Setting Up a Payment Plan

Topic

Payment Plans

For

Front Office Team

Read Time

~7 minutes

When a treatment balance is too large to pay in one go, a payment plan splits it into scheduled installments so the patient can say yes today and pay over time. The practice keeps the whole balance, with no third-party financing company involved.

You can also take the first payment on the spot, with the patient still at the desk. Date the first payment today and the Collect Payment window opens as soon as the plan is created, with the amount already filled in.

Payment plans are available to offices on Smile Advantage Payments, and the feature is switched on by the Smile Advantage team rather than from your own settings. Contact support if you do not see the option.

Starting a plan

A plan is always built on a payment request. You can get there two ways:

• From an existing request. Open it and click Create Payment Schedule. This is available while the request is a draft, sent, or partly paid, and only if it does not already have a plan.
• From the payment screen. On a patient’s page click Accept a Payment, then choose Payment Plan / Installments and click Create Payment Schedule. This creates the payment request for you first, then opens the same builder.

Either way you land in the same place: a window titled Payment Schedule.

Building the schedule

Start by picking how you want to work it out. Two tabs sit at the top:

• By Number of Payments: You decide how many installments, and the app divides the balance.
• By Monthly Amount: You enter what the patient can afford each month, and the app works out how many installments that takes.

By number of payments

1. Choose how many. Under Number of Installments, click one of the preset buttons: 3, 4, 6, 12, or 24. For anything else, click Custom and pick a number from 2 to 24 in the dropdown.
2. Set the rhythm. Payment Frequency offers Weekly, Bi-weekly (Every 2 weeks), Monthly, Quarterly (Every 3 months), Semi-annually (Every 6 months), and Annually.
3. Pick the start. First Payment Due arrives filled in with one full payment period from today, matching the frequency you chose. Change it to today to collect the first payment now, or to any later date.
4. Take a payment now, if you want. Down Payment lets you collect a larger first payment, with the rest split evenly. Entering an amount here moves First Payment Due to today. Leave it blank to divide everything equally.

By monthly amount

1. Enter what they can afford. Type it into Desired Monthly Payment. The helper text below shows the minimum you can go to.
2. Decide how exact it should be. Tick Exact Amount to hold every payment at the figure you entered and let the final one absorb the remainder.
3. Pick the start. Set First Payment Due and Down Payment as above. This tab is always monthly, so the date arrives filled in with one month from today.

First Payment Due and Down Payment now sit in the same place on both tabs, so switching tabs no longer moves them around on screen.

Note

Every installment has to be at least $25, and a plan cannot run past 24 installments. On a larger balance the minimum monthly payment is higher, because the balance still has to clear within 24 payments. The helper text tells you the real figure. This mode is always monthly, so there is no frequency option here.

When the first payment falls

First Payment Due defaults to one full payment period from today:

Payment Frequency	First payment defaults to
Weekly	1 week from today
Bi-weekly (Every 2 weeks)	2 weeks from today
Monthly	1 month from today
Quarterly (Every 3 months)	3 months from today
Semi-annually (Every 6 months)	6 months from today
Annually	1 year from today

If you are used to the old default of tomorrow, this is the change to know about. To take a first payment quickly, set the date to today instead. That collects it right away rather than the next day.

Today can be picked straight from the date picker, with or without a down payment. Dates before today cannot be picked.

Note

“Today” means your office’s day, not the day on the computer you happen to be working from. If you are working from a different time zone, you still see the office’s date.

How a down payment affects the date

Typing an amount into Down Payment moves First Payment Due to today by itself. That is deliberate: a down payment is money taken at signing. Clearing the amount puts the date back to the frequency default.

To put a down payment on a later date, enter the amount first, then set the date. A date chosen after the amount sticks, and the line under Down Payment changes to read “Due as the first payment on” that date. Change the amount again and the date resets to today.

You do not have to enter a down payment to collect today. Setting First Payment Due to today on its own does the same thing.

Reading the pills and helper text

Both field labels carry a small pill, and so does the first row of the Schedule Preview.

Where	First payment is today	Any later date
First Payment Due label	orange Today	grey day count, such as 30 days
Down Payment label	orange Today	grey Optional
Schedule Preview, row 1	orange Today	grey day count

The day count reads 1 day, 2 days, 30 days, and so on. Rows 2 and below in the preview carry no pill. The (Optional) that used to be part of the Down Payment label is now that grey pill.

The line under First Payment Due depends on both the date and the AutoPay toggle at the bottom of the window:

First payment	AutoPay	The line reads
Today	On	You will be asked to collect payment after the plan is created. AutoPay starts with the payments after that.
Today	Off	You will be asked to collect payment after the plan is created. The patient will be sent reminders before each payment after that.
A later date	On	AutoPay will charge the card on file on this date.
A later date	Off	The patient will be sent reminders before this date.

