What accounts does a clinic on Jane need?

At a minimum: a bank account, a Jane Payments clearing account, insurance A/R, deferred revenue and gift card liabilities, tax payable, separate service and product revenue accounts, a merchant processing fee expense, practitioner compensation, and the usual overhead. Keep it lean and use tags for practitioner and location detail.

Should each practitioner be a separate account in the chart of accounts?

No. Creating an account per practitioner bloats the chart of accounts and still won't give you clean profit views. Use QuickBooks classes or Xero tracking categories to tag revenue and direct costs by practitioner, then run a report grouped by that tag.

Where do Jane Payments fees go in the chart of accounts?

In a Merchant Processing Fees expense account. Book the fee there when you clear each Jane Payments payout out of the clearing account, so the fee is a visible, deductible expense rather than a silent reduction of revenue.

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Clinic finance guide

A chart of accounts for a Jane clinic

Most clinic books are either too thin to manage the business or so bloated with one-off accounts that nobody can read them. The right chart of accounts sits in between: lean, but built around the handful of things a clinic on Jane actually has to get right. Set it up once and every other job, the monthly close, the Jane Payments reconciliation, profit by practitioner, becomes straightforward.

Here is a sensible starting chart of accounts for a multi-practitioner clinic, and the two design rules that keep it clean. It works the same in QuickBooks or Xero.

The two rules that matter most

Rule one: separate what has to be separate. Service revenue and product revenue are taxed differently and carry different margins, so they get different accounts. Prepaid money is a liability, not revenue, so it gets its own liability account. Card money in transit is not the bank, so it gets a clearing account. Everything that behaves differently on the books gets its own line.

Rule two: use tags, not accounts, for the cuts you slice by. You want to see numbers by practitioner and by location, but those are not accounts. Creating "Massage revenue, Sarah" and "Massage revenue, Dev" bloats the chart and still gives you a mess. Use classes in QuickBooks or tracking categories in Xero for practitioner and location, and keep the account list short.

A starting chart of accounts

Assets
Account	What it holds
Business Chequing	Your operating bank account.
Jane Payments Clearing	Card sales collected but not yet deposited. Nets to zero once payouts land.
Insurance / Third-Party A/R	Amounts billed to insurers or programs and not yet collected.
Prepaid Expenses	Insurance, subscriptions, and other costs paid ahead.

Liabilities
Account	What it holds
Deferred Revenue	Prepaid packages and memberships not yet delivered.
Gift Card Liability	Outstanding gift card balances until redeemed.
GST/HST or Sales Tax Payable	Tax collected and owed to the government.
Payroll Liabilities	Withholdings and payroll taxes owed.

Revenue
Account	What it holds
Treatment Revenue	Service income. Split by discipline (physio, chiro, RMT, counselling) if it helps you manage.
Product / Retail Revenue	Supplements, orthotics, devices, and other goods. Kept separate for tax.
Membership Revenue	Recognized ratably from the membership liability.
Other Income	No-show and admin fees, and anything that is not treatment or product.

Direct costs (cost of services)
Account	What it holds
Practitioner Compensation	Splits, salaries, or hourly pay. Tagged by practitioner.
Merchant Processing Fees	Jane Payments fees, booked as you clear each payout.
Clinical Supplies	Consumables used in delivering care, and cost of retail goods sold.

Operating expenses (overhead)
Account	What it holds
Rent & Occupancy	Rent, utilities, cleaning.
Front Desk / Admin Wages	Reception and administrative staff.
Software & Subscriptions	Jane, your accounting app, and other tools.
Marketing	Advertising, referrals, content.
Insurance, Professional Fees, Bank Charges, Office	The usual overhead lines.

Why this shape works

The clearing account and the deferred revenue liabilities are what most clinic charts are missing, and they are exactly where Jane clinics go wrong. Separating service from product revenue keeps your tax clean and your margins honest. Putting practitioner comp and merchant fees in direct costs, tagged by practitioner, is what lets you produce profit by practitioner without rebuilding anything. And keeping everything else lean means the reports are actually readable.

Do not over-engineer it. A clinic does not need forty revenue accounts; it needs a handful of well-chosen ones and disciplined tagging. Start here, and add an account only when a real decision depends on seeing that number on its own line.

Not sure your current setup can support this? The free Clinic Close Scorecard flags whether the pieces that matter, clearing, deferred revenue, per-practitioner tracking, are in place. Two minutes.