CLINIC HQ

13.5. Multiple Subsidies for One Item

This section will guide you on how to discount items when you will use more than one subsidy for one line item.

In this scenario, one of your partners has agreed to pay part of a surgical fee but it doesn’t cover the whole cost. You then would like for your clinic to cover the remaining amount of the surgical fee.
Example: Cat Neuter $75 – Humane Society paying $50, your clinic (or another funding partner) paying $25

Note: You will want to create a new subsidy when using multiple subsidies for one item. This is because you will be changing the New Service Price to zero out the cost of surgery on the original line item. Using an existing subsidy will overly discount other clients that are only using one voucher.

Part 1: The First Subsidy

Setup a Funding Partnership

NOTE: IF YOUR CLINIC ALREADY HAS A FUNDING PARTNERSHIP FOR THIS ENTITY, DO NOT DO THIS STEP. GO RIGHT TO SETTING UP THE SUBSIDY.

  1. Go to Settings > Funding Partnerships.
  2. Click Create Partnership in upper right corner.
  3. Select Partnership Type: as Invoiced, and from the drop down select the volume client in the Bill to Volume Client drop down. Note: If your volume client is not here, this means they need to be first setup as a volume client in Clients > Client Management > Create Volume Client.
  4. Give the Partnership a name — usually just a repeat of the volume client name.
  5. Click Save button.

Setup the First Subsidy

Here we will want the voucher to cover $50 on a cat neuter. In this example, you know that you need a subsidy specifically to be used in combination with a secondary subsidy (your clinic’s comped amount of $25) — You will setup a subsidy specifically for this scenario.

  1. Go to Settings > Subsidies.
  2. Click Create Subsidy in upper right corner.
  3. Give the subsidy a name. Here you might call it something like “Humane Society Voucher - $50”.

Note: the subsidy title cannot have more than 50 characters

  1. Select the drop down Associate with Partnership and find the Funding Partnership you just created or the existing partnership.
  2. For simplicity here, we are not going to apply any restrictions, but you could do so by unticking the “There are no restrictions” tick box and inputting restrictions.
  3. Click Save Subsidy button.
  4. A new tab will open up called “Items This Subsidy Covers.” Click that tab.
  5. Here we’re going to click Add for the cat neuter, then we’re going to make the price of the cat neuter $50 by typing “50” in New Service Price column for Cat Neuter. Inserting a value here will change the price from $75 to $50 when this subsidy is selected. Giving it this new price allows us to push the excess amount onto a secondary item later.
  6. Next, we’ll put in the amount to invoice the Humane Society — $50.
  7. Next, we’ll input the discount the client standing in front of us gets. Since we want to zero out the cost of surgery, this price should match the New Service Price column. Here the client discount will be $50.

So now when this subsidy is applied, it will change the surgery price to $50, put it on the Humane Society’s bill and Jane Smith will pay $0.

Now you could simply leave it like this. After all, the price has been adjusted and all parties are getting billed what they should. However, if it’s important to you to track in your statistics that your clinic comped that $25 via a feral cat program, or you are billing another entity — the next steps are necessary.

Part 2: The Second Subsidy

The trick with doing this maneuver is to use an item called “partial surgery discount” and to subsidize that item as the secondary subsidy. It is necessary to turn this item on for your clinic under Settings > Services and Products.

  1. Go to Settings > Services and Products > Add New Items.
  2. Search for the item you will be using for the second line item. We have a variety of options such as “Partial Surgery Discount” or “2nd subsidy – Cat neuter”. The item you choose will depend on if you will cover different amounts based on species, sex, or service.
  3. If you do not already have a Funding Partnership for your organization (or the 2nd organization you will bill) you will need to set one up.
  • Use a prepaid partnership if a grant will be covering the second part of the service.
  • Use a prepaid partnership (set up similarly to our employee discount HERE) if your organization is absorbing the remaining cost.
  • Use an invoiced partnership if another organization is covering the second part of the service.
  1. Then setup a subsidy for your second discount. Under Items this Subsidy Covers, add in the partial surgery item you just enabled.
  2. You will set the New Service Price to be the remaining cost of services. In this case, since the Humane Society covered $50 out of $75, it will be the remaining $25.
  3. The Client Discount should be $25 so that Jane Smith pays $0.
  4. If your clinic is absorbing the cost, the Pot Deduct amount should remain at 0. If this is pulling from a grant, you would enter $25 in the Pot Deduct column. If this is invoiced to another partnership, put $25 in the Invoiced Amount column.
  5. Then in checkout, subsidize the surgery line item with the first subsidy, add the “partial surgery” as an item, then subsidize it with the 2nd subsidy.

What about when there is a remaining balance for the owner to pay?

Lets say in the same scenario above, your cat neuter actually costs $95 and the client will need to pay the remaining $20. How does this work?

Your New Service Price on the second subsidy should be the total amount remaining after applying the first discount. So, if surgery is $95 and the Humane Society covered $50, the New Service Price will be $45.

Your client discount will be how much the person in front of you gets discounted. Your clinic discounts them $25. So, if the New Service Price is $45 and your clinic covers $25, $45 – $25 leaves a remaining balance of $20 for the client to pay at checkout.

Here’s a visual of this:

Combined discounts for one service.
Combined discounts with remaining balance for owner to pay.