How Do I Enter a New Credit (Payment or Adjustment)?

You should enter a credit to:

Record a payment.
Adjust (write off) a balance. Adjustments are also used to record discounts.
Record payment denials received (if desired)

SOS is an open-item receivables accounting system, which means that you must apply credits to individual charges rather than to an overall balance. When entering a credit, you will specify the patient and the payer. SOS will then display all the matching charge splits that are still “open”, that is, those that still have a balance to be paid. You will then apply the credit to one or more of the open charge split items. Charge splits may be paid in part or in full. If not paid in full, each remains open until subsequent credits (payments or adjustments) bring the balance for that split to zero.

To access the Credit Form:

Open the Billing section of the navigation bar, then click Daysheet.
Click the New Credit (dollar sign) button on the main menu toolbar, or the New Credit option on the Daysheet’s right-click menu.
The Credit form will open.
To start, select a patient by clicking the Patient field.
Select the payer for this credit. The correct payer will be the party…
* From whom the payment was received,
* From whom the payment denial was received, or
* To whom you want to apply an adjustment.
The drop list for this field contains only those payers (both private and insurance) that you have previously configured for this patient, less any for whom you have set the Do not show in transaction payer list option. SOS uses distinct highlight colors to differentiate between the types of payers in the list:

As soon as you choose one of the payers, the open charge splits (charge splits that still show a balance due) for that payer will appear in the Charge Splits list box in the bottom section of this screen.
Now indicate the type of credit you want to apply: Adjustment, Cash, Credit Card, Check, Denied, Electronic Funds Transfer, or Other. If you select Check you can choose a previously entered check with available funds, or you can add a new check entry using the New button in the lower right corner of the list window. If the latter, SOS will prompt you for the details of the check, including the date, number, and amount. Note that the check amount can be larger than the amount you want to apply to this patient account. The next time you want to apply some of the remaining amount of this check to any patient account linked to the payer, the check already will have been recorded and it will appear in the Checks list for selection. The process for the other types of credits, even Cash, work in a similar manner, though the specifics vary for each type. Please see Qualifying Your Credit Type Selection for Payments and Adjustments for more details, if needed.
SOS automatically inserts the current date as the Credit Date but you can change it to a different date, if necessary. Note that if you change the date, the date you insert will appear as the default in the next credit you enter.
Next, review, and adjust if necessary, the Credit Amount (the amount of the payment or adjustment) that you want to apply to this patient. If you apply less than the entire amount, the remainder will be saved as undistributed funds and available to apply to this or a different patient account in the future.
Reviewing the rows in the Charge Splits list in the next panel of the screen, highlight the first one you want to pay or adjust, then click the Apply Credit button below the Charge Splits list.
A Credit Split window will appear. The amount available to be applied to the Charge Split balance automatically appears in the Amount to Apply field. If desired, you can reduce the amount. In addition, you can change the Date Applied, if you like, but it must be the same or more recent than the Credit Date.
The Credit Split form also contains an option to create an adjustment to reduce the remaining balance of the Charge Split even further. You also may indicate an amount to be transferred from insurance responsibility to the non-insurance payer(s) on the account. So you can do all three — pay, adjust, and transfer — on one Credit Split screen. (Note that if this were a non-insurance credit, you would be able to transfer to insurance responsibility instead.)
To save this Credit Split and return to the Credit screen, click the Save and Close button on the toolbar at the top of the window, or press <Ctrl><Enter> on your keyboard.
If the Credit you are entering covers more than one charge item, just repeat the apply process until the entire credit amount for this patient has been applied.
Note that if the payment or any portion of it is not applied, the unapplied portion will remain in the system as a pre-pay and can be applied to future charge items as they are entered on the daysheet.
If you would like to record some comments or additional description for this entry, you can do so on the second tab of this form, Additional.
Add any desired information on the User Defined Fields tab, if you have configured user-defined fields for credit entries.Save your entry with one of the Save Options buttons: Save (saves, but stays on the current screen), Save and Close, or Save and New Credit (saves the current credit, then clears the form to prepare for a new credit entry). Pressing <Ctrl><Enter> on the keyboard does the same thing as the Save and Close button.