At Patterson, we listen to our Eaglesoft customers. You asked for line item accounting, and our developers delivered! Eaglesoft’s new Line Item Accounting system provides our users with greater accuracy when posting payments. With this feature, users can apply any account payment directly to a specific line item, making the account ledger easier than ever to manage.
As a software trainer it’s my job to help offices improve their efficiencies every day, and one way to do this is to take full advantage of this feature. To start, did you know there is now an “Add Payment” button on the Walkout window? This was added to allow you to make a payment directly to the Walkout, applying the payment to services on the Walkout first, prior to being applied to any outstanding balance. This is the default distribution method for payments made at the time of Walkout, but if you wish to change the defaults there is a preference for that! Simply uncheck the preference in the Credit Distribution window and the payment made today will be applied to the oldest non-insurance balance first. Be sure to check the “Credit Distribution” box on the Walkout window so you will receive the prompt to distribute the payment. If the box is left unchecked, the Walkout will be saved without prompting for distribution (i.e., Eaglesoft won’t ask where you want that payment applied) and the payment will be applied per the default distribution (which is to the patient and today’s services first). Another important mention of this feature is the radio buttons in the Credit Distribution window that allow you to choose to distribute the payment to Line Item, Patient or Provider. For increased accuracy, I recommend you select “Line Item.” This way you can see exactly which services today’s payment is being applied to and you can manually make changes, if necessary.
Account payments (payments not made at the time of Walkout) and Credit Adjustments work the same way. Just remember to select the “Distribute” option so you can see exactly where that credit is being applied. Your choices again are Line Item, Patient or Provider.
With the addition of Line Item Accounting, new icons have been added which allow the user to see, at a glance, where the patient and account balance is coming from and which services have been paid in full. Unpaid services will be indicated with the *unpaid debit icon, and unassigned credits (these payments/credits have been applied to a patient and provider but not to any specific service) will be indicated with the *unassigned credit icon. To see what these icons look like, please visit FAQ 11124 for a complete listing of all the new icons in v16.
Our support team has created some fantastic webinars on Line Item Accounting and Payment Posting in v16. I encourage you to check these out and see what you’ve been missing.
For a complete listing of our FREE eSupport webinars (available to Patterson customers), please visit our website and as always, our support team at the Patterson Technology Center is waiting to answer your questions at 800.475.5036. Happy posting!
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