Your shelter's records belong to your organization, not to the software that holds them. Every intake, outcome, vaccine date and microchip number your staff entered into PetPoint is yours to take out — and there are more reasons to do so this year than usual. In April 2026, 24Pet launched 24PetShelter as the successor to PetPoint and Chameleon and put PetPoint into maintenance mode: it keeps running with support and there is no announced shutdown date, but new feature development has ended, so many organizations are starting to plan a move on their own timetable. Whether that move is to 24PetShelter, to another platform, or nowhere at all just yet, the first step is the same — get a complete, dated, off-platform copy of your data, and verify it.
One note on scope. PetPoint's screens and report names change over time, and they differ between editions, so this guide works at the level of what to pull and why rather than pointing at menus that may have moved. When you need the current click-path, 24Pet's help center and support team are the source of truth for what each report includes. Treat anything here that contradicts them as out of date.
What a complete export looks like
Define "done" before you start. A complete operational copy of a shelter's data generally covers:
- Every animal and its current status — in care, in foster, and historical animals if you want the full archive (you do).
- Intake and outcome history — how and when each animal arrived, and how and when each one left.
- Microchip numbers tied to the right animal, plus the registry each chip is enrolled with.
- Medical records — vaccinations with dates, medications, procedures, exam notes, spay/neuter status.
- People — adopters, fosters, surrendering owners, volunteers and donors, with contact details and their relationship to each animal.
- Active foster placements — which animals are in which homes right now.
- Licenses and citations, if you are an animal-control agency that issues them in PetPoint.
- Signed documents and photos — the common gap, on any platform (more on this below).
An honest caveat that applies to every shelter platform, not just PetPoint: structured data — animals, people, events — comes out cleanly as spreadsheets. Binary artifacts like photos and signed PDFs often do not come out in a standard export at all; they may be downloadable one at a time, available in bulk on request, or not included. Ask 24Pet support specifically what is and isn't in a full-account export before you rely on one as your only backup.
PetPoint is report-driven, so your export is a set of reports
The structural thing to understand about PetPoint is that your data leaves through its reporting area. Rather than one master "export everything" button, you assemble your copy from reports: you pick a report, set the date range and filters, run it, and save the result as a spreadsheet. That has one practical consequence — every report is a slice, and you need enough slices to cover the whole animal. A census report tells you who is in the building today; it does not tell you who was adopted in 2023. An intake report by date range tells you every arrival; it does not carry today's status. You will combine them afterward, and that is why the verification step at the end of this guide matters more with PetPoint than with a single-file export.
Two habits make the assembly painless. First, run every historical report for all time, not just the current year — the date range should start before your organization's first record. Second, keep PetPoint's animal identifier in every export. It is the key that lets you match a row in the intake report to the same animal's row in the outcome and medical reports. If a report lets you choose columns, that identifier and the microchip number are the two you never drop.
The reports to pull
| What you need | What to run, and what to check |
|---|---|
| Every animal, one row each | An animal inventory or census-style report, run without a status filter so historical animals are included. This is your backbone list: one row per animal with its identifier, name, species, breed, sex, date of birth, microchip and current status. If your edition only shows in-care animals here, build the all-time list from the intake report instead. |
| How each animal arrived | The intake report for all time. Intake type and subtype (stray, owner surrender, transfer in, seizure), the date, and the surrendering person where there is one. One row per intake event — a returned animal will appear more than once, which is correct. |
| How each animal left | The outcome report for all time: adoption, return to owner, transfer out, euthanasia, died in care, with dates and the receiving person or organization. Together with intake, this reconstructs the full history. |
| Medical | Vaccination and medical-history reports. An adopter calling in two years for a rabies certificate is a real scenario; make sure vaccine name, date given and the animal identifier are all present. |
| People | A person or contact report covering adopters, fosters, owners and volunteers with email, phone and address. Confirm the export carries each person's role, not just their name — a list of names without "adopter of animal X" loses most of its value. |
| Fosters in progress | Whatever report shows current foster placements. Small in size, easy to forget, and the one your foster coordinator will ask for on day one of any new system. |
| Money | Adoption fees, donations and payment history for the periods your bookkeeper and Form 990 preparer need. Hand a copy to whoever does your books before any platform change. |
| External reporting snapshots | If PetPoint gives you Shelter Animals Count or Asilomar-style statistics, save them for each year. They are a consistent, dated record of your intake and outcome totals that is independent of any software — and they are the numbers you will reconcile against later. |
If a report you need isn't available in your edition, or a column you care about can't be added to it, ask 24Pet support for a data extract rather than working around the gap. During a platform transition that is a routine request, and it is far cheaper than discovering a missing field after your access has changed.
