Billing: Fee Notes: Customising

It is unlikely that all the practices using the system would want their bills to look the same. Therefore Premvet 5 users can customise the way fee notes, invoices and other documents are presented.

To produce customised documents, Premvet 5 consults separate files called definition files. They contain the lay-out details of each document, default text to include and 'place-holders' for raw data called reserved words. Full details of creating and setting up these documents are is discussed in much greater detail in a later chapter. For now there are a couple of important points to remember:

• Each document (fee note, invoice, etc.) may have one or more definition files associated with it.
• Each document will also have a number of document specific reserved words.

The default filename for fee note generation is bill.def. If you would like to have different wording based on client type, you will need to set up or amend one of these three files:

You should use the reserved words from Table 3.

Notes to consider when customising fee notes

• If you are using automatically added surcharges, as opposed to surcharges which are threatened, then use &dismes, bill.dis and &disamt, as Premvet 5 treats added surcharges as discounts (so practices can remove the surcharge following prompt payment).

• If you are using 'bill.def', 'bill.sa', 'bill.eq' or 'bill.fc', then a separate sheet of paper is used for each animal belonging to the same client, but are all printed out after one another so they can be inserted in the same envelope.

• Alternatively, if the file 'bill.com' is set up, a single sheet is used on which the total amount outstanding can be displayed, followed by the names of the animals for whom work is still outstanding.

• As with all definition files, you can insert species specific information.

• Surcharges work as follows: if 'bill.com' is used then a single surcharge is levied, which is placed on the record of the last animal in the chain which has outstanding work. If one of the other definition files are used, a surcharge is levied on each animal with money outstanding, and placed in the individual consultation record.

An example
Represented below is an example of a typical definition file designed to print composite fee notes (bill.com). The system will use a reserved word &comp_name to insert the animals the bill relates to. You can have multiple occurrences of &comp_name and the system will replace them as required. Each &comp_name will be replaced by five animal names so make sure there are enough entries to cover the maximum animals on any one bill.

Total Fees                    &fee
Total Drugs                   &drug
Total VAT                     &vat

Payments made                 &pay

&bs TOTAL TO BE PAID                 &total &bf

Relating to:
-----------
&comp_name 
&comp_name
&comp_name
&comp_name
&comp_name

What files to use?

To generate fee notes the system uses a number of definition files configured via the text editor. If you wish to alter any of the defaults you can enter 'F' instead of the option to change.The screen will display:

1.  Default definition : bill.def
2.  SA definition file : bill.sa
3.  FC definition file : bill.fc
4.  EQ definition file : bill.eq
5.  Composite file     : bill.com


Stage letter 1 : bill.s1 
Stage letter 2 : bill.s2
Stage letter 3 : bill.s3
Stage letter 4 : bill.s4

Discount message : bill.dis 
Surcharge message : bill.sur 

This indicates the files Premvet 5 is using, so you can edit them if required.