Creating and sharing billing documents is a vital part of generating income for your practice. To save time, SimplePractice can automatically send new invoices, statements and superbills for you.
In this guide, we'll cover:
With these powerful, time-saving automations, you can also enroll individual clients in AutoPay to automatically collect fees.
Note: Learn more about our different billing documents in this guide: What are invoices, statements, and superbills?
Manually emailing billing documents
After a billing document is created, you can choose to manually send an email notification to your client if you have their email address on file. Click the More > Email icon at the top of the screen and your client will receive an email notification that they have a new billing document:
Depending on the client’s billing settings, this notification can be an email with the document included as a PDF, or a link to sign in to the Client Portal to view the document. See the Client-specific billing automations section for instructions on how to adjust these settings.
Note: If the email icon isn't working, it means the client has not given consent to receive emails or doesn't have an email address on file. You can adjust this by clicking Edit > Client Info in their file.
Billing automations
All of your account level billing automations can be found by going to Settings > Billing and Services.
Invoice Settings
This section allows you to choose the appointment descriptions that will display on your invoices and when to create these invoices: at the end of the day, the end of the month, or manually:
Most practices choose to have invoices automatically created at the end of the day. If you collect payment at the time of the appointment, this is the best option to select. If you bill monthly, then monthly invoice creation is the best option for your practice.
Note: Automated invoices are generated at midnight based on your practice's location and timezone.
Automated Statement and Superbill Generation
Here you have the option to pick which day of the month you'd like statements and superbills to be created for your clients as long as you have billing automations set up:
We recommend choosing the 1st or 2nd day of the month if you collect payments and record them at the time of an appointment. If you collect or enter client payments after the appointment, then you will want to select a date later in the month.
Note: Automated superbills and statements are generated at midnight based on your practice's location and timezone.
Billing Document Delivery Delay
For your clients who receive billing documents via email or through their Client Portal, you can choose to delay the delivery of these documents. This creates a grace period between when a document is created and when it is sent, giving you time to review the document:
Billing Documents for New Clients
Here you can determine the default billing settings for every new client you create:
Important: All billing documents created in your account will be accessible to your clients via the Client Portal regardless of the delivery method you select. If you wish, you can disable this feature directly from your client's Client Portal tab.
Client-specific billing automations
To get started, follow these instructions:
- Go to the client's file and click Edit under their name
- Choose the Billing and Insurance tab
- Indicate if you'd like to create a monthly statement and/or superbill for this client:
- Under Email Billing Notifications choose how you'd like billing notifications delivered to this specific client
- The options are None, Send email with billing documents attached, or Send email with link to Client Portal:
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- None: With this option selected, the system will rely on you to manually print, or email billing documents. If you have a client who requires no billing documents at all, this is the option to select.
- Send email with billing documents attached: With this option, the system will automatically email billing documents as PDF attachments to your client.
- Send email with link to Client Portal: This option will automatically notify your client via email whenever a new billing document is delivered to their Client Portal. This is the most secure option and the one most practices prefer since no PHI is sent over email. This is the option to choose if you'd like clients to pay online through the portal.
- Even if clients have automatic email notifications enabled, they won't receive any notifications for $0 invoices. These $0 invoices often caused confusion in cases where a client’s final financial responsibility is still pending insurance claims.
Note: Please keep in mind that when you choose to send a document via email, that data leaves SimplePractice's servers.
Regardless of which settings you choose, clients can still view all invoices, including $0 invoices, in the Client Portal at any time if they have access to view billing documents in the Client Portal. You can also manually email clients their $0 invoices if you'd like.
AutoPay
If you've already set up Online Payments for your account, you can enable AutoPay for specific clients, and the system will automatically collect their payment after an appointment.
Note: Learn how to set up AutoPay in this guide: Getting Started with AutoPay.
If you haven't set up your Online Payments account, you'll be prompted to set up Online Payments when you try to enable AutoPay. For more information about our Online Payments feature and setting up your account please take a look at this guide: Client payments: Card processing in SimplePractice.
