The PPS billing process covers three stages; charge, invoice, payment. The following guide will introduce you to each of these stages and take you through the full process of raising and paying off accounts for clients within your system.
Section One - Creating a Charge
a. The billing process for a client begins with charges. These are individual items such as treatments or stock items that can be invoiced and paid for individually or raised alongside other charges. Charges can be raised in the following ways:
Create a Charge
Access this screen from the Accounts menu. Fill in the relevant details and select the client the charge is being raised for. Use the Code dropdown to select from your list of Standard Charges which are pre-configured with descriptions and costs.
If you have a large number of Standard Charges it may be easier to use the search box option to locate charge items instead of the dropdown. Enable this via Tools > Options > General System Options > Accounts
If you do not wish to use a Standard Charge then enter a Description and Unit Cost in order to raise an ad-hoc charge.
Use the Quantity, Discount, and VAT Code fields to further specify the details of the charge and the end Total. You can then choose to raise this charge to the Client themselves or an associated Third Party. For the purposes of this guide we'll be focusing on client charges but details on Third Party Billing can be found here.
Click OK to raise the charge with no further action if it needs to be invoiced later or OK - Go to Invoice/Payment to raise the invoice now. Find information on Invoicing in Section 2 of this guide.
Cash Desk
Cash Desk allows you to easily raise multiple charges at once and can be accessed from your accounts menu or by pressing F11 on your keyboard.
Choose your client at the top of the screen as well as the relevant practitioner, location, and department. To the right you'll find the Cash Desk Quick Buttons which allow you to raise certain Standard Charges with a single click. Configure which of your charges appear here via Tools > Look Up Tables > Standard Charges and Stock Items. Modify a charge and enter a number in the Cash Desk Quick Button field to determine it's place in the quick button list.
To raise a charge item not found in the Quick Buttons list select the text field at the bottom of the Code column and enter part of the charge code or description and hit Enter. You can also double click here to view a full list of available standard charges. Double click the item to select and add to the charges list. Continue to do this until all of your charges are added.
To add multiple quantities of one charge enter the quantity in the Code field and press the Quantity button. The next charge you choose will be added as many times as the selected quantity. Press the Quantity button once more to return to raising single instances.
Double click a charge in the list in order to make any modifications including to the cost. Choose Reset to clear all items or Remove to delete the selected item from the charge list. The Discount button gives you options for applying discount to one or all of the charges, find more information on discount here.
To raise these charges without invoicing choose Create Charges Only at the bottom of the screen. You can then invoice these charges when required as per Section 2 of this guide. Alternatively, invoice and pay off these charges at once by pressing Payment followed by the correct payment method. This will add the payment details to the cash desk, hit enter to confirm and add them to the charges list. You can then choose Cash Desk Complete! at the bottom of the screen. If the payment is going to be made at a later date then choose Cash Desk Complete! without adding a payment to raise the charges to an unpaid invoice.
Complete Appointment
When completing an appointment you'll be taken to the Appointment Complete screen. If your Appointment Type has a Standard Charge associated then this will already present and you can choose what to do with it based on the options on screen. If you simply raise the charge then you can raise it to invoice as per Section 2 of this guide. Choose Invoice Now, Pay Later to invoice the single charge and find details of how to associate payment in Section 3. You can also access Cash Desk in order to raise other charges in addition to the one already chosen as part of the appointment.
Section Two - Raising an Invoice
Straight from Create a Charge
If you used Create a Charge to raise your charge and chose the Go to Invoice option then you will come to a screen like the one above.
If you used Cash Desk or Complete an Appointment to raise an invoice then it will have been automatically raised. You can now pay it off when required as per Section 3.
In the screen above you'll see all charges that can be raised to Invoice. If the client has charges that cannot be added to a single invoice then you'll see multiple invoices in the top section and the option to raise these all at once. Ensure that all the charges you want to raise to invoice are selected in the bottom section of the screen and that the Date is correct before clicking Create Invoice. Alternatively, choose close to leave the charges as they are.
Charges previously raised
If you chose to raise charges but no invoice then you can create an invoice for them at any time later on. This can be useful if a client is to be charges separately for a series of purchases/treatments but would like each encompassed in a single invoice.
To raise charges to invoice for a single client navigate to their account screen via Accounts > Accounts. Ensure you have the correct client selected and chose New > Raise a New Invoice to... This will take you to the same Raise Invoice screen as detailed above.
Tip: You can also raise Charges and Payments, print invoices and Statements of Accounts, and get an overall view of a client or third party account from the Accounts screen.
Invoice Processing
PPS' Invoice Processing utility allows you to quickly and easily raise invoices for any outstanding charges for clients or third parties over a desired date range.
Find this screen via Accounts > Invoice Processing. Choose who to raise invoices for based on the invoicee, location, and practitioner. You can also choose to set a date range of what charges to raise based on the dates of the charges or raise all outstanding charges to invoice at once. Choose OK once done.
You'll then be presented with the Raise Invoice screen described earlier in this section but in this case the top section will list invoices for all of the clients or third parties covered by the Invoice Processing options you selected. Use the "Select to Include" tick boxes to choose which of these invoices to raise. Select each invoice in this list to view which charges are available for it in the bottom section and use the "Include" box to set which of these should be included.
Choose Create Invoice to raise only the selected Invoice and mark it as paid if necessary or choose Create All Invoices to go through all invoices you've selected to include and raise them. This latter method won't give you the option to pay off the invoices but you can do this at any time after the invoices is raised, details of which can be found in Section 3.
Section 3 - Paying off an Invoice
Tip: If you'd like to get a quick view of any invoices you have unpaid on the system then head to Accounts > Invoices / Receipts List. Use the filters on the left to just view invoices Not Paid. You can access the invoices listed here by double clicking and add a payment if necessary.
If you've chosen to Pay off an invoice at the time of raising it you'll see a screen like the one below:
Use this to easily mark the invoice as paid and raise a payment to the same value as that outstanding on the invoice. Select the correct payment method via the dropdown and check you have the correct date.
If your invoice is already raised you can pay it off by opening the invoice from the Accounts screen or the Client Log.
Choose the Payments option at the bottom of the screen and choose to Record a New Payment against this Invoice. This will give you the following screen which you can use to create the payment that will be associated to the invoice either to pay it off in part or in full.
If your client has funds outstanding on their account then this can be associated by choosing the Select an Existing Payment option from the invoice instead. Find more information on pre-payment in PPS here.