Options – General
PPS Generated Numbers - These are numbers that PPS issues to new clients. You will normally only need to set up these numbers once when you are setting up PPS.
Auto-Prompts - You can also set up how often PPS checks for a back up being made or a re-index being ran – you are prompted if you do not make a backup or re-index within the date ranges specified.
Screen Colours – A PPS User can select for PPS to display a “faded” light blue background to the screens, or a simple light blue background. You may need to switch this option off if you are using PPS over a slow internet connection, as the number of colours used across an internet connection is lower and the faded background will appear in “bands” rather than a smooth fade out. You can also select for the Client Log screen to show its transaction list either in colour or black. “Colour” shows various entries in the colour appropriate to their status – i.e. a completed appointment in purple, a non-invoiced charge in green etc.
Document Library – If required, the default location of stored documents (JPG’s, PDF’s, etc) can be changed to a different file path or server that has more available space.
Printing – A dedicated label printer can be selected here, along with a specific label layout and an alternative location for the bullzip PDF printer installation.
Default System Location – When PPS is using in a multi- location environment, you can optionally select the default location for this system. This is used to apply to new clients added to this system.
Office Applications – PPS offers the ability to use Microsoft Office and Excel, or KingSoft Writer or Spreadsheets.
Options – Accounts
PPS Generated Numbers - These are numbers that PPS issues to new invoice numbers and new estimates. You will normally only need to set up these numbers once when you are setting up PPS.
Tax Settings - here you need to select if your company is registered for Sales Tax (VAT), and you can set up what your local sales tax is called and your registration no– the default name for tax is “VAT”. You can also set up your list of tax codes. You will need to save your updates to tax codes using the <Save Your Updates> button as they are saved separate to the rest of the details on the screen.
Accounting Year – Choose which month the financial year starts with for your reporting requirements.
Cash Desk Options – Choose the date criteria from payments along with a dedicated receipt print and layout.
Making changes to invoices – This option will allow only the system administrator to mark invoices as “un-issued”
Standard Charges – Choose how you would like to search for your list of standard charges.
Recording Payments – You can now restrict the payment date to be within a certain date range – for example, you can stop users from inputting a payment with a date greater than 2 weeks ago.
Options – Custom Client Fields
With this screen the PPS User can customise the various fields that you are used on the main client details screen. All of these fields bar the first two are optional and you can set up these to your own requirements. When you have set up your required headings, these will appear in the “Profile” section of the main client details screen. Each time you add a new client record, you can select to automatically include any of these fields in the “summary” profile information that appears on the client log screen and the consultation “profile summary”. This can be changed per client as you add each new client record.
Options – Set up Client Contacts
With this screen you can customise your third-party contacts that are allocated to your client records. PPS has 9 different third-party types – each of which is shown on this screen. The purpose of this screen is for you to choose how you locally refer to these contact types, and how you want to use then in PPS. For example, in the UK “Doctor” is referred to as GP (General Practitioner), this is your family doctor and you may refer to this in another way locally. The same applies to all other contact types. You can enter a “collective term” for each type, an individual contact name, and a company name. Not all contact types will use a contact and company name – enter one or the other as appropriate. The Text and Numeric entry allow you to store additional details along with ach third party, as an example, for an insurance company you may also store policy number and policy excess. The “format” column allows you to specify how the number entry is made. Select the Notes column for each contact type if you want to also include a Free Text notes entry each time you assign a third-party of this type to a client. Each time you add a new client record, you can select to automatically include any of these entries in the “summary” profile information that appears on the client log screen and the consultation “profile summary”. This can be changed per client as you add each new client record.
Options – Clinical Notes
Notes Headings - The entries on this screen are the headings that are used when you are recording clinical notes. The Consultation screen in PPS allows you to store notes in six different fields, you can set up the first five fields, and the sixth field is called “General”. If you do not want to use all five fields, leave the ones blank that you do not need to use.
Clinical Notes Add-Ins – These are the links to external applications that can be used with PPS throughout the consultation screens, including the use of Physiotec and PhysioTools.
Customisation Settings – Further from the above, notes fields can be auto resized, along with custom preview settings for consultations and finally changes to the font type, size and colour can be made.
