Taking a payment
Recording what a patient paid, against what, and printing a receipt that is valid whether or not there is a connection.
2 min read
Recording it
From the patient's profile, or from Billing / Cashier, choose the patient and take the payment. You record:
- How much.
- How they paid — cash, transfer, card. Only cash affects your till.
- What it is against — the outstanding charges, or a deposit against future work.
Part payments are normal. Pay ₦2,000 against a ₦5,000 bill and the balance is ₦3,000, derived as always from the transactions.
The receipt
A receipt number is taken from this machine's reserved block as the receipt is issued. It is a real number, not a placeholder to be fixed later, and it works with no connection at all.
The number will not run continuously with the machine next to you, because that machine has its own block. That is expected and is not a missing receipt — see Where numbers come from.
Print it there and then. If the printer is down, the receipt exists and can be printed later from the patient's Payments tab.
Deposits
A deposit is money held against work not yet done — common before a procedure. It sits on the patient's account and is drawn down as charges are raised. It is not revenue until it is, and the daily brief keeps the two apart.
Refunds
A refund is its own transaction with a reason and an authoriser. It is never a negative receipt and never an edit of the original. Both the payment and the refund stay visible.
A payment is not a charge
Recording a payment does not raise the charge. If a patient pays ₦3,000 for a consultation nobody charged for, the hospital has money it cannot account for and a patient in credit.
The order is always: charge for the work, then take the money against it.