Applying finance charges

You can apply finance charges to all or some of your patients simultaneously, allowing Easy Dental to calculate the charges, or you can enter the finance charges manually for individual patients.

Billing types were designed to help you categorize your patients. You can assign a billing type to each account that determines whether the account receives finance charges or not. The two keys to using billing types for this purpose is to be consistent in assigning types to accounts and to choose the appropriate types when applying finance charges.

Even though you assign a billing type to an account that describes it as a no finance charges account, if you include that billing type when you run finance charges, a finance charge is applied to the account.

Note: Payment plan terms override finance charge settings for patients with payment plans.

You can use the Finance Charge option to calculate and create finance charge entries for all accounts that meet the criteria that you set.

Note: Back up your database before applying finance charges to any group of patients.

·        Entering finance charges manually

·        Deleting finance charges

To apply a finance charge

1.   In the Accounts toolbar, click Month End, point to Finance Charge, and then click Apply Finance Charge.

The Apply Finance Charges dialog box appears.

 

Notes:

·        The Finance Charge Date field defaults to the current system date. Finance charges are calculated according to the aging balance for each family account as of the finance charge date. The finance charge date is also used as the transaction date for each finance charge entry.

·        The Minimum Balance to Charge field defaults to $10.00. The minimum balance is compared to each aged account balance, and only those accounts with an aged balance greater than the minimum have a finance charge applied to them.

·        The Minimum Finance Charge field defaults to 50 cents. A finance charge is applied when the calculated finance charge is less than the minimum.

·        The Past Due Days to Charge defaults to zero days assuming charges are due to be paid when they are incurred. Finance charges are calculated on the portion of each account balance that is past due according to the number of days you select and the aging of the account as of the finance charge date.

·        The Finance Charge Percent field is used to calculate the finance charge amount. Finance charges are always calculated on a monthly basis, so if you select Yearly, Easy Dental divides the percentage entered by 12 for the calculations.

2.   Select the providers whose patients you want to apply finance charges to (only primary providers appear), or select All to select every primary provider.

3.   Select the billing types that you want to apply finance charges to, or to apply finance charges to all accounts regardless of billing type, select All.

Note: You can run finance charges for one set of billing types and then run them again for another set if you want different finance charge options.

4.   Click OK.

A message appears to verify that you want to apply finance charges.

·        Click Abort to stop applying finance charges.

Any finance charges that were already calculated before you clicked Abort are applied.

Note: Printing a finance charge report from Reports will show the finance charge entries. You can edit or delete each entry from Accounts.