> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.rescueconsole.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# National reporting
> Build the monthly Shelter Animals Count file from your own records, answer the few questions the records cannot, and download it to upload yourself.
**National reporting** builds the monthly intake and outcome file that Shelter Animals Count asks for. Best Friends' Shelter Pet Data Alliance takes the same file, so one download serves both.
It is not in the sidebar: open the search palette (the **Search** box at the top of the page, or **Ctrl K**, **⌘ K** on a Mac) and type "National". Your role needs **Configure** on Animals, because what one of your outcomes counts as nationally is your organization speaking for itself.
Nothing is sent anywhere from this page. Shelter Animals Count and Best Friends both take the file as an upload inside your own portal account, so RescueConsole never holds a login for either of them.
## Choosing the month
Pick the **Month** and **Year** at the top. The page opens on last month, which is the one you are usually filing.
Everything below is counted fresh each time you change the month, from the records as they stand now. If you correct an intake date next week, the file you build after that is corrected too.
## Questions only you can answer
Most of the file comes straight from your records. Three things cannot, and the page asks about them. Each answer is remembered, so a question asked this month is not asked again.
### What one of your own outcomes counts as
Shelter Animals Count counts outcomes in a fixed list of their own: Adoption, Returned to owner, Transferred out, Returned to field, Died in care, Lost in care, Shelter euthanasia.
The statuses RescueConsole starts you with line up with that list, so nothing is asked about **Adopted**, **Returned to Owner**, **Return to Field (TNR)**, **Euthanized**, **Died in Care** or **Missing / Escaped**.
A status you added yourself is asked about, because only you know what it means. "Barn Placement" could be an adoption, a transfer or a return to field.
You can also answer **Not an intake or an outcome they count**, which is a real answer and a different one from leaving it alone. A status such as "Transport Hold" is neither.
### Where a transfer went
Shelter Animals Count counts a transfer to or from an agency **in your state**, **out of state** and **international** separately. RescueConsole records that an animal was transferred, not where the other agency is, so it asks once and remembers.
### How many animals were in your care
RescueConsole does not record when a status changed, so it cannot work out how many animals you had on the first of the month. You enter it once.
| Box | What it means |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| **In care at the start** | Every animal of that species in your care on the first of the month, including those in foster and off site. |
| **Of those, in foster** | How many of that same number were in a foster home. It is part of the total, not added to it. |
| **In foster at the end** | The same figure for the last day of the month. |
The count at the end of the month is not asked for. It is worked out the way Shelter Animals Count works it out themselves: the count at the start, plus everything that came in, minus everything that left.
Only a question with animals behind it **this month** is asked. If you have never transferred an animal, you are never asked where your transfers went.
## The figures
One row per species, with what came in, what left and the count at each end of the month.
| Column | What it counts |
| ------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **In care at the start** | What you entered above. |
| **Came in** | Intakes with an intake date inside the month. |
| **Live outcomes** | Adoptions, returns to owner, transfers out, returns to field and other live outcomes. |
| **Other outcomes** | Died in care, lost in care and euthanasia. |
| **In care at the end** | The start count, plus what came in, minus everything that left. |
An animal's age is counted **on the day it happened**, so one taken in at three months and adopted at seven is a young intake and an adult outcome. An animal with no date of birth is counted under Age unknown rather than guessed at.
An animal in the bin is left out, as it is in every other report.
### Species Shelter Animals Count does not have
Shelter Animals Count counts eight species. **Fish** and **Exotic / other** are not among them, so animals of those species are in none of these figures. The page says so under the table when you have any.
Barnyard animals and large mammals are both counted as farm animals, in one row.
## Downloading the file
**Download the file** is off until every question above has an answer, and the page says how many are still open. This is deliberate: an upload replaces whatever was already filed for that month, so a file with a gap in it would overwrite a good month with a worse one.
The file is a CSV named for the month, such as `shelter-animals-count-2026-01.csv`.
Upload it yourself:
Sign in to your own Shelter Animals Count account, open **Data**, then **CSV Upload**, choose the file and submit it.
Sign in to shelterpetdata.org, open **Manage Data**, then the **Monthly Data** tab, and **Upload Record**. It is the same file.
Check the first month you upload against what their own screen shows before you rely on it. This is a new report, and their upload page is the only place that can confirm they read a file the way you meant it.