Options - Set Up Client Preferences
This section is used to set up the default values to use for the client preferences when adding new clients to the system. Any changes made in here can also be made to reflect upon existing clients by globally updating the system. The system also allows the PPS user to define if they wish to use client pictures within the system as an optional extra. Accounts
The PPS Accounts system includes facilities for you to bill your clients, or third parties, record payments received, and manage all invoices that are overdue for payment. In addition, PPS also offers an additional module called PPS Expense that can be used to record details of practice expenditure. The Accounts system in PPS is not designed to be a full accounts system with ledgers, balance sheets, etc. but it can be used to supply revenue and expenditure information directly to another accounts system by way of exporting the information through reports.
PPS Accounts billing is structured into three areas: Charges, Invoices and Payments. Firstly Charges must be created, then an invoice produced, then a payment recorded. A Charge, or charges simply become “line items” on an invoice, and a payment recorded is “allocated” to the invoice. PPS is flexible enough to accommodate all requirements for practice billing including third-party billing, split billing (between client and third party), recording several payments against one invoice, or recording one payment against several invoices. There are various points throughout PPS that enable charges to be quickly created and “paid off” in one step. This single step still produces the correct Charge, Invoice and Payment records. Add
Look this up under the type of new record you want to add – e.g. Client - Add or Appointment - Add Address
See: Client - Address Administrator
See: System Administrator Appointment
An Appointment is an entry in the Appointments Diary for a client. When you set up your diary, you are setting up the free appointment slots. You then book Appointments into these free slots. Each Appointment can be marked with a status, represented by a colour, to show that the client has arrived for their appointment (green), is currently being seen by the practitioner (orange) or the appointment is completed (purple). You can also mark an appointment as DNA (did not attend) and select a reason why the client has not attended – these are marked in red. When booking an appointment on the diary, this is normally done by highlight a free slot then selecting to add the new appointment. When doing this, the appointment details such as date, time, duration, diary user, treatment room, etc. are already known and you do not have to enter them. Backup
A Back up is a simply a copy of your data. It is very important to back up your data. PPS provides you with an option to make a back up copy of your data. The back up of your data can be used in conjunction with the “Restore” option if your data ever needs to be restore after a computer failure. It is quick and easy to make a back up copy of your data. It is your responsibility to make a back up copy regularly – at least EVERY DAY - and store this AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER. To run the back up option in PPS, select from the PPS Menu: Tools – Back up. This screen has options to include data from the various folders as part of your PPS database. These include the main DATA folder, your Letters folder, Charts folder, etc. You can select to back up all of these folders, or as many as you want for each back up copy. Running the Back up option produces a single file – this is a ZIP file which is a common type of “compressed” file. You can select to encrypt the file which automatically issues a password with the file, so that the data contained within the file cannot be accessed except by the PPS restore program (this password is also specific to your own PPS system). You can select to copy the back up file to an external disk or drive. You can copy the back up directly to a CD provided that you have formatted the CD correctly first. To copy to a CD, you must use your CD Writer software to format the CD in such a way that you are able to simply “drag and drop” files in windows explorer (or my computer) directly onto the CD. Cash DeskPPS Cash Desk is a “point-of-sale” type screen that can be used to quickly create charges, invoices and payments all in one step. You can access the Cash Desk screen directly from anywhere in PPS either from the PPS Menu: Accounts – Cash Desk, or by using the F11 key on the keyboard. When the screen displays, make sure that the client and practitioner are selected. If you launch Cash Desk by clicking on an appointment in the diary first, then these details will be shown already. The Cash Desk screen shows chargeable items (consultation fees or stock items) in the top right corner of the screen – There six “quick buttons” that show the first six items in your list. To access more items, use the <More> button. You can either click on one these buttons to select this charge item, or enter the charge code directly into the “Enter Code” field. When you have added as many charges as you want, then use the <Payment> button. The Six buttons in the top right now show your first six most common payment methods – use the <More> button to see further payment methods. Select the required payment method and confirm the payment amount. When you are done, you simply click the <Save> button, and select if you want to print and invoice/receipt. You can set up which charge code items appear in the list, and which payment methods appear in the list. To do this select from the PPS Menu: Tools – Look Up Tables, and select either the “List of Standard Charges and Stock Items” or “Payment Methods” table from the Accounts Tables section. Both of these have a “Cash Desk Order” entry that determines what order this item appears in the six quick buttons on the Cash Desk screen. You can also apply Discounts and use Vouchers on cash desk, and even use it to bill third parties, even after the client has paid a portion of the bill already. Charge
A charge is the first step for PPS billing. You have to create a charge before you can raise an invoice – a charge is a “line item” on an invoice. Charges can be either for various types of treatment, or for stock/sundry items you may sell. PPS has a “list of standard charges” that you set up yourself giving you quick access to your charges via a code, or description. There are several ways in PPS that you can create a charge, you can also skip very quickly from creating a charge to recording a payment and PPS creates the invoice for you as you go.