The line under Down Payment tells you what the amount will do:

Situation	The line reads
First payment is today	Leave blank to split payments equally on schedule
Later date, nothing entered	Enter a payment to collect today
Later date, amount entered	Due as the first payment on that date

Check it before you commit

Schedule Preview builds a table as you type, with a row per installment showing #, Due Date, and Amount, and the balance beneath it. These are the exact dates and amounts that will be created, so read them back to the patient before going further.

Then finish up:

1. Decide about AutoPay. The AutoPay toggle appears once a preview exists. Leave it on to charge the saved payment method automatically on each due date. It cannot be switched on without a valid method on file, and stays disabled until one is added, with an Add Payment Method link beside it.
2. Choose what the patient receives. Under Options, tick to email or text them the schedule.
3. Confirm the terms. Under Terms & Conditions, tick to record that the patient has agreed. The Payment Plan Terms & Conditions link opens the agreement so you can show them.
4. Create it. Click Create Payment Schedule.

Two things happen quietly at this point. The request’s due date moves to the final installment’s date, and AutoCollect switches off so the patient is not chased by reminders and a plan at the same time. Nothing on screen announces either.

Taking the first payment while the patient is with you

1. Open the payment request and click Create Payment Schedule.
2. Build the schedule. Choose the number of payments, or a monthly amount, and the frequency.
3. Enter what you are collecting now in Down Payment. First Payment Due moves to today and both labels show a Today pill. Taking an even split instead? Leave Down Payment blank and set First Payment Due to today.
4. Check the Schedule Preview. Row 1 is dated today and shows Today.
5. Leave AutoPay on so the remaining payments are collected automatically.
6. Click Create Payment Schedule. The Collect Payment window opens with the amount already filled in.
7. Take the payment on the terminal, by entering the card, or against the card on file, and wait for the approval.

The approval comes back before the patient leaves. See Accept a Payment for how that window works.

The window only opens if the payment request can actually take a payment: your office has to be on Smile Advantage Payments, and the request has to still have a balance owing. If either is not true, the plan is created as normal and no window opens.

If the first payment is dated in the future, nothing opens. The plan is created and that is it.

AutoPay and a first payment dated today

On a plan with AutoPay switched on, a first payment dated today is created with AutoPay off for that one installment. Its row shows Collect in office where the AutoPay badge would normally be. Every payment after it is covered by AutoPay as usual, and the plan’s own AutoPay setting is untouched.

The reason is that you are collecting that payment at the counter. If AutoPay ran in the background at the same moment, the patient could end up charged twice for it. Keeping that one installment out of AutoPay’s hands makes that impossible.

Nothing charges the down payment by itself. If it does not get collected while the patient is there, the installment stays on the plan like any other and the Charge button on its row reopens the payment window whenever you are ready. Switching the plan’s AutoPay off and back on again hands that payment back to AutoPay.

How AutoPay works once it is running

AutoPay is set for the plan as a whole, not per installment, using the toggle below the schedule table. The AutoPay column in the table shows each installment’s state but is not clickable. The one exception is a first payment dated today, which is created outside AutoPay and shows Collect in office instead.

If a charge fails, the app retries automatically:

• First retry: 24 hours later.
• Second retry: 48 hours after that.
• After the third failure: AutoPay switches itself off for the plan and no further attempts are made. The installment needs collecting by hand.

While retries are running, the installment’s row shows a count, written as “(1 retries)” even on the first one. A failed installment shows a red Failed tag, and hovering it gives the reason.

Switching AutoPay off asks you to confirm, because it applies to every remaining installment at once. Switching it on does not.

Taking a payment on a plan

The next installment due has a Charge button on its row. Click it and the payment screen opens with that installment’s balance filled in, ready to take on the terminal, by manual card entry, or against the saved method. See Accept a Payment.

If you collect an amount without pointing at a specific installment, it is applied oldest first: the earliest unpaid installment clears, then the next, until the money runs out. An installment that only gets part way shows as Partial with the amount paid beneath it. So a patient catching up on two missed installments and part of a third is handled in one transaction.

Payment plans are card only. There is no bank or ACH option, including for a down payment.

Note

Changing an existing installment’s due date to today does not open the Collect Payment window. That only happens when a plan is created. To collect an installment early, use the Charge button on its row.

Note

There is no grace period. An installment shows as Scheduled all the way through its due date and becomes Overdue the following day. AutoPay, though, attempts the charge on the due date itself.

Cancelling a plan

Click Cancel Schedule at the bottom of the schedule block. Your browser asks for a reason, and the cancellation will not go through without one. All unpaid installments are then cancelled.

What the patient sees

The patient gets a link to a page they can open without an account or a login. There they see:

• A progress bar with how many payments they have completed out of the total, and a percentage.
• The full installment table with dates, amounts, and statuses.
• Pay Installment # to pay just the next one, or Pay Full Balance to clear the whole thing early.

If AutoPay is running, they see it as a badge but cannot switch it off themselves. A patient who wants it stopped has to call you.

To print the schedule for them, use Print Request / QR Code on the payment request, which includes the full installment table.