Updated 2026-09-02 · 6 min read
One note before anything else, in case your practice is in Spain: there each payment goes out as a payment receipt, and the accountant gets the summary of what was taken by day, by payment method and by VAT rate, with dentistry as exempt.
The simplified invoice that meets the regulation is being prepared, with nothing for the practice to send to the tax agency.
Everywhere else it works the same way, with local currencies and payment methods. The rest of this article explains how, and reads just as well as a checklist if you're weighing up a different tool.
1 · Opening the shift: the drawer has a starting point
Taking payment without an open shift is allowed — a front desk doesn't wait for anybody — but an open shift is what makes it possible to balance at the end. Opening one means recording the float: the money already in the drawer, per cash method, each amount in its own currency. In a country with two currencies you open with both, and they are counted separately from minute one.
Only one shift can be open at a time. If somebody tries to open a second one, the system says so instead of leaving two tills open counting the same money.
And there's a detail you appreciate at midday: if payments were taken that morning before the shift was opened, those receipts are adopted when you open it and the system tells you how many it picked up. Without that, whoever opens the till at noon closes at night with a surplus nobody can account for.
2 · Charging from the appointment, not from a separate screen
Payment starts from the appointment itself: whoever is on the desk opens it, sees the treatment and takes the money. That heads off the most expensive mistake a till can make, which is charging the same visit twice. An appointment that already has a receipt is never charged again, and if somebody taps twice — slow connection, double click, back button — what comes up is the receipt that already went out, not a red warning that leaves them wondering whether the payment went through at all.
Something specific to dentistry: a long treatment is quoted as a whole and paid for in phases. Each receipt can be attached to its treatment plan, and how much that patient has paid so far stops being somebody's memory or a notebook in a drawer — the system adds it up, and refunds subtract on their own.
If the visit is covered by a package, the line goes in at zero and the session is deducted right there, once. And if anything fails before the receipt is issued, the session goes back to the package: a package deducted without a receipt would be a session lost in silence.
3 · The receipt belongs to the practice, not to the supplier
Whoever receives a receipt bought from your practice, not from the software your practice happens to use. It comes out with the practice's name, address, phone number and tax identifier, with whatever footer you write, and ClaudIA appears — unless you switch it off — in a discreet «via ClaudIA» at the bottom.
Three outputs, one single drawing. Printed, it comes out at the width of your thermal roll, 58 or 80 millimetres. Over WhatsApp the receipt goes as text, so it reads at a glance in the thread, plus the same receipt as a PDF, which is the thing that gets saved and forwarded. By email it goes out with the practice's name as the sender and the PDF attached.
That all three come from the same drawing matters more than it sounds: two ways of drawing the same receipt end up with a different total on the paper and on the phone.
And one rule overrides all three: a patient who asked not to be contacted is not contacted. Not by WhatsApp and not by email — with the sensible exception that an address they dictate to you at the desk right then does go out, because that is a request from them, right now.
For the reception counter there's a second face of the same till, drawn for a tablet: counter mode. Full screen, tiles for the treatments, an on-screen numeric keypad, the change worked out on cash payments and the receipt going out on its own when you charge. It installs on the tablet like an app and prints on any printer the device has installed — no dedicated terminal to buy.
4 · Counting the drawer and closing
At close, the system shows what it expects for each method: the opening float, plus whatever was taken with that method during the shift, plus any cash movements in or out that were recorded. Each one in its own currency. Opposite it you type what you counted, and the difference is the discrepancy.
A discrepancy never blocks the close. That is deliberate: real life doesn't balance, and a till that won't let you close until the numbers agree only teaches people to make the count up. What it does instead is record it, per method and totalled per currency, and the close is sealed so it can't be rewritten afterwards.
Two details that came out of using it for real. Somebody counting the drawer in two goes — notes first, then coins — sends two entries for the same method, and the second one must not swallow the first: they add up. And a cash withdrawal larger than what the count expects in that drawer isn't forbidden, but you are warned there and then: taking 200 out of a drawer where 120 is expected is usually a typing slip, and finding out at close is finding out late.
5 · The day's summary, on the phone of whoever runs the practice
For anybody who doesn't open dashboards, this is the dashboard. When the till is closed — or at a cut-off time if nobody closed it — a WhatsApp arrives with the day in plain language: how many receipts, the total in the accounting currency, what was taken per currency when there is more than one, the split by method, tips if there were any, and the discrepancy if there was one.
Three things keep it from turning into noise. It goes out once a day and not twice, even if the till is closed at eight and the automatic cut-off is set for nine. Nothing goes out on days with no activity: a «nothing taken today» every night ends up muting the message that does matter. And it starts switched off — whoever wants it turns it on, with whichever number they choose.
It also carries a single line of context worked out from the practice's own figures, with simple rules and no guessing: the run of consecutive days balancing, or the best day of the month so far.
And in Spain, what the till hands over
With the practice's tax details complete, it charges from the appointment like the ones elsewhere. Each payment goes out as a payment receipt with its numbering, and the summary by VAT rate is ready for the accountant. The simplified invoice that meets the regulation is being prepared, with nothing for the practice to send to the tax agency.
The rest of ClaudIA — the diary, WhatsApp, reminders, chasing stalled treatment plans — works the same in every country from day one.