Features / Practice Management / Accounts and dentist pay
Practice Management
The day posts the books. Pay day pays the dentist.
Someone re-keys the day into another system on Friday. A dentist asks what they’re owed, and the answer is a spreadsheet and an argument.
Joyful keeps your books as the work happens. Treatment counts as income when it’s done, and each dentist’s share is set aside the same day. On the 25th, you confirm the figures. Your accountant still closes the year.
How it works
01
Get your Fridays back
Each visit posts to the books as the work is done.
Every step of a visit updates the books. Booking puts the charge on the patient’s account. A deposit is applied, or held if they overpaid. Finishing the work turns the charge into income and sets the dentist’s share aside. When the patient pays, their oldest charges clear first.
- Friday re-keying disappears, because income posts when the work is done.
- Dentist shares are set aside every day and confirmed on the 25th.
- A patient who paid up front owes nothing but still created income, and the books show that correctly.
02
Dentists know what they’re owed
Each dentist’s share is set aside daily and confirmed on the 25th.
Each dentist earns 33% of the work they did by default, or a higher rate if they hit monthly targets. Their share of lab costs comes off. On the 25th, estimates become confirmed figures, and a person presses a button to record the payment. Joyful doesn’t send money. You make the bank transfer.
- Hitting a target lifts the rate on everything the dentist did that month.
- Dentists can see their own pay, behind a PIN, with the workings and previous months.
- You can’t record more than is owed.
03
Chase the right balances first
Overdue balances are ranked, and real lab invoices replace estimates.
When you order a crown, the estimated lab cost goes into the books. When the invoice arrives, the real figure replaces it and dentist pay adjusts on the next pay day. Overdue balances appear on a chase list, ranked by age and size.
- The real lab cost always replaces the estimate.
- One large debt can’t bury every other overdue balance on the list.
The small print
- Joyful doesn’t do VAT, year end, bank reconciliation or export to Xero yet. Your accountant closes the year outside Joyful.
- Pay day needs switching on. Until then, dentist pay stays as an estimate.
- Dentist pay follows the work done, not whether the patient has paid.
- To confirm pay on the 25th, set a target for each dentist, even if it is their flat rate.