|
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.
Task Bar/Accounts -> Record a Payment, Accounts screen, Accounts -> Payments List, Completing an Appointment or Completing a Consultation.
These options open the same screen, which is primarily designed to record payments that have been received at a later date. For example: posted cheques, BACS notification etc.
|
1.
|
Select the account to record the payment for.
Select a client by entering their client number or click <Search>, or select a third party, enter part of their name and click <Search for 3rd Party>.
However, if you know the invoice number, click the Search for account via invoice No. radio button and enter the invoice number.
|
|
2.
|
If a client or third party has been selected then an outstanding balance is displayed together with a balance for any previous unallocated payments and a total balance due.
If an invoice number has been entered, the details about the invoice are displayed together with a balance due for this invoice.
|
|
3.
|
Enter the payment details.
Enter the date if different from today, select how the amount was paid and enter the payment amount. If an invoice number was previously selected then the payment amount field will already have the balance amount entered. (This can be changed if necessary)
Optionally enter any other details about the payment. For example: a cheque number etc.
|
|
4.
|
Click <Save>.
If the payment is the same as the outstanding balance you will be prompted to print a receipt.
If the payment is different to the outstanding balance the Payment Allocation screen is displayed.
|
|
5.
|
Payment Allocation Screen
In addition to the payment details the Payment Allocation screen also lists all the clients unpaid or part paid invoices where you can select which invoices are being paid by clicking the relevant allocate tick boxes. You will notice that the Allocated and Spare fields above the list are automatically updated.
If necessary, you can adjust the amount allocated to each invoice by typing the new amount directly into the Amount column in the list.
After allocating the payment click <Save & Print Invoice/Receipt> to print a receipt or click <Save & Close> to close the screen. (See Printing an Invoice/Receipt.)
|
This option assumes that the whole amount for the appointment/consultation is being paid.
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. Allocate
See: Payments - Allocating 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. 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. 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! 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. 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. 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. Open
Some screens in PPS have an “Open” button on the toolbar, this is very similar to the Modify button as it will “open” the selected record for “modification”. 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. PPS
PPS is the acronym for “Private Practice Software”. 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 Receipt
See: Invoice; Accounts - Printing 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.
--br--
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. Task Bar
The PPS Task Bar is a tool bar that is positioned down the left hand side of the main PPS screen. It contains a calendar that can be used to navigate the Diary and the Daily List, and has quick access to various parts of PPS via Icons, headings and Prompts that can be clicked with the mouse. If your screen resolution is too small, then the icons are removed and just the Headings and prompts remain. You can switch the task bar on and off by selecting from the PPS menu: View – Task Bar.
|
Post a reply
