Clinic accounting in Iraqi dinar: invoices and the cash close

One invoice per visit, payments on the same invoice

The easiest rule for clinic accounts is that each visit ends with one invoice listing the services given in that visit. If the patient asks about the bill later, the invoice shows exactly what happened that day and is not mixed with other visits.

Not every patient pays in full on the day, so each payment, full or part, is recorded against the same invoice. The invoice moves from unpaid to part paid to paid, and the balance is always visible without a side notebook.

Instalments for long or costly treatment

Some treatments cannot be paid in one go, so the patient agrees an instalment plan with the clinic. It is better to write the plan down clearly from the start: the total, the number of payments and the date of each, so it does not depend on one staff member's memory.

DrOnlineIQ supports patient instalments; each one is recorded when it is paid, so what has been paid and what remains is visible. Reception then does not need to ask at every visit whether the instalment has been settled.

The printed receipt, the cash book and the daily close

Give the patient a printed receipt for each payment: it is their proof if there is a disagreement, and the clinic's too. Receipts and invoices are printed from the same system, so the paper handed over matches what is recorded.

At the end of the working day the cashier counts the cash actually in the drawer, compares it with what the cash book says, and then closes the day. A difference then shows up the same day, while it is still possible to remember what happened, rather than weeks later when it is hard to trace.

• Count the cash after the last patient has left, not before.
• Write down the reason for any difference, however small.
• Where possible, the person who took the cash should not be the only one to close the day; a second person's review protects everyone.

Clinic expenses, and why whole dinars are simpler

Income alone does not show how the clinic is doing, because rent, supplies, electricity and assistants' salaries also leave the cash. Record each expense with its date, category and how it was paid, whether from the cash drawer or by transfer, so money in and money out are both complete.

Clinics deal in Iraqi dinar in whole amounts, and decimals have no place in daily cash handling. When amounts are whole numbers, cash is easier to count, instalments are easier to divide, and the accounts do not revolve around tiny differences that cannot actually be paid.

Who sees the money screens

Not everyone who works in the clinic needs to see money. Reception needs to know what a patient still owes, the cashier needs invoices and payments, the owner needs totals, and a doctor usually only needs to know what was done for the patient.

Give money access by role, and give each person only what their job needs. The owner sees totals of what is still outstanding, so they can tell what patients owe without opening invoices one by one.