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Two ways to count the same sale. They only differ when payment and delivery happen on different days.
  • Cash counts a sale the day money changes hands.
  • Accrual counts a sale the day the service (or product) is delivered.
For a walk-in facial paid at checkout, the two are identical — payment and delivery happen at the same moment, so the sale lands on the same day either way. They only diverge when patients pay now and use it later: packages, memberships, and gift cards.

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How each one counts common transactions

The pattern: Cash follows your bank account. Accrual waits until the patient has actually received what they paid for.

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The totals eventually meet

At any given moment, Cash is usually ahead of Accrual. The gap is revenue the clinic has already collected but hasn’t yet earned — package visits the patient hasn’t taken, membership days still ahead in the cycle, gift card balances still sitting unspent. That gap is what accountants call deferred revenue — money in the bank that the clinic technically still owes the patient in services. As patients redeem those visits and the membership days tick by, Accrual catches up. Once every package is fully redeemed and every membership cycle has been delivered, the two bases land on the same total.

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When Cash and Accrual credit different providers

Accrual doesn’t just change when revenue counts — it can also change whose revenue it is. If one provider sells a 10-visit package and a different provider performs the visits, Cash credits all $500 to the seller on the day of purchase. Accrual credits $50 to whoever delivers each visit, as it’s redeemed. The two views can paint very different pictures of who’s driving revenue at the clinic, and that’s intentional — they answer different questions. This shows up most clearly in the Provider Earnings Report. Sellers who push package volume look strongest in Cash; providers who perform the redemptions look strongest in Accrual.

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Which one should you use?

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Where you’ll see the toggle

The basis menu appears at the top of any dashboard or report where cash and accrual can disagree: The menu opens on whichever basis you’ve set as the clinic default. Each person can switch their view for the session without affecting anyone else. The Accounting Overview doesn’t have this toggle — it always reports on an accrual basis and presents cash collected alongside recognized revenue, so you can see both sides without switching views.

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Set the clinic default

Go to Settings > General > Analytics and set Default Accounting Basis to either Cash or Accrual. That’s the basis the dashboards open in for everyone who logs in. Individual users can still switch their own view, but the default is what they’ll see first.
If your accountant prepares your taxes on an accrual basis (most do), set the clinic default to Accrual. Owners and front-desk staff who reconcile bank deposits can flip to Cash for their own session as needed.
The Commissions module has a similar-sounding setting called Deferred Sales, with two options: When Sold vs. When Used. These determine when a provider gets paid on package sales — they’re a payroll-timing setting, not an accounting-basis setting. The two are related but independent. You can pay commissions at sale time (cash-flow friendly) while still reporting revenue on an accrual basis to your accountant. Pick each setting based on what it’s actually for:
  • Default Accounting Basis — How revenue is counted in reports.
  • Deferred Sales (commissions) — When the provider receives the payout.