Good morning PracticeWorks Community,
Line Item Accounting will be available for PracticeWorks very soon as part of version 8.0. Below is a description of this new functionality and here is a link to our Line Item Accounting Online Training: Carestream Dental Institute LearnCenter -Powered by Taleo Learn
So what is line item accounting? Line item accounting allows you to assign payments to procedures. Put another way, you can designate down to the penny where payments are applied. This is an internal accounting function and has no effect on patient facing items such as statements or ledger print outs.
Let’s look at an example.
Traditionally patient payments reduced the overall balance but could not be allocated to a procedure or series of procedures.
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With line item accounting enabled you can now designate how a payment is applied to procedures. The payment still reduced the total balance. Additionally, the payment is distributed to producers via the procedures performed.
In the example above we could distribute to the oldest balance first, resulting in JEK receiving the full $50. Or we could distribute to the newest balance first, resulting in $50 distributed to HYG. Or we can manually split the payment and distribute $25 to JEK and $25 to HYG. The power is in your hands.
I realize this is a huge big deal for PW to roll out some new features... but it's tough to change 
How will this help patients understand their statements better?
Will this make our statements clearer?
How will they be adjusted if they're posted to the incorrect procedures?
In V8 and on, will the business be able to disable the feature? Based on the example above, this wouldn't be relevant in our practice, but I can see how it would be valuable to others.
Thanks!
Alex,
These are great questions. I'll take them from the top.
How will this help patients understand their statements better? & Will this make our statements clearer? The Line Item Accounting (LIA) feature has no patient-facing components (at this time). The statements and patient ledgers look the same.*
How will they be adjusted if they're posted to the incorrect procedures? Distributions are corrected by right clicking on the ledger entry, selecting View/Edit Distributions and editing the distribution amount. If a payment is distributed to the wrong procedure, simply reduce the distribution to $0.00. This frees up the money to be distributed to the correct procedure. (A detailed entry on how reporting remains accurate will be posted in the near future.)
In V8 and on, will the business be able to disable the feature? The feature is enabled (and disabled) from the Ledger Setup menu option. If LIA is turned off, the software reverts to what you're accustomed to. If you choose to re-enable it at a later date, all of your prior distributions are there.
You said "Based on the example above, this wouldn't be relevant in our practice, but I can see how it would be valuable to others." You're absolutely right and I'm glad you brought this up. The LIA feature is not for everyone. It's important to remember what LIA was designed for; to replace the Cross Settlement report. Once LIA is enabled the Cross Settlement report is no longer available (the two accounting methods are exclusive).
That said, we do provide two deep dive analysis reports; Payment by Procedure and Insurance Payment by Procedure. These reports use the distributions to line items to tell you how much you're collecting and writing off by procedure, employer plan, and insurance company. Look for a future post with detailed descriptions of these reports.
My recommendation for any practice interested in the feature is to start by installing version 8 once released and using the Tutorial data. LIA is activated in the tutorial by default. It gives you hands-on experience with the feature without impacting your practice. If you find it's beneficial, complete the required training and contact Carestream.
*There is one exception. If you use code-specific estimating you're familiar with insurance write-offs posted at checkout. In LIA, they are posted when the insurance payment is entered. To provide the practice and the patient with an accurate Due Now amount, we have a new section in the ledger aging grid titled Est W.O.
The patient statement reflects the write off in the INS + WO and associated with the specific line item as seen below.
