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Charging a client in advance

Nadya
Updated

If you need to charge a client for an appointment in advance, you can record the payment as a credit and apply it to invoices when they’re created. Below, we'll cover:

Charging in advance for a single appointment

If you need to charge a client for an appointment in advance, you can follow the steps below:

  1. Click the appointment on the Calendar
  2. Click Create Invoice
createinvoice.simplepractice.calendar.png
  1. Click Save
  2. Choose Add Payment

If an invoice has already been created, click Add Payment for the appointment in the calendar.

addpayment.simplepractice.calendar.png

Adding a payment as a client credit

You can also charge a client in advance for a certain amount without applying it to a specific appointment. This may be useful if you'd like to create a credit in the client's profile, and apply it to one or more appointments in the future.

To do this:

  1. Navigate to the client’s profile and click Add Payment
advancepayment.simplepractice.clientbilling.png
  1. If the client has unpaid invoice(s), but you don't want the payment to apply to them, uncheck the invoice(s)
  2. Enter a custom Payment amount
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  1. Choose a payment method
  2. Click Add [amount] payment

The amount added will show as an Unallocated payment in the Client billing summary. This can be used as a credit to apply to a future appointment.

advancedunallocated.simplepractice.clientbilling.png

Allocating the credit to an invoice

Once an invoice is created for the appointment(s), the payment won’t automatically allocate to it unless the client has AutoPay enabled. To manually allocate the payment:

  1. Open the invoice
  2. Click Add payment 
  3. Check the box for Apply available credit

applycredit.simplepractice.invoice.png

  1. Click Allocate credit

If the credit covers the invoiced amount, you won’t need to choose a payment method.

Tip: If AutoPay is enabled, a client’s unallocated payments will automatically allocate to their unpaid invoices. The client will only be charged if there is a balance after all payments have been allocated. For more information on AutoPay, see Getting Started with AutoPay.

To learn more about unallocated payments and allocating credit, see Managing unallocated client payments.

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