Pre-export checklist
- Fix the duplicates you already know about. Merged records export cleanly; duplicates export as duplicates. This isn't a data-hygiene project — just the handful your team can name.
- Close out finished animals. If animals have actually gone home or been transferred but still show as in care, record those outcomes now so the export reflects reality.
- Run everything while you have full access. If you are going to change plans or cancel, pull every report first. Don't assume you can come back for a forgotten one.
- Keep read-only access through any transition, if you can. Being able to look something up in the old system for a few weeks is cheap insurance.
- Save the reports with dates in the filenames (
petpoint-intake-all-time-2026-09-18.csv). Six months from now, "which one is current?" should not be a question.
Combine, then verify
Open the reports in a spreadsheet and build one animal list: start from the backbone report, then match the intake, outcome and medical rows to it by the animal identifier. A lookup formula does this in minutes; if you would rather not, any vendor worth switching to will do it for you from the raw reports. Then spend twenty minutes on three checks:
Spot-check ten animals. A couple currently in care, a couple in foster, a recent adoption, an animal from several years ago, and one that came in twice. Compare name, status, microchip and dates against the live system. If ten randomly chosen animals are right, the mechanism is right.
Reconcile the totals against the counts you wrote down. Unique animals in the backbone list versus "total animals"; in-care and in-foster rows versus today's counts; year-to-date intakes and adoptions versus the intake and outcome reports filtered to this year. Every mismatch should have an explanation you can say out loud — a filter, an outcome recorded between two report runs, a duplicate you knew about. Never paper over one.
Skim for empty columns. A microchip column that is blank all the way down means either the data was never entered or the report didn't include it. Better to learn which now.
Where you take it is up to you
Everything above holds whether you archive the files, move to 24PetShelter, or move somewhere else. Even if you are staying inside the 24Pet family, a verified off-platform copy taken before a migration is the only way to check that the migration was complete afterward — run the same three checks against the new system on day one. Data portability in both directions is a fair test of any platform you evaluate next; we've written about why owning your data should be non-negotiable.
One product note, offered plainly. Pet Friend's built-in importer auto-maps the column headings PetPoint exports commonly use — the animal identifier, intake type and date, microchip number, primary and secondary breed, sex, date of birth, color, altered status — lets you correct any mapping by hand, and shows a full preview before a single record is created. Animals come in through that wizard; people and adoption history are matched in by hand as part of free white-glove migration: send us the reports, we do the import, and we verify the counts with you — and tell us up front if medical history needs to come along, so we can look at what your reports contain before promising anything. If you are weighing the options first, the PetPoint alternatives guide and the Shelterluv vs PetPoint comparison lay them out without false urgency. And the week-by-week 30-day migration plan was written for Shelterluv but applies to any switch — export and audit, import and verify, parallel run, go-live.
PetPoint export FAQ
Is PetPoint shutting down?
No. In April 2026, 24Pet launched 24PetShelter as the successor to PetPoint and Chameleon and ended new feature development on PetPoint, which keeps running with bug fixes, security updates and support and has no announced shutdown date. Transitions are led by each organization when it is ready. That is exactly why now is a good, unhurried time to take a verified copy of your data.
Is there a single "export all" in PetPoint?
PetPoint is report-driven: you build your copy from reports run for a date range and saved as spreadsheets — an all-time animal list, intake, outcome, medical, people, fosters and finance — and then match them by the animal identifier. 24Pet's help center has the current report names, and support can provide a data extract if a report you need is not available in your edition.
Do photos and signed documents export?
Photos and signed PDFs are the common gap in standard exports across shelter software generally. They may be downloadable individually or available in bulk on request. Ask 24Pet support what the current options are, and download anything you cannot afford to lose while you still have full access.
How do I know the export is complete?
Write down your counts before exporting (total animals, in care, in foster, intakes and adoptions year-to-date). Then spot-check ten animals against the live system, reconcile the unique-animal totals against those counts, and skim for empty columns. Every mismatch should have an explanation you can state.
I'm moving to 24PetShelter — do I still need this?
Yes. A verified copy taken before any migration is the only way to confirm the migration was complete afterward. Run the same three checks against the new system on day one, and keep the dated export as your independent record.
Can Pet Friend import a PetPoint export?
Animals import through the built-in wizard, which auto-maps common PetPoint column headings, lets you fix any mapping, and previews everything before it is created. People and adoption history are brought across as part of free white-glove migration — send us your reports and we import and verify the counts with you; mention medical history up front so we can check your reports before promising it.
Want the export handled for you?
Send us your PetPoint reports and we’ll import them, map them, and verify the counts together — migration help is free. Or try the demo first, no signup needed.
Free White-Glove Migration Try the Free Demo