When it comes to deleting a payment, it’s important to understand the implications associated with this, especially when it comes to reporting. Deleting a payment may seem like the easiest way to fix something, but while it may look right on the screen in front of you, your reports, such as the Compensation Report, will also be changed.
❗️Just a heads up—Jane Payments transactions can’t be deleted, but you can refund them if necessary. If you need to refund a transaction processed in error, our Refunding a Patient Payment guide has got you covered with step-by-step instructions.
Oops - Deleting a Payment that was Received Today
The most basic and common case of deleting payments is if you received a payment today and you want to delete it today. This may occur because you were under the wrong profile or for some reason a payment was recorded twice.
To delete a payment you received or recorded in error, you can head to the Patient tab, locate the Patient Profile, and then proceed to the Billing tab.
Within Billing, you can head to the Payments tab to find the payment line you want to delete, then click View.
On the Payment panel that pops up, hit the trash can icon to delete the payment. As long as the Received At date and the Applied To date are today’s date, then the payment will be deleted and it’s like it never happened.
Deleting a Payment from a Previous Date
This is where deleting payments gets trickier. Since deleting past payments has billing reporting implications, only a Full Access User can make these changes.
To delete a payment for a previous/past date, you’ll start with the same steps as we covered above. This means heading into the Patient Profile > Billing > Payments to View the payment you wish to delete.
However, this time when you click the trash can option, you’ll be presented with two options for how you would like to proceed with deleting the payment, Reverse & Delete (Safe) or Delete Completely (Dangerous).
Reverse & Delete (Safe)
One option, Reverse & Delete (Safe), will safely delete the payment and unapply the payment from invoices as of today. This action records the payment as a negative amount on today’s Compensation Report but doesn’t affect past reports.
If the payment was from a previous pay period and the practitioner was already paid for the associated invoices, the amount will be deducted from the current pay period to balance your accounting. On the other hand, if the payment is from the current pay period, the negative amount in today’s report will offset the positive amount from the original payment date.
Delete Completely (Dangerous)
The other option, Delete Completely (Dangerous), is, as you guessed it, the more dangerous option. It can make bookkeepers a little crazy as it will affect your past Compensation Reports. This option will delete the payment completely as if it never happened. The payment will not show up on any reports for today’s date AND it will no longer show up on the original Compensation Report if you load a fresh copy of it. Essentially, the payment just disappears.
The reason we flag this as a dangerous option is if the practitioner was already paid out for this payment, the amount will NOT be deducted from today’s date but the invoice WILL return to outstanding. If that patient then comes back in to pay for that outstanding amount, the new payment will be recorded on that date and the staff could be paid a second time. Or if you delete the invoice/appointment then the staff was paid for an appointment/service that did not occur.
That being said, we’re not necessarily saying you’ll never use the Delete Completely (Dangerous) option, we’re just saying be careful 😊 If you’re unsure what option to use and want our team to take a look, feel free to Contact Us as we’d be happy to help.
Bonus - Finding a Deleted Payment
Once you’ve deleted a payment, if you need to track it down you can do so from the Billing > Payments tab, by filtering for Deleted Payments. Handy!