From time to time you may wish to offer your patients a discount on the fees for your services. Genie allows you to calculate and apply these discounts during your regular invoicing and receipting processes. For more information on when and how to apply a discount, please read on.
Before you begin
Discounts should only be used when you are wanting to charge a patient less than the full fee. For example, if you offer a 10% discount for paying on the day or $20 off for locals.
Discounts should not be used to write off bad debts. If you have a bad debt for a patient where you don't expect to be paid, please refer to the Bad Debts article for instructions on how to proceed.
You can apply a discount whilst invoicing, either at the stage of adding an item or after an item has been added.
To apply a discount in the Add Item to Invoice window, select the provider and add an item number as usual.
You can then discount the item based on a percentage by clicking on the black drop-down arrow button. Alternatively, you can discount by a dollar amount by just typing the amount into the Discount field. If you enter a percentage discount, it is automatically converted into the appropriate dollar amount.
If you would like to apply a discount after you have added an item, click in the Discount column to choose the percentage you would like to discount. If you prefer to give a dollar discount amount, select Other from this drop-down list and type in the discount figure.
The 'Total for this Invoice' will display the discounted total.
If there is no payment, you can just click Print to print the unpaid invoice, otherwise enter in the payment amount and click Receipt.
Clicking on Receipt will take you to the usual receipting window. In this window, you can enter a reason for the discount (if you have not done this in the previous window), by right-clicking in the Discount column. An asterisk next to the discount amount indicates that you have not entered a reason for the discount. If a reason is not specified, the discount will display the reason as Unspecified in the patient's Account History.
Selecting Edit discount reason will open a window allowing you to enter a reason for the discount.
You can permanently add this to your list of reasons by clicking on the arrow as above and selecting Add to Menu.
You can apply a discount to an unpaid invoice at the time of receipting. You can do this in almost the same way as applying a discount at the time of the invoice.
In the Receipt window, you will see the Discount column as it was in the Invoice window. Select the appropriate discount percentage or dollar amount by selecting 'Other...'.
After selecting the amount you will be asked to enter in the reason for applying the discount. You can select a saved reason from the drop-down list, or you can type in a new reason.
You can permanently add this to your list of reasons by clicking on the arrow as above and selecting Add to Menu.
The balance owing will be adjusted to reflect the discount.
Receipt the amount as per usual. For more information on how to receipt within Genie, please see our article on Receipting.
If a discount was applied incorrectly, or is no longer valid, you can reverse discounts through the patient's Account History (Billing > Account History).
Highlight the invoice in the left-hand column to display the associated discount in the Payments section in the bottom of this window.
Highlight the discount and click Delete.
You will be required to enter a reason for deleting the discount, this will be tracked in the Sales Audit.
Discounts can be increased either through the patient's Account History window or when receipting.
Modifying in the Account History
In the patient's Account History window, highlight the relevant invoice in the Invoices column on the right. Slow double-click in the Discount field for the item and enter in a dollar amount or the percentage followed by a percent (%) sign. If you type in a percentage, the figure will refresh to become the full dollar amount once you press Tab or Enter to confirm the discount.
Note: Discounts applied in this manner will be on a cumulative basis, meaning any further discounts will be added to the already existing discount amount.
If a discount has been applied incorrectly using the above method, it will need to be deleted from the Payments section in the bottom of the Account History window.
Modifying when Receipting
At the time of receipting, the discount amount can be increased by clicking in the discount field and selecting the appropriate discount amount.
Discounts are recorded in the Payments section of the patient's Account History. However, it is also possible to view discounts in other areas of Genie.
- Billing vs Income Report (File> Maintenance and Reports > Practice Analysis)
- The Daily Billing Report (File> Maintenance and Reports > Daily)
- Payments (File > Maintenance and Reports > Administrator). In this window, you will then need to select Show Discounts.
Removing a Discount from the Drop Down
If you have added a discount amount to the Discount drop down and you no longer want this to be available for users to select, it is possible to remove this. To do this, simply hold down the Alt key, select the discount drop down menu with a right click and drag the mouse to the option you wish to delete. Once you release your mouse, the menu will close and your discount option will have been removed.
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