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You can create a charge in the following ways (which way you regularly use will depend upon the way that you prefer to use PPS): 1) from the PPS Menu: Accounts – Create a Charge; 2) from the PPS Taskbar click on Create a Charge (if you have the diary open then highlighting an appointment first will create the charge related to that appointment); 3) from the PPS Menu: Accounts – Charges List, and click the New button; 4) from the diary, highlight an appointment, right-click on the appointment and select the Client Charge option from the pop-up menu; 5) when completing a consultation record, the “consultation complete” screen allows you to create the charge; 6) when completing an appointment the “appointment complete” screen allows you to create the charge; 7) Cash Desk can be used to create charges. The first four options above will show the Client Charge screen. This allows you to select / enter all the appropriate charge details and save the charge, or go on to create an invoice for the charge. An invoice can contain more than one charge so you do not always want to create the invoice each time.
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Whenever creating a charge, you have the option to select who will be invoiced for the charge, this includes the Client, and any one of the Third-Part Contacts associated with the client. This is how to bill an insurance company directly, for example. If the client does not have a third party contact associated with them, then you can select one while creating the charge, and select to always associate this third-part with the client. This will update the third-party contact details for you on the Main Client Details screen. Client
Client records are the hub of your PPS database. PPS refers to these records as “Clients” rather than “Patients” because PPS is used across a variety of business and clinical disciplines, some of whom use the term “client” and others use “patient”. A client record can have either minimal details entered, such as first name and surname, or can be a comprehensive range of details including full address/contact details, alternative addresses, DOB, sex, “known as”, full profile details including “source of introduction”, occupation (plus a range of entries you can set up yourself). In addition you can associate a variety of third-parties to clients such as doctors, insurance companies, etc. The more comprehensive the details you store for each client, the greater the opportunities to use these details in your reports and mail-merge operation. For example, by recording the “source of introduction” for each client (such as yellow pages, local advert, recommendation, etc.) you can run almost any report in PPS to show a breakdown by “source of introduction”, for example “practice revenue” by “source of introduction” will show where you earn the most money from – thus where you should concentrate most on your advertising! Clinical Notes
The Clinical Notes facility in PPS is available in the “Professional” version of PPS. This includes screens to record your Clinical Notes, manage Treatment Episodes, complete specific forms (Custom Forms) including body charts and your own questionnaires, etc. All Clinical Notes are structured into the framework of Treatment Episodes. Although some of you may be used to slightly different terminology, PPS uses “Treatment Episode” to define a specific course of treatment for a specific condition, and “Consultation” as the individual treatment sessions/consultations. Therefore each time you see a client – whether or not it is an initial consultation/assessment or a follow up treatment – this is known as a “Consultation”. You can have more than one current Treatment Episode per client if required. When you select to record clinical notes, PPS checks to see if there are any current (not completed) Treatment Episodes for the client. If there is more than one, you can choose which one to record your consultation notes for. Otherwise a new Treatment Episode will be started, and this consultation will be consultation number one for the new Treatment Episode. When you complete the consultation, you can enter set up the full details of the Treatment Episode including the name, number of consultations required, diagnosis details etc. See: Treatment Episode for more details. For more detailed information about recording clinical notes and consultations, see: various entries under Consultation and Custom Forms. Company
Company is the “company name” element of a Third Party contact (as opposed to contact name). Third-party Contacts are individuals or organisations that can be associated with clients, for example Insurance Companies. You are able to set up your profile of third-party contacts yourself using the option from the PPS Menu: Tools – Options, and selecting the Client Contacts tab. Each type of contact (there are 9 in total) can be referred to via contact name, and Company name. An example is a Law Firm, where Contact Name would be an individual lawyer or solicitor, and the company would be the law firm. Consultation
PPS uses the term “consultation” to define each time you see a client, whether or not it is an initial session, or a follow up one. PPS has a clinical notes system that allows you to record Consultation notes each time you see a client, and these are all part of a Treatment Episode. If you see a client once, and their treatment is completed in one consultation, then the Treatment Episode will only have one consultation. If, alternatively, you see a client six times before the treatment for the presenting problem is complete, then the “one” treatment episode will have “six” consultations. To access the clinical notes system in PPS, either select from the PPS Menu: Client – Consultation, or click Consultation on the PPS Task bar. You can select an appointment, or client record first if required to give immediate access to the consultation screen for that client. Criteria
See: Report Wizard - Criteria Details
This is a generic term used to describe the information stored in any particular part of PPS. For example Main Client Details is the information you enter to this screen. In addition, there are several “notes” type fields that allow you to enter further “free text” details against a record – these are also sometimes referred to as Details. Document LibraryThe PPS Document Library is a way of attaching any external Windows™ document to your client records. You can attach documents either to your consultation records, or directly to the client. All attached documents appear in the PPS Client Log screen. Documents you have attached as part of your clinical notes records also appear in the consultation summary section of the consultation screen. To attach a document as part of your clinical notes, from the Consultation screen you can use the <Attach Document> button near the top of the screen. When you attach a document as part of your consultation record, the document still appears as its own entry in the client log screen but can be accessed either via the paperclip icon that appears in the consultation summary next to the consultation, or from the “Documents and Letters” selection in the top right corner of the consultation screen. To attach a document just to a client and not a consultation record, you can either use the Attach Document option of the PPS Menu: Activities, or select Attach Document from the PPS Task Bar. To access a document that you have already attached, select the document record from the client log screen and select <Open> from the client log toolbar. Once you have opened the existing document record, you can delete it from there.
