Payments 

This is the payment editing window. The payment could be either a new payment, entered by pressing the payment button, or an existing payment, accessed by double clicking on the item in the Account module.

Sometimes you will need to split a payment between different patients, families, providers, dates, or procedures. If you do not need to split the payment, a split will be automatically created when you click OK, and you won't have to worry about it.

The payment date at the very top is the date that the payment is received and will be used on the Deposit Slip. Each payment has a list of Pay Splits. There might just be one split, as in the example above, or multiple splits. The date showing for the split is known as the procedure date.  Typically you just ignore the split feature, but if you have a very complex family situation with multiple insurances and the patient wants to see which payments went towards which procedures, you can reassign the splits, even attaching them to various procedures. The dates on the splits may all be different. Changing the split dates to the dates of the procedures will cause them to show grouped with the procedures.  Changing the split dates also affects the patient aging.

If the amount of the total payment excedes the patient's balance owed, then Open Dental attempts to create a series of paysplits to apply to other family members with balances owed. This all happens automatically, but you can always go back and edit each split if you don't like the way the payment was split.

Payment types are in a list at the upper right. This list may be edited from the Definitions window.

The X-Charge button lets you process credit cards directly from this window.

For offices which track income by provider, there is a grid at the right for viewing family balances and making income transfers. Most offices can ignore this grid. See the section at the bottom of Production and Income for a discussion of the important difference between production and income. There is a similar screen available, called Provider Income Transfers, which is used to make transfers without having to alter existing patient payments.

The box at the bottom lets you attach a payment to a Payment Plan.  The payment will then show inside the Payment Plan amortization schedule rather than in the main Account module grid.