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Introduction
As part of your conversion to Dentally from your previous Practice Management software, there may have been patients that had outstanding balances or credits on their accounts. As part of the conversion process, these will appear in the patient’s Dentally Account tab as a ‘Balance imported from previous software’ entry.
It is an amount based on the previous software information and is not linked to a Practitioner within Dentally.
If this balance needs to be linked to a Practitioner in your practice, this guide will show you the steps to achieve this.
Please note – only outstanding balances, not credits would need to be linked to a Practitioner if required at your practice.
Checking and creating an Opening Balance Treatment Code
Let’s first start with checking whether your Dentally database has an Opening Balance Treatment Code that can be utilised to link an outstanding balance to a Practitioner.
Click the Settings icon on your Dentally vertical toolbar.
Reminder; you will require Level 4 user permission to access these settings.
Click on Treatments & Plans.
Ensure the ‘All Treatment Categories’ field is selected.
Click into the Search field.
Type balance into the search field, if nothing comes up in the list below then an Opening Balance treatment item has not been added to your system.
Now let’s go through adding the new treatment code for Opening Balance if you don’t currently have one set up in your Dentally database.
Click the New button.
Enter a code into the Treatment code field (in the example below I’ve used OB), enter the description (Opening balance) into the Nomenclature field and Patient friendly field, link the Region field to Patient, link the Category field to 09 General, and ensure only the checkbox next to ‘Appear on invoice’ is ticked. Press Save.
Applying an Opening Balance
Open the patient records to the Chart Tab.
Click the New Treatment Plan + button.
In the Treatment List ensure the Treatment Category field is displaying All, then type balance into the Search field to locate the Opening balance item.
Double click on the Opening balance item to add it to the new Treatment Plan tab you created.
Click on the Opening balance description and add the Opening balance amount to the Price field.
Ensure the correct Practitioner is linked to the opening balance, if not use the drop-down arrow to select the correct practitioner.
Press Save.
Tick the Opening balance item and then click the Charge button.
Once the item has been charged. Click the Complete treatment plan button.
The Patient Recall Interval screen may appear, click Dismiss to close this screen.
Deleting the converted Opening Balance entry
The original converted balance will still be appearing in the patient’s Account tab, the next step is to clear this and keep the Practitioner linked Opening balance you just added.
Open the patient’s Account tab.
Click the rubbish bin icon at the end of the ‘Balance imported from previous software’ line entry. Remember you need to have user permission to be able to do this, if you don’t, please refer to your Dentally Administrator user at the practice.
Process the Opening balance payment accordingly.