Write Off Account Credits

Sometimes a credit should be written off and counted as income to your practice. For example, if an account credit or insurance overpayment remains on your books for several years, your practice may decide to write it off and treat it as revenue.

To write off credits, post an adjustment in refund and then link the credit to that adjustment. Follow the procedure below.

Follow these step to write off a credit.

Run refund For the Account With a Credit

Run refund from the Daily Operations window, or by typing refund at a command prompt. Find the account with the credit. If you are writing off a credit from an insurance overpayment, it may be on the Insurance Overpayment account.

Post the Credit Write-Off Procedure

Using the Credit Write-Off procedure (with the accounting type of “Revenue – Non-Service”), post the full amount of the credit that you wish to turn into income.

Run oops

Run Correct Mistakes (oops) from the Daily Operations window, type oops at a command prompt, or just press the F6Correct Mistakes key while in refund.

Locate the Credit

Use Page Down and Page Up to locate the credit you are writing off. Note the item number next to it.

You may notice that part of the payment is linked to a charge on the account. The payment listing will use line numbers to indicate where portions of it are applied. In the example above, a $10 check pays off a $5 copay, leaving a $5 credit open and unlinked.

Press F7Relink Pmt and Choose the Credit

Press F7 and enter the number that appears next to the credit in the history:



Select the Credit Write-Off Procedure

From the list of outstanding charges, find the Credit Write-Off procedure you posted in refund. Type the corresponding number and press Enter. If the payment pays off other charges, and you are only writing off part of it, link the payment to both the Credit Write-Off procedure and the charges it is paying off, as shown in the example below:

Confirm the Credit Links to the Write-Off

On the next screen, confirm that the payment you are writing off links to both the Credit Write-Off procedure and any charges to which it is also applied. In other words, the payment should be fully accounted for, with no unlinked amount remaining. The Balance fields should be $0.00.

Record Your Actions in fame

Run the Family Editor (fame) for any affected accounts. Record your actions on the Notes page.

Configure Your Practice’s Credit Write Off Adjustment Types

When you post a credit write-off, it appears as an adjustment that offsets a payment or credit on an account. By default, this is done with a “Credit Write-Off” adjustment procedure.

Your practice can post other types of adjustments as well. You can edit or add new credit write-off adjustment types in the Procedures table in the Table Editor (ted). For accounting purposes, you may wish to record different types of adjustments such as “Credit Write-Off (Personal)” or “Insurance Overpayment Write-Off”. All adjustment procedures for writing off a credit should have the accounting type of “Revenue – Non-Service.”

To learn how to edit procedures on your system, read Edit Your Practice’s Procedures, Codes, Adjustments, and Prices.

  • Last modified: November 16, 2023