

Click Add License in the top-right (only visible to users with canManageCompliance — owners/admins/managers). You're taken to the New License page (/compliance/licenses/new).

The form has 6 fields. Required: license type, license scope, license number, issuing authority, issue date, expiration date, status. The status defaults to active.

The License Type list covers DEA Registration, DEA Practitioner, State Pharmacy Permit, State Facility License, State Veterinary, State CS Registration, State Tech Registration, Dispensing Veterinarian and Other. Choosing Other reveals a required License Name field: type the credential's real name there and it is what CS Logbook displays wherever the license type appears.

License scope determines where the license is stored:

• Facility: stored on the clinic account; visible to all clinic members on the Facility Licenses tab
• Individual: held by a person rather than the clinic; listed on the Clinic Member Licenses tab, where the Holder column names the staff member it belongs to

⚠️ When you pick scope = individual while operating in a clinic workspace, the license is created on your personal account, not the clinic's. This is by design — your DEA practitioner license is yours, not the clinic's.

Click Add License. The new row appears on the appropriate tab.

📎 Attaching the license PDF is a separate step, done after the record is created. The upload control lives on the license record itself (Actions → View Details → Supporting Documents), not on this form. The create form says so too.

Step 3 — Renew a license

When the issuing authority renews a license, click Actions → Renew License on the row. You're taken to the Renew License page (/compliance/licenses/<id>/renew) with the current license info displayed and a form for new dates + (optional) new license number (ADR-020 moved renew off the in-table dialog onto a full-page route).

Submit. Two things happen atomically:

1. The licenses row is updated in place — issue_date, expiration_date, status='active', last_renewal_date=today. License number is updated only if you provided a different value.
2. A new row is inserted into license_renewal_history capturing the previous expiration → new expiration delta with the user who processed the renewal.

The renewal history is browsable via Actions → Renewal History on any row.

Step 4 — View license details

Click Actions → View Details to see the full license record: renewal frequency, alert thresholds, and, for an individual license, the Holder (the staff member the license belongs to, with their email where available). Facility licenses belong to the clinic and show no holder.

The Supporting Documents panel is also here. This is where you attach the license PDF, and it is only available once the record exists — see Step 2.

Step 5 — Soft-delete a license

Click Actions → Delete. The confirmation dialog explains this is a soft delete — the record is marked deleted (deleted_at set) but preserved in the audit trail. An administrator can restore it if needed.

Field reference

License form

Hidden fields auto-populated by the action: account_id, created_by, created_at, updated_at, deleted_at (NULL until soft-delete).

renewal_requirements used to be listed here and shown on the details panel as raw JSON. Nothing ever wrote it, so every license displayed the same block of zeros. It was removed from the interface on 2026-09-16. Renewal fees and CE hours are not tracked today.

Edge cases

License scope must match account type

If you try to create a facility license while operating in a personal account context, or an individual license against a clinic account, the action's validate_license_scope_trigger throws an error. The form's scope select forces a deliberate choice; the trigger is a defensive backstop.

Unique constraint on (account, type, state, number)

The licenses table has a unique constraint on (account_id, license_type, state, license_number). Attempting to add a duplicate license (same type + state + number for the same account) returns an error. Use the renewal flow instead — it preserves the same row.

Soft-delete preserves audit trail

A deleted license is still queryable for audit purposes (deleted_at IS NOT NULL). An admin or DEA inspector reviewing the records can see every license that was ever held, including the deletion timestamp. Hard delete is blocked at the database level (licenses_delete_blocked policy uses USING(false)).

Where expiring licenses show up

Active licenses that expire within 90 days, or have already expired, are listed on the Expiring tab, marked Expired, Critical (30 days or less) or Expiring Soon. The team dashboard's Alerts widget shows up to three items, critical before warnings. CS Logbook does not add them to the Compliance → Alerts page or send reminders; to track a renewal there, create a license_expiration alert.

Common mistakes

• Recording a renewed license as a new license. When a license is renewed, use Actions → Renew License on the existing row — don't add a new row. Adding a new row creates a phantom "old" license in your records.
• Forgetting individual licenses. Each prescribing DVM needs their own DEA practitioner license recorded. Without it, the dispense flow's prescriber-filter dropdown won't surface them as eligible prescribers per DEA rules.
• Wrong issuing authority spelling. Inspectors notice. Use the canonical name: "Drug Enforcement Administration" or "DEA" for federal; the full state board name (e.g., "California Veterinary Medical Board") for state.
• Leaving an "Other" license unnamed. As of 2026-09-16 the type list is no longer exhaustive: pick Other for any credential the named types do not cover (a state hazardous-waste permit, a courier registration, a municipal business license you want renewal alerts on). When you do, a License Name field appears and is required, because it is what the list and the detail panel display in place of the word "Other". Without it, several Other licenses are indistinguishable from each other.

Related

• Compliance → Alerts: alerts you create yourself, such as a renewal you want to track
• Audits → DEA Audit Prep — license verification is the first checklist category
• Glossary § DEA Schedule classifications
• Glossary § DEA CFR citations