Account credit is money the clinic holds for a patient: an overpayment, a refund kept on file, an unused deposit. It's applied to the next invoice and shows in the books.

Where credit comes from

  • An overpayment. A payment larger than the invoice needs leaves the difference as credit; the payment form says so before you confirm.
  • A prepayment. From the Payments page, Add Payment for a patient with no unpaid invoices puts the whole amount into credit, for a package paid up front.
  • A refund to credit. When refunding an invoice, the part that was paid with credit goes back to credit; the rest goes back the way it was paid.
  • A canceled appointment's deposit. Canceled early or by the clinic, the deposit becomes credit; canceled late, what's left after the fee does.
  • An opening balance in the patient's favor, converted as described below.
Credit can only come from money the clinic received. Overpayments, refunds to credit and unused deposits create it; it isn't a discount and it can't be added without a payment behind it, apart from an opening balance converted from a previous system.

Credit is per patient and per clinic. It's offered under Apply credit on every payment form, on the patient's pay-by-link page where it's used before the card, and it can be sent back to a card from the credit if the original card payment can still be refunded. A patient holding credit can't be deleted until it's refunded or used.

The Account summary

The patient's record has an Account summary with four figures: Invoices owing, Credit available, Opening balance (anything brought forward and not yet converted) and Last payment, which skips voids and refunds. Outstanding by age splits what's owed into Current, 1–30 days, 31–60 days and 60+ days. Below is the ledger of the last 90 days, every charge and credit with a running balance to the closing balance, and Print statement for a copy to give the patient. Billing and Payments open the matching sections. If the stored credit and the ledger disagree, the summary says so; report it rather than adjusting by hand.

A patient's Account summary showing Invoices owing, Credit available, Opening balance and Last payment, an Outstanding by age breakdown, and a ledger table with Date, Description, Charge, Credit and Balance columns.
An Account summary with $35.00 owing, $20.00 credit available, the aging buckets and the ledger with a running balance.

Convert an opening balance

Patients imported from another system can carry an opening balance: an amount they owed, or were owed, before ClinyPal. It shows on the Billing section as Historical balance, and until it's converted it's a figure on the screen only; it isn't owed, doesn't appear on statements or payment links and can't be paid. Select Convert beside it. A balance owed becomes an invoice the patient can pay like any other; a balance in their favor becomes account credit. It's a one-time action per patient that can't be run twice, and if a duplicate with an unconverted balance is merged, the balance moves to the record you keep, unless that record has already converted its own; then convert the duplicate's first. A patient with nothing to convert shows Nothing carried forward.

The Outstanding balances report and the patient credit report cover the whole clinic.

With an accounting app connected

When Xero, QuickBooks Online or Zoho Books is connected, account credit moves through a Patient credit account in the books: money that becomes credit goes into it, and an invoice paid with credit takes it from there rather than the bank. See Connect your accounting software.