About Periods/Batches

The Financial Management module uses PeriodsA method of grouping financial data for reconciliation purposes during a set period of time. and BatchesA batch is a way of grouping like transactions for processing at the same time. You may have multiple batches associated to each period. Information is associated to the period based on the batches included in the period. to manage all financial transactions related to services rendered to patients. Though periods are typically set to begin and end based on the calendar months of the year, they can be set to any length of time at your facility's discretion.

Periods

• You are allowed to have two Periods open at the same time. This allows users to work in two periods at the same time at the month’s end.
• All Batches associated to the Period must be closed before the Period may be closed. Once closed, the Period may not be reopened. When a Period is closed, no additional information may be added to the closed Period. For this reason, it is recommended that billing period-based reports be used for Financial Reporting. Examples include Revenue for the Period and Revenue by Payer.

Tasks

• Creating a new Period
• Closing a Period
• Deleting a Period

It is recommended that you define security protocols that determine which users are allowed to open and close billing periods. Security roles are set and assigned in the Administrative module under Security > Roles and Passport. It is recommended that you perform daily reconciliation of each batch to make it easier to close out the period when it is over.

Batches

• Within each period, users can create multiple batches into which all transactions will be posted.
• Each batch can be for any length of time within a financial period and can be used to enter all of the different types of transactions available in AmkaiOffice. Alternatively, users can set up batches per type of transaction based on the workflow of the facility.
• Batches may be specific to a single user or can be shared so that multiple users can post transactions to the same batch and close that batch..

You may wish to adjust security check points to enable one or more users to adjust the active status of a transaction in a non-shared batch or to close non-shared batches that they did not open. Enabling non-shared batches to be adjusted or closed by more than one user may be particularly important at month-end when all of the batches need to be closed before the billing period can be closed. Security check points associated to non-shared batches are located in Administration > Security > Roles > Financial Management > Batch Maintenance. See Security check points for batch maintenance.

• It is important to note that financial data in a batch can only be modified (i.e., deactivating ledger entries or changing dollar amounts of transactions) while the batch is open. Once a batch is closed, the financial data can no longer be manipulated, although information such as Type of Bill, Diagnosis Codes and Modifiers can be changed as needed.

Tasks

• Selecting a Batch or creating a new one
• Closing a Batch
• Deleting a Batch
• Security check points for Batch maintenance

Before you begin to use AmkaiOffice, it is recommended that a protocol be developed for period and batch creation and shared with all users who will function within the Financial Management module.

 

 

 

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