Updated 2026-09-24 · 4 min read
Anyone looking for a POS for their practice usually finds two things: a till with a screen, which takes payments well and knows nothing about the diary, and practice-management software with a payments module added on. Both handle the payment. What changes is how many times the same thing has to be typed.
Because in a practice a payment never starts from scratch. Before it there was an appointment, with a patient, a dentist, a treatment and, often, an accepted treatment plan. A POS that knows none of that makes you type it again, and that's where the unrecorded payments and the Friday discrepancies come from.
What a POS is today, and what you no longer need to buy
POS stands for point of sale: the place where payment is taken, the receipt handed over and the day balanced. For years it was a box with its maintenance contract. Today what matters is the software, and the hardware can be a tablet and whatever receipt printer your reception already has.
ClaudIA's POS runs from the browser on any Android tablet or iPad, on a desktop touchscreen and on Android terminals with a built-in printer. It installs on the home screen like an app and prints on any printer the device has installed, on 58 or 80 millimetre paper.
What a dental practice's POS has to do
This is the list worth keeping in front of you when you compare, whether it's ClaudIA or any other software:
| What to ask for | Why it matters in a practice |
|---|---|
| Charge from the appointment | The patient, the dentist, the treatment and the price are already there: nothing is typed twice. |
| Several methods in one payment | Part in cash and part by card is normal at reception. |
| Never charge twice | If somebody taps twice, what appears is the receipt that already went out, not a second charge. |
| Phased payments | A long treatment is paid over months; what's been paid has to add itself up. |
| A receipt with your name | Printed, over WhatsApp or by email, with the practice's name and not the software's. |
| Correct without editing | What was issued isn't touched: it's corrected with another document, and both stay. |
| A close with a cash count | What you started with, what the system expected and what was counted. |
Long treatments, paid in phases without a notebook
This is what most sets a dental practice apart from any other front desk. An implant or an orthodontic treatment is quoted as a whole and paid in parts over months, and the question «how much has this patient paid so far?» usually ends up in a notebook or in somebody's memory.
In ClaudIA every payment can be attached to its treatment plan. The system adds up what's been paid, refunds subtract on their own and the answer sits in the patient's record, next to the plan and its phases. It's the same plan the practice built in phases and handed over as a PDF, and which ClaudIA follows up when it stalls.
At reception: the till on a tablet
Taking payment with the patient in front of you isn't the same as closing the till at night. For that moment there's counter mode: the same till, full screen, with tiles for the treatments, an on-screen numeric keypad and the change worked out on cash payments. The receipt goes out on its own through whichever delivery the practice has set as default.
And it's the same till, not another one: same numbering, same reports and the same close. Whatever is charged on the tablet shows up straight away among the day's receipts.
Cards, on your bank's terminal
The POS doesn't make you switch banks. Cards still go through the terminal the practice already has; the POS records that payment under its method and balances it at close. There's no new fee on each payment: the POS is part of ClaudIA's flat subscription.
Legal in Spain, and in your currency everywhere else
If your practice is in Spain, each receipt goes out as a simplified invoice with the practice's tax number and the dental VAT exemption written on it, under the Spanish invoicing rules, the Basque Country's own system included. A full invoice is issued with the patient's details when they ask for one, and a refund generates its corrective invoice.
Everywhere else it works the same way, with local payment methods. If the practice takes two currencies, each one is counted separately at close, they're never added together, and the rate applied to each payment stays on record.
At close, and at month end
When the shift opens, you record what the drawer starts with. At close the cash is counted, typed in and the cash count says whether it balances, method by method. A discrepancy doesn't stop the close: it's recorded with its note, which is what shows whether it keeps happening. If the practice owner wants it, the day's summary reaches their WhatsApp at close.
At the end of the month, the till report is ready for your accountant: one row per payment, with its method, its currency and the rate if there was one. And the period's income has its own tab in Reports, next to the diary, the patients and the treatment plans.