A billing run nobody looks forward to
Once a month, or once a year, someone in finance exports a list of stored patients, compares it with last year's invoices and raises storage fees by hand. Some patients are billed twice. Some have been storing for years and have never been invoiced. Some have funded storage for an initial period, then become self-funding, and nobody updated their account. A patient whose embryos were used in a recent cycle is still billed for storage of material that no longer exists.
When the invoices go out, the phone rings. Patients ask what they are paying for, why the amount changed, or why they were billed when they thought they had asked to stop.
Why storage billing drifts out of line
The underlying cause is that billing depends on facts owned by different teams. The lab knows what is stored and when it was frozen. The admin team knows about consents and funding. Finance knows who has paid. None of them sees the full picture.
- Storage start dates, and so billing anniversaries, differ for every patient.
- Funded storage periods end, and the switch to self-funding is not recorded where finance can see it.
- When material is used or a patient's circumstances change, the billing list is not updated.
- Partners who have separated may each need separate billing arrangements.
- Invoices are raised manually, so any change to fees or rules has to be applied by hand.
The cost of getting it wrong
Unbilled storage is lost income the clinic is entitled to. Wrong invoices cause upset for patients at a sensitive time, and they take staff time to explain and correct. Unpaid storage accounts are also linked to storage consent follow-up, and handling them inconsistently creates difficult situations later.
| Billing situation | Manual process | Connected process |
|---|---|---|
| New storage starts | Added to spreadsheet if someone remembers | Picked up from the storage inventory |
| Funded period ends | Often missed | Billing switches on the recorded end date, after a check |
| Material used in treatment | Invoice still raised | Stored items reduce, billing reviewed before the next run |
| Patient on a payment plan | Tracked in a separate sheet | Plan held against the account in the accounts system |
| Unpaid invoice | Chased when noticed | Appears on a follow-up list with its history |
How we connect storage to your accounts
- We read your storage inventory and match each stored item to a patient and a storage start date.
- Funding status and storage consent periods are brought in from the clinic management system or from the register your team maintains.
- The billing rules you set are applied: fee per period, how partners are billed, when funded storage ends, and any exemptions.
- Before each billing run, a preview list shows every invoice to be raised and anything unusual, such as a patient whose storage changed since last time, for finance to approve.
- Approved invoices are created in Xero, QuickBooks or Sage through their API and sent with a clear explanation of what the fee covers.
- Payments are matched back, and unpaid accounts appear on a follow-up list with reminder history, so the tone of chasing is decided by your team.
- A monthly check compares stored items with active billing and lists any mismatch in either direction.
No invoice is sent without the preview being approved. Where a patient's situation is sensitive, the account can be marked for a person to handle directly.
What finance and the front desk notice
Storage billing becomes a check-and-approve task rather than a spreadsheet exercise. Patients receive invoices that match what they are storing, with an explanation, so fewer of them phone to ask. The finance team can see storage income and unpaid accounts without building a report by hand.
Signs your storage billing needs fixing
- Storage invoices are raised by hand from an exported list.
- You suspect some stored patients have never been invoiced.
- Patients have been billed for storage after their material was used.
- Funded storage periods end without anyone updating billing.
- Unpaid storage accounts are chased inconsistently.