Taking Payments for an Invoice
This section of Shepherd compiles all of a client's outstanding balances (even across multiple invoices) and allows the client to pay for all (or some) of them.
Taking a payment is broken down into these steps:
Note: if you're looking for a guide to the previous section of invoicing, check out the invoices overview guide.
Payment Types
First up: Select your payment type. Payment Types are customizable within Admin > Clinic Settings > Settings > Payment Types.
Cash
Check
Credit Balance: applies an amount from the client's credit balance toward the payment.
See our Credit Balance article for more details on taking a Deposit and applying a credit balance to an outstanding balance.
Credit cards (MasterCard, Visa, etc.): credit card information will need to be saved if there’s no card on file for the client
Other, CareCredit, Donation Funds, etc.
Shepherd Pay: Please see our Shepherd Pay articles to see how to process a payment using Shepherd Pay
Inputting a Payment Amount & Selecting Invoice(s)
Next enter the Payment Amount.
You can select the 'Pay All Invoices' toggle and Shepherd will automatically fill in the total amount due.
Or you can select individual Invoices to apply the payment toward.
Tip: If there are multiple invoices, you can apply different amounts of the payment to each one.
Payment, Invoice, and Internal Notes
These are optional but can come in handy for things like:
Check numbers
Payment information (i.e. "Will have the rest of the money on xx/yy" or "Wanted to pay half in cash")
Payment Notes: Client will not see this note
Note will autosave and can be viewed by staff after checkout in 'Payments" (Client Profile >Financial Tab > Scroll down to Payments)
Invoice Notes: Client will see this note on their Invoice
Must click 'Add Note' for note to Save.
Internal Notes: Client will not see this note
Must click 'Add Note' for note to Save.
Staff can view Internal Notes by opening the invoice in Shepherd
Checking out the Invoice
Once all of the payment information has been entered, you're ready to check out the invoice. To do this:
Select the green 'Check Out' button at the bottom
Select whether you want to:
Print/Email Receipt
Print/Email Invoice (itemized Invoice)
Giving Change in a Cash Transaction
There are two ways Shepherd can process change when a client pays in cash:
Adding Change to the Client's Credit Balance
If a client wishes for their change to be left on their account as a credit balance
Click blue 'Pay to Credit Balance' just above the green 'Check Out' button.
Enter dollar amount into field 'Pay to Credit Balance'
Click 'Check Out'
Automatically Calculate the Correct Change Amount
Shepherd can also calculate the correct change for you—all while keeping track of the initial payment and change given in your financial reports.
To see how much change you'll need to give, press the check out button and it will be calculated for you.
