From treatment plan to paid invoice, without retyping anything
The dentist finishes a root canal, writes "RCT 46" on a slip, and calls the next patient. At the desk, the receptionist reads the slip, tries to remember what a root canal on a molar costs this year, types it into the invoice, and takes the payment. The patient leaves happy.
Nothing went wrong. But between the chair and the desk, the same information was written twice, priced from memory, and handed over on a piece of paper. That's where clinics lose money, and it rarely shows up all at once.
Where the money leaks
Ask any clinic owner to check last month's invoices against last month's work, and the gaps usually fall into four groups:
- Work done but never billed. An extra filling added mid-visit, a temporary crown, a small repair. The dentist did it, the slip didn't mention it, and nobody noticed.
- Prices typed from memory. The price list changed in January. One receptionist knows; the other still uses the old number.
- Materials nobody counted. Composite, implants, and impression material leave the shelf, but the stock count only changes when someone remembers to update it.
- Half-paid invoices that go quiet. The patient paid part today and promised the rest next visit. Next visit was three months ago.
None of these is anyone being careless. Each one happens because the same information has to be carried by hand from one place to another.
Let the treatment plan become the bill
The fix is simple to describe: write the work down once, in the place where it happens, and let everything else read from there.
Prices live in one catalog. Every treatment has one price, set by the owner and changed in one place. When the price changes, it changes for everyone on the same day.
The dentist charts the work. The treatment goes on the tooth during the visit, so the chart and the work done match.
The invoice is generated from the plan. The receptionist doesn't retype anything. The treatments, the teeth, and the prices are already there. Their job becomes collecting payment, not reconstructing what happened in the room.
If something was added mid-visit, it's on the chart, so it's on the bill.
Know where every invoice stands
An invoice isn't just "paid" or "not paid". Giving each stage a name makes the follow-up obvious:
- Draft: being prepared, not yet issued.
- Pending: issued, nothing paid yet.
- Partial: some of it paid, a balance remains.
- Paid: settled in full.
- Overdue: past the point it should have been paid.
Make one habit out of this: at the end of each day, someone looks at partial and overdue invoices. Not to chase everyone, just to decide who gets a call or a message this week. Half-paid invoices only get forgotten when nobody looks at them.
Take payment the way patients actually pay
Patients rarely pay in one neat transaction. Someone pays part in cash and the rest by card. Someone transfers from the bank. Someone has credit left from last time. Someone hands over a cheque.
Your system should accept all of these on the same invoice: cash, card, bank transfer, patient credit, and cheque, in any mix. When the money is recorded against the right invoice by the right method, the end-of-day cash count stops being a puzzle.
And when a patient pays more than they owe, don't hand back change from the drawer and write a note. Record the extra as patient credit, so it's there for their next visit and nobody has to remember it.
Receipts and stock in the same motion
Two small jobs usually get done later, which often means never.
The receipt. A printed PDF invoice is fine for the patient in front of you. But most patients would rather have it on their phone, and a receipt sent on WhatsApp is one less paper to lose and one less "can you send me the invoice again?" next month.
The stock. When materials are recorded against the treatment plan as they're used, the stock count goes down at the same moment the work is charted. Low stock shows up before the shelf is empty, not after.
How it fits together in Naab
In Naab, the path from chair to paid invoice is one record, not a chain of handovers.
- Treatment prices come from your catalog.
- The invoice is generated from the treatment plan, with every treatment and tooth already on it.
- Invoices move through draft, pending, partial, paid, and overdue, so the follow-up list builds itself.
- Payments by cash, card, bank transfer, patient credit, or cheque, mixed on the same invoice. Overpayments become patient credit.
- A PDF invoice for print, and the receipt sent on WhatsApp.
- Materials consumed on the plan come straight off your stock.
Invoices, payments, and balances are on every plan, Free included. WhatsApp and stock are on Starter and above, and cheques on Professional and above. See the full flow on the Money & Operations page, or compare the plans.