How charges work
A charge is raised against a visit at a price copied from the tariff. The balance is never stored — it is the charges less the payments, added up.
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Raising a charge
A charge is raised against a visit, for a service from your hospital's catalogue, at the price on the tariff schedule that applies to that patient — self-paying, or their HMO or NHIA scheme.
The price is copied onto the charge at the moment it is raised. Changing a price next month does not change what this patient was charged today. This is why an old receipt still adds up years later.
The balance is not a number anybody stores
A patient's balance is the charges less the payments, added up every time it is shown. There is no balance column in Fikacare, anywhere, at any level.
This is the most important financial control in the system. Nobody can adjust a balance, because there is nothing to adjust. They can only record a transaction, which has an author, a time and a reason, and which anybody can later see.
If a balance looks wrong, it is not "the balance" that is wrong — it is one of the transactions underneath it, and you can open it and look.
Money is kept in kobo
Every amount is held as a whole number of kobo and displayed in naira. There is no rounding drift: a hundred charges of ₦333.33 add up to exactly what a hundred charges of ₦333.33 should add up to.
Discounts
A discount is recorded against the charge, with who applied it. Above a threshold your hospital sets, it needs a second person to authorise it — the cashier applies, somebody senior authorises, and both names are on it.
Free and HMO-covered work
Work is charged whether or not the patient pays for it. A consultation covered by an HMO is a charge against the scheme, not an absence of a charge. Work done free is a charge with a discount, and it is recorded as such.
This matters because otherwise the hospital cannot see what it does. "How much free treatment did we give last month?" is answerable only if the free treatment was charged and then discounted.
What a patient owes
On the patient's profile, the Payments tab: every charge, every payment, and the balance derived from them. Printable as a statement.