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The Document Library screen allows you to select the “source” file that you want to attach. It is highly recommended that this file is saved into the “Documents” folder contained within your main PPS Database folder. This means that any user on your network will be able to access the document irrespective of which computer on the network they are on. The Documents folder is contained within either the “Livedata” or “Demodata” folders in the main “PPS-Database” folder. You can confirm or select the client for whom you want to attach the document, enter a heading and any further notes required, and you can preview the document in a separate window. GP
See: Contacts – Doctors; Client – Third-Party Contacts Include
This is a term used in the PPS Reports Wizard – on step 3 of the selections for your report. On most reports you can select to “include” a selection of details on the printed report. You can un-tick any items that you do not want to include. The “Include” options only apply when the report is printed or previewed – if you are exporting the report to a file or mail merge, then the “include” options do not apply. Installation
This is the process by which you put PPS onto your computer. You can install PPS either from an installation CD, or from a single installation file that you have downloaded from the PPS web site. If you are running a network system and are accessing PPS from more than one computer, you need to Install PPS onto each computer. Invoice
An Invoice in PPS is an official bill that can be issued for payment by a client. In accounting terms an “Invoice” and “Receipt” is the same thing – a receipt is a printed copy of a “paid” invoice. The invoice has an invoice number and a date for tax purposes. PPS keeps a “ledger” of all invoices, and allows you to print an aged debtors report. An Invoice is formed from individual “line items” which in PPS are called Charges, so an invoice can only be raised after charges have been created. An invoice is “paid off” by recording a Payment and allocating the payment to the invoice. PPS is very flexible in terms of allowing either one charge, or an unlimited number of charges to appear on the invoice; also to allow either one payment to pay off one invoice, or one payment to pay off more than one invoice, or several payments to pay off one invoice. There are several ways to raise an invoice in PPS, some of these are fairly transparent in term of creating the charge, raising the invoice and recording the payment all in one step. Whichever method is used, PPS will always create proper Charge, Invoice and Payment records. List
List is the term used to describe information that either appears on the screen or on a report in rows and columns. The term List is also used in PPS as a list of items such as menu, or list of entries such as a look up table. See also: List style diary. Location
A Location in PPS is a physical clinic location. Older versions of PPS referred to treatment rooms as locations. Now Treatment Rooms are an additional field of information. You can set up locations to use in your PPS Appointments Diary. You can set up your diary for diary users/practitioners to be scheduled to work either in specific treatment rooms and/or locations on various days during the week. You do not have to use “Location” if you only work from one location. To set up locations, select from the PPS Menu: Tools – Look Up Tables, and select Location from the Appointments Diary Tables section. Here you can set up your various locations, and nominate a colour to each location to make each location clearly identifiable in the diary. Log
See: Client Log. Notes
See: Client - Default Notes Entry Options
PPS has a screen on the PPS Tools menu called Options. This screen can be used to set up a wide variety of system settings that affect the way that PPS works. You can make your changes to these areas and press the OK or Apply button to save your changes. The Options screen has four tabs along the top: General, Custom Client Fields, Set Up Client Contacts, and Clinical Notes. See the entries under each of these sections for more details, for example Options – General. Payment
A Payment in PPS is recorded when money is received from clients or third-parties. A payment must be allocated to an invoice – either immediately or in the future. If a payment is received in advance (a pre-payment) for consultations or treatment that has not yet been carried out, then the payment can be allocated to the invoice in the future when the invoice is raised. Payments are either recorded using a specific PPS screen to “record a payment”, or are automatically recorded when an invoice or charge is raised and “marked as paid”. If payments are received from third-parties, then these are recorded on the third-parties own accounts screen where the invoices to the third party will appear. If payments are received from clients, the these are recorded on the client’s own accounts screen. Pictures
See: Charts PPS
PPS is the acronym for “Private Practice Software”. Practitioner
