Category: Accounting

At times you may receive a payment that is more than the balance due from the payer. Once you create a voucher for the payment, whatever you do not use will remain on the voucher as undistributed funds. Any time you like, you can apply undistributed funds in a new Credit entry.

After selecting the payer and Credit Type (check, in the example below), clicking the Check field will show any existing check vouchers with undistributed amounts. In this case, there is such a check, so we can select it and apply any or all of the available $100 instead of creating a new check voucher.

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It works exactly the same way for other types of payments (Cash, Credit Card, or Other) .

See also:

• What is the Difference Between Unapplied and Undistributed Payments?
• How to Record a Refund

Reversing an Unapplied Payment

First, locate the credit containing the unapplied payment:

1. Open the patient from Patients – Billing or Patients – All Data.
   
2. Click to select the Ledger tab. The Ledger list tab has its own tabs. Make sure you are on the All Items tab of the Ledger list.
   
3. All the Credit transactions are highlighted in green. Scan through the values in the Unapplied Amount column to find the desired transaction. You may find it helpful to click the column title a time or two to put the non-zero amounts at the top of the list. Once you find what you are looking for, double-click that line to open the Credit details view.
   
4. At the top of the Credit screen, select the reason you are making this change.
5. Next, simply change the number in the Credit Amount field, eliminating the unapplied portion. For example, if the credit amount is $100, and $60 of that has been applied, you will see $40 in the Amount Unapplied field just below Credit Amount. Subtracting $40 from $100 leaves $60, which is how much has already been applied. So, in this example, you would change the Credit Amount to $60. Doing so will automatically change the Unapplied Amount in the following field to zero. Note that this change will return $40 to the payment voucher, making that $40 available for to make a payment to any of this payer’s accounts or for refunding to the payer (see below).
   

Reversing an Applied Payment

1. Open the relevant Credit in the patient’s Ledger.
2. At the top of the Credit screen, select the reason you are making this change.
3. Double-click each of the Credit Splits in the Credit Splits list at the bottom of the window. Change the split amount to zero and save.
4. Once you have changed all the credit splits to zero, change the Credit Amount to zero in the upper part of the Credit screen.
5. Save and exit the Credit. The original amount of the credit will be returned to the Voucher as undistributed funds.

Recording a Refund

If you want to refund the payer for the amount you just reversed, be sure to record it using the procedure detailed in the How to Record a Refund article.

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See also:

How to Record a Refund

What is the Difference Between Unapplied and Undistributed Payments

In SOS, the Daysheet is the screen that shows a list of recently created charge and credit entries which you have not yet committed to the permanent record. You can, for example, still delete entries while they are in the Daysheet. When you “post” a Daysheet, however, you make the designated entries a permanent part of your accounting and they can no longer be deleted. Until you post, the items in the Daysheet window are not included in billing runs or in accounting reports such as the all-important aging reports. How often you post daysheets is entirely up to you. You can post several times a day, or wait two or more days before posting. It is important, however, that you understand the following:

• Items on the current daysheet do not appear in statements or insurance claims.
• Items on the current daysheet do not appear in most accounting and management reports.

When you decide to post, you can post every transaction in the Daysheet, or just select specific transactions to be posted. You can even post a single transaction if you like.

Selecting transactions for posting

Before you start the posting process, tag (highlight) one or more rows in the Daysheet list. There are several specific icons that appear in the main toolbar at the top of the SOS screen while you are working on the Daysheet:

• First, keep in mind that the Daysheet is a list like most others in SOS, so you can easily filter the list by specifying values in one or more columns at the top of the list. For example, you can specify a particular patient name at the top of the Patient column, a particular provider at the top of the Provider column, or a particular user at the top of the Added By column. Doing so will immediately hide all rows that do not match your filter conditions. You can then selectively highlight the desired transactions using the following techniques.
• If you want to print or post everything in the Daysheet, use the Tag All button (third button of the four shown in the image above).
• If you want to print or post a group of consecutive transactions, click the first one to highlight that one, then hold down the <SHIFT> key and click the last one in the group to highlight everything in between.
• If you want to print or post more than half of the transactions, first highlight the whole list using the Tag All icon, then hold down the <CTRL> key and click each of the rows you want to un-tag.
• If you want to print or post less than half the list, you can reverse the above technique. Start by using the Un-tag All button (button four) then hold down the <CTRL> key and click the transactions you want to tag.

Preview and print the Daysheet

Once you have the desired transactions tagged, SOS suggests that you preview and optionally print a hard copy or generate a PDF of the Daysheet before posting. Click the Print Daysheet button (the second of the Daysheet buttons on the toolbar).

Posting the Daysheet

Once you have checked over your Daysheet preview and printed a hard copy or saved a copy as a PDF to a secure location (remember that this report contains HIPAA protected data), you are ready to post the Daysheet, moving the transactions to the permanent account ledgers. You will then be able to bill and include the data in your reports.

To post, simply click the Post Daysheet button on the toolbar. A reminder will appear. Just confirm that you want to proceed and the tagged rows will disappear from the Daysheet list. They then can be viewed and modified if necessary from the individual patient ledgers.

Transfers Start with an Accurate Payer (Charge Splits) List on the Charge

At the bottom of every Charge entry, on the first tab (“Charge”) is a short list that includes a line for every configured insurance and non-insurance payer that is, or was, available for the patient on the date of service. If the patient has insurance coverage and is seen over a period of time, the payers shown in the list are likely to change from time to time. The following screenshot shows a Charge, with the payer list at the bottom. This list is created at the time that the charge is initially entered, but it can be refreshed at any time to reflect relevant payers added after the Charge itself.

Insurance payers are included in the list based on the coverage dates specified in each patient’s insurance policies. Policies are found in the patient screen:

If you see more or less insurance payers in the charge split list than you think you should, it is probable that:

• The coverage dates in the patient’s policies are missing.
• The coverage dates in the patient’s policies are incorrect .
• The service date specified in the charge is incorrect.
• The payer list for the charge needs to be refreshed..

Manual Transfers of Payer Responsibility

In most cases, you will have some idea of how the responsibility for payment should be divided up among the patient’s payers. To adjust the amounts expected from each payer…

1. Open the Charge entry from the Daysheet or, if already posted, from the patient’s ledger.
2. Take note of the total fee amount in the upper portion of the Charge screen.
3. By definition, a transfer means that you will be reducing the amount due from one payer and increasing the amount due from another payer by the same amount. In the payer list at the bottom of the Charge, open each of the payers involved one by one, change the Amount, and save. Be sure that the sum of the split amounts still matches the original total fee amount. If they do not match, the fee amount will change to match the total of the splits when you save the Charge.

Automatic Transfers

Under certain conditions, SOS will automatically make transfers for you, adjusting amounts expected from payers based on a Credit entry that you make. See, for example, Handling Larger than Expected Payments: The Auto-Transfer Feature.

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See related article:

How to Refresh the Payer List on a Charge Entry