Sending a Payment Request

Topic

Payment Requests

For

Front Office Team

Read Time

~4 minutes

A payment request is a one-time bill you send a patient for treatment or any other charge. They pay it online from a link, with no account and no login. Most of the time you send one straight from the patient’s page in a few clicks. When you need an itemized bill, there is a fuller form for that too.

Payment requests are available to offices on Smile Advantage Payments, and the feature is switched on per office by the Smile Advantage team. If you do not see the options described below, contact support.

Sending a request from a patient’s page

This is the quickest way, and the one to reach for most of the time. Because the app needs to know who the bill is for, you always start from the patient’s page. From there you can create and send the request in a single step.

1. Open the patient’s page. Click the Patients tab, choose All Patients, and click the patient’s row. Starting here is what tells the app who the payment is for.
2. Start a payment. In the Payment Terminal section, click Accept a Payment.
3. Choose Payment Request. In the Action list on the right, click Payment Request.
4. Enter the amount. Type what the patient owes into the Amount field.
5. Say what it is for. Use the Note field to describe the charge. This is what the patient sees on their bill, so make it meaningful, for example “Dental cleaning”.
6. Choose how to send it. Under Notifications, tick Email Payment Request, SMS Payment Request, or both. Each shows where it will go.
7. Send it. Click Complete Payment Request. The request is created and goes to the patient through the channels you ticked.

That is the whole flow. The request is a single charge for the amount you entered, described by your note, and due in 30 days.

Note

This quick path is built for a simple, one-line bill. If you need more than one line item, your own subject line, a different due date, or per-item detail, use the full form below instead.

Building an itemized request from the full form

Reach for the full form when a single amount and note are not enough, for example a treatment plan that itemizes several procedures.

1. Open the payment requests list. In the top navigation, click Payments, then Payment Requests.
2. Start a new one. Click Create Payment Request at the top right of the list.
3. Choose the patient. Open the Select Member dropdown and pick them from the list. Every patient in your office is listed, sorted by last name, so scroll or start typing the letter you need.
4. Name the request. The Subject field is what the patient sees as the reason for the bill, for example “Dental Treatment Plan”. It fills in with today’s date, so replace that with something meaningful.
5. Set the due date. Due Date defaults to 30 days from today. Change it if you need a different deadline.

Note

The Select Member dropdown says “Member” even if your office uses “Patient” everywhere else. It is the one label on this screen that does not follow your office’s own wording.

Under the Items heading, build the bill one row at a time. The form starts with one empty row ready to fill in.

• Description: What the charge is for, for example “Dental Cleaning”. Required.
• Quantity: How many. Required.
• Unit Price: The price of one. Required.
• Amount: Calculated for you as quantity times unit price. You cannot type in this column.

Click Add Item for another row, and use the button at the end of a row to remove one. The Subtotal and Total at the bottom right update as you go.

When you are done, click Create Payment Request at the bottom of the form. Cancel discards it.

Caution

Unlike the quick path above, the full form does not send the request. Every request created this way starts as a draft, and a draft never reaches the patient and never triggers reminders. Sending it is a separate step, below.

Sending a request you built on the form

You land on the request’s page, where its number appears for the first time. From here, send it whichever way suits the patient:

1. By email. Click Email Payment Request. It sends straight away, with no preview or confirmation step.
2. By text. Click SMS Payment Request. This also sends immediately.
3. On paper. Click Print Request / QR Code to open a printable version with a scannable QR code on it. Hand it to the patient or include it with a statement.
4. Any other way. Under Payment Link, copy the link and send it however you like. Preview opens the patient’s view in a new tab so you can see exactly what they will see.

If Email Payment Request or SMS Payment Request is greyed out, the patient is missing something the app needs. Email requires an address on file. Text requires both a mobile number and the patient’s consent to receive messages.

Sending by email or text moves the request from Draft to Sent. Printing it or copying the link does not, so a request you handed over on paper stays a draft until you also send it electronically.

Sending from a request that is already Paid, Cancelled, or Failed is fine and does not change its status. If you want a Failed request chased automatically again, that is a separate step: see Restart a Failed Payment Request.

After it goes out

The patient pays online without logging in, and the request’s balance and status update as soon as they do. Partial payments are fine, and the balance simply reduces.

Two things are worth setting up next:

• Automatic reminders. Rather than tracking who has not paid, switch on reminders and let the app chase the balance. See AutoCollect Payment Reminders.
• Paying over time. For a large balance, split the request into scheduled installments. See Setting Up a Payment Plan.

If a patient turns up in person before they get around to paying, you can take the payment against the request itself rather than processing it separately. See Accept a Payment.

For what each status on the list means, see Payment Request Statuses.