A practitioner in PPS is a system user. To add a practitioner to PPS, you need to add a new system user, and indicate that they are a practitioner as part of their user details. When a user is a practitioner, they appear on the list of practitioners to select to allocate to most PPS records. PPS allocates a practitioner to most types of records so that you can see which practitioner is responsible for that record, also you can break down most report in PPS by practitioner. Preview
See: Reports – Report Output PrintYou can print various types of information in PPS including client details, clinical notes, Invoices, letters, and a wide variety of reports. All printing in PPS is done using your standard Windows printer driver for your selected printer. Many screens in PPS have a <Print> button that is used to print details for that part of the system. See also: Reports – Report Output. Printing
See: Print Profile
The Main Client Details screen in PPS includes a “Profile” section. This is where you store specific information about each client including their “source of introduction” and “occupation”. You can set up your own profile details. This allows you to specify your own field headings which suit the type of details you need to store suitable to your business area. To set up the client profile fields select from the PPS Menu: Tools – Options, and select the Custom Client Fields tab. see: Options – Custom Client Fields for more details. Receipt
See: Invoice; Accounts - Printing Registration
See Also : PPS Registration; Client – Registration Reports
PPS includes many different reports that you can run that present information accumulated from various parts of the system. There are two main reports options: Summaries and Statistics, and PPS Reports and Mail Merge. In addition to these two main options, there is a variety of other print-outs that you can produce from PPS that are not included in the category of reports. These include: Printing the Diary, Client Details, Medical History and Clinical Notes. You can access the PPS reports options from the PPS Menu: Reports. For more details about the Statistics & Summaries type reports, see: Statistics & Summaries. When you select the PPS Reports & Mail Merge option, a reports selection screen appears – this screen is divided into the various categories of reports that you can run. Most reports (certainly client-based reports) can also be used for mail merge purposes. Select a report from any of the categories and use either the Run option (see: Reports – Run) or the Open option (see: reports – Open). When you select Open, you will be guided through the Report Wizard (see: Report Wizard) to allow you to make your specific selections for the report before choosing a report output option (see: Reports – Report Output). See also: various entries in this reference guide under Reports for further details. For details of individual reports, see: the entry under the report name, for example Charges Report or Aged Debtors Report. Save
PPS Uses a <Save> button on many screens. This will save the updates that you have made to this screen and store them permanently in your database. One some screens the <Save> button will also close the screen. Search
You can search for various records in PPS: Clients, Appointments, Third-Party contacts etc. Some screens include a <Search> button on the toolbar. The main PPS Client Search screen includes options to search on a variety of fields: for example Surname. This screen can be accessed from the Search Button on any of the client screens (main details, log, browse) or by clicking “Search” on the PPS Task Bar. The Search screen allows you to enter all or part of a value into a selected field, then when you press Enter a list of results that match what you have typed in is displayed. The most common information to search on is Surname. In the Surname field on the search screen, it is possible to enter all or part of the surname followed by a space, then all or part of the client’s First Name. This way you can narrow down your search results – useful with popular surnames. For example, you can search for Joe Smith simply by entering SMI J in the Surname field and pressing enter. All clients whose surname starts with SMI and whose First Name starts with J will be listed.
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You can search for existing Client Appointments or Free Appointment Slots using the <Search> button on the Appointments Diary – see: Appointments Diary – Search for more details. Select
A term used when you choose something on the screen. Some PPS screens have a <Select> button, this normally means that you pick an option, or entry in a list, then click the <Select> button. This will “select” your chosen entry and proceed to the next screen, or return to the previous screen with your chosen entry selected. Set Up
See: Medical History – Setting Up; PPS – Setting Up; Custom Form – Maintenance; Users – Setting Up; Letterhead – Set Up Status
See: Client Status Time
See: Activities – Time; Appointments – Time Tools Menu
Options on the Tools menu are listed alphabetically in this reference guide under each Section e.g. Look Up Tables.
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