Ask a clinic owner how much they owe their main lab and you’ll often get a pause, then a rough number, then “I’ll check with the lab”. That’s the problem. When the only accurate record is the lab’s, every statement becomes a negotiation.
Lab work is usually one of the largest outside costs a dental clinic has, and one of the least organised. Orders go out on paper slips, prices change by phone, remakes are argued about months later, and payments are made in cash with a note in a notebook. This guide is about keeping your own clean record, so the conversation with your lab is short and friendly.
Why lab accounts go wrong
Most disputes come from four places:
- Prices nobody wrote down. The lab said a zirconia crown was one price last year and another this year. Nobody remembers which applied to which order.
- Orders charged before they arrive. The lab bills when it starts work; you think of it as owed when the work comes back. For a few weeks the two balances don’t match.
- Remakes and cancellations. A crown didn’t fit and was remade. Was the first one charged? Was it credited?
- Payments without references. Cash went to the lab’s driver. Which orders did it cover?
Each of these is easy to fix if you write it down at the moment it happens.
Keep a price list per lab
Start by agreeing a price list with each lab you use, and enter it once. When you send an order, the price fills itself from that list. If a price changes, change the list, so old orders keep their old price and new ones use the new price.
In BeClarified, each lab in the directory has its own price list. New orders pick from it and fill the price, and any later price change on an order is recorded in its history: who changed it, from what, to what.
Track the order, not just the bill
An order has a life: sent, in progress, ready, delivered, fitted. Tracking that life does two things. Your team knows where every case is, and your accounts know when the lab has earned its money.
BeClarified shows lab orders on a board, from the lab’s list or from the patient file. You can share an order with the lab by link (or send it on WhatsApp), and the lab opens it without signing in to see the details, mark it ready and add files. When it’s closed, the lab can still view it but can’t change anything.
Charge on delivery
Decide on one rule and stick to it: the lab is charged when the order is received at the clinic. Until then, it’s work in progress, not a debt.
This one rule removes most of the “your balance doesn’t match mine” conversations. When the lab sends a statement, anything on it that hasn’t been received yet is easy to spot.
Handle remakes and voids cleanly
When an order is cancelled or voided after it was charged, reverse the charge rather than deleting the order. The order stays in the list marked as voided, so everyone can see what happened. Anything you’d already paid stays with the lab as credit for future orders.
Deleting history is how disputes start. Reversing it is how they end.
Record every payment against the account
Every payment to a lab should be recorded with a date, an amount, and ideally the orders it covers. In BeClarified you pay a specific order from the lab board and it’s recorded in the lab’s account, or you record a payment against the account as a whole.
At any moment you can open a lab and see its running balance, and print or send a statement.
Link lab costs to the patient
Here’s where clinic software beats any spreadsheet. When a lab order is attached to the patient’s treatment plan, the cost of the case is visible: what the patient was charged, what the lab cost, and what was left. You’ll quickly see which treatments are profitable and which only look busy.
This also matters for commissions. If your agreement with a dentist deducts lab costs before calculating their share, those costs need to be recorded against the right case. We cover that in how to calculate a dentist’s commission.
A monthly routine that takes 15 minutes
- Open each lab’s account and print the statement for the month.
- Compare it with the lab’s statement. Differences are usually an order not yet received, a remake, or a payment recorded on one side only.
- Fix the difference at its source (receive the order, void the remake, record the payment).
- Pay the agreed balance and record it.
Do this every month and the year-end conversation with your lab becomes a formality. See how it works on the labs and suppliers page.
Frequently asked questions
Should the lab have access to our system? Not to your system as a whole. A link to a single order, as BeClarified provides, is enough for the lab to see what’s needed, mark it ready and attach files.
What if we use several labs for the same type of work? Keep a separate account and price list for each. That also lets you compare prices and turnaround times fairly.
How do we handle lab work the patient pays for directly? Record it on the patient’s invoice as usual and the lab order against the lab’s account. The two meet in the case’s profitability, not in a single number.
Can we archive a lab we no longer use? Yes. Archiving hides it from new orders while keeping its orders and account, and you can restore it later.