Simplify and manage payment agreements with the Dentrix Payment Agreement Manager.
Updated 1/17/19
Your practice needs to get paid for the work it performs. However, according to Dental Products Report, the percentage of revenue from dentistry that remains uncollected has grown from 11 percent in 2008 to 16 percent in 2015. For years, many dental practices have been using Dentrix payment agreements to help collect those payment balances from patients.
With Dentrix G6.4 and higher, managing those payment agreements in your dental software just got easier. This article offers a quick review of Dentrix payment agreements and then explores the new Payment Agreement Manager available in Dentrix G6.4 and later.
Setting Up and Using Payment Agreements
Dentrix allows you to create and track payment agreements you enter into with patients. Working together with the patient, you set the terms of the payment agreement, including finance charges, interest rates, late charges, and grace periods. You can determine how flexible the terms should be on a patient-by-patient basis.
To set up a payment agreement, in the Collections Manager list, double-click the name of the guarantor you want to create a payment agreement for. If you have not created a payment agreement, a message appears asking you to create one. After you click Yes, the Billing/Payment Agreement Information dialog box appears. Specify the terms of the agreement, and then click OK when finished.
Once a payment agreement is created for a patient, you can review the payment agreement and make a payment by double-clicking the guardian’s name in either the Dentrix Collections Manager or in the new Payment Agreement Manager window. To learn more about payment agreements, see the Setting Up Payment Agreements topic in Dentrix Help.
Using the Payment Agreement Manager
The Payment Agreement Manager shows you every payment agreement your office has entered into with patients. From the Payment Agreement Manager, you can enter payments without going through the Ledger, and you can sort and filter payment agreements. With a patient selected in the Ledger, in the File menu, click Payment Agreement Manager to display the Payment Agreement Manager.
By default, the Payment Agreement Manager displays ten columns of information about the payment agreement: Guarantor, Next Payment Date, Balance Remaining, Payment Amount, Amount Past Due, Payment Due, Missed Payments, Agreement Note, Guarantor Notes, and Mobile Phone. But this list is customizable.
To add or remove information that appears in this list, right-click any of the column headers, and then select any item you want to appear in the window, or clear the check mark next to any item you want to remove from the list. You can change the order of the columns by clicking a column heading and dragging it to the location where you want it to appear in the window.
You can also sort the list of payment agreements according to any of the column headings. For example, to sort the list by guarantor in reverse alphabetical order, click the Guarantor column heading. Or, to sort the list by Next Payment Date, click that column heading. It may also be useful to sort by Missed Payments so you can easily follow up with guarantors who have missed one or more payments. (These appear in red to bring them to your attention.) Each time you open the Payment Agreement Manager, it will automatically sort according to the way it was last sorted.
You can filter the list to display only specific accounts or accounts with non-zero balances. To hide specific accounts from view, select those accounts in the list. (To select multiple accounts, hold the Ctrl key while selecting, or hold the Shift key to select a range of accounts.) Then from the File menu, click Hide Accounts. To hide agreements with zero balances, from the File menu, click Hide Agreements with Zero Balances. To view the complete list again, simply close and then re-open the Payment Agreement Manager.
If you want to print the list, first make sure it’s sorted the way you want. Then click Print on the menu bar and click the Print icon on the toolbar. If you want to export the information to use in another program such as Microsoft Excel, from the File menu, click Copy to Clipboard. Next, open the software program where you want to use the payment agreement data (such as Excel) and press Ctrl+V to paste the information. (Tip: This can be very useful for record keeping or performing advanced analysis on your payment agreement data.)
Entering a Payment
Click Enter Payment on the menu bar or the Enter Payment toolbar button to display the Enter Payment dialog box.
Specify a payment Amount, and any other payment options. You can click the Details button to view additional details about the payment agreement. You can also use the Payment Settings button to change the default payment assignment settings. When finished, click OK.
You can also process payment agreement payments using a saved credit card on file with Dentrix Pay. Watch this video to learn how.
Using the new Dentrix Payment Agreement Manager is that simple. This feature in Dentrix G6.4 and later makes it easy to view and manage your payment agreements and enter payments.
Learn More
To learn more about the Payment Agreement Manager, watch the feature overview video or see the Entering Payment Agreement Payments with Payment Agreement Manager topic in Dentrix Help.
Visit https://www.dentrix.com/products/eservices/dentrixpay for more information about saving credit cards on file in Dentrix.
By Roger Gagon, Senior Editor
Originally published in Dentrix Magazine, Spring 2018
