Data management tasks and procedures with their direct influence on data quality and compliance are an aspect of great importance for any clinical study. Standards and guidelines define basic requirements for data management but provide little detail on requirements for hardware equipment and specific software specification. There are multiple options and solutions available, all promising to provide the ultimate productivity and effectiveness for data management. However, the devil is in the detail depending on the objectives of a study, the environment to work in and the day-to-day challenges related to the conduct of veterinary clinical studies.