Daily reports a clinic owner should check And what to do with each number.

Check three things every day: how many patients were seen, how much was collected in each payment mode, and every bill that was voided or every fee that was waived, with the reason. Once a week, add pending dues, each doctor's patients and collections, missed appointments and skipped tokens, and whether patients who were due for a follow-up came back. Once a month, look at new versus repeat patients and the trend in cash share. None of this needs a benchmark from another clinic; the useful comparison is your own clinic last week and last year.

Which numbers to check, and how often

The daily rows take a few minutes if the desk has already closed the day properly. If it has not, start there: our guide to closing the day across cash, UPI and card gives the procedure and the closing sheet these reports depend on.

Footfall: how many patients, and how many were new

Read the daily count against the same weekday last week, because an OPD's load follows the days of the week more than anything else. A one-day dip means little. A dip that repeats on the same weekday for three or four weeks is a pattern worth asking about.

Split the month's patients into new (first visit to this clinic) and repeat. Repeat patients falling while new ones hold steady can mean follow-ups are not being booked or recalled. New patients falling while repeats hold steady points outward: a change in the area, a new clinic nearby, or a referral source that has gone quiet. Neither number tells you the cause on its own.

• Ask the desk: were any patients turned away or sent home because the doctor ran late or the session closed early?
• Ask the desk: are walk-ins and booked patients both being registered, or are some repeat patients seen without an entry?
• Ask the doctor: did anything change in timings, leave or sessions in the weeks the count moved?

Collections by payment mode

The daily figure to read is collections split into cash, UPI and card, tied to the visit list. Read it two ways. First, does each mode's total match its proof: the counted drawer, the bank's UPI credits line by line, the card machine's settlement slip? Second, does the total collected match the fees that should have been collected for the visits recorded? The second check is easy to skip, and it is where waived fees and missing entries show up.

Over a month, watch the share of collections that came in cash. A sharp move in cash share, up or down, deserves a look. Cash share rising while UPI falls can mean the clinic QR was replaced by someone's personal QR, or that the UPI device was not at the desk. It can also simply mean a new group of patients who prefer cash. Ask before concluding.

• Ask the desk: is the only QR on the counter the clinic's own, linked to the clinic's bank account?
• Ask the desk: did any patient pay the doctor directly, and was it entered against the visit?
• Ask the desk: were any refunds given from the drawer, and are they entered against the original visit?

Voids, waivers and discounts, with reasons

This is the report that catches leakage. A void cancels a bill that was entered; a waiver or discount means the patient paid less than the fee. Both are normal in an OPD: a wrong doctor selected, a duplicate entry after a slow screen, a staff family member, a patient the doctor chooses not to charge. The problem is a void or waiver with no reason, or with a reason nobody can check.

Read every void daily, with three fields: who entered it, when, and why. Over a week, count voids by staff member and by reason. A cluster of voids late in the evening, after the patients have gone, needs an explanation. So does a run of the same vague reason ("entry mistake") from one person, or voids on cash bills while UPI and card bills are almost never voided. For waived fees, the rule is that the doctor decides and the desk records: a waived visit is still a visit, entered with the full fee and the waiver noted, never left out.

• Ask the desk: for this void, which patient was it, and was a fresh bill issued for the correct amount?
• Ask the doctor: did you waive these fees? A waiver the doctor does not remember is the one to follow up.
• Ask yourself: can a saved bill in your system be edited or deleted without a trace? If yes, the void report shows only the honest corrections.

Pending dues

Dues are fees for visits that happened but were not paid: a regular patient who settles monthly, a "pay next time", a family that pays together. Read new dues daily so nothing enters the list silently, and the whole list weekly, oldest first. The list should shrink as patients come back. A list that only grows, or dues that sit against one staff member's entries, means follow-up is not happening or the dues are not real.

• Ask the desk: who did you call this week about dues, and what did they say?
• Ask the desk: for dues older than a month, is the patient still visiting, and did they pay at the last visit?
• Decide yourself: write-offs need the owner's or doctor's sign-off, with the date, never the desk's alone.

Patients and revenue per doctor

In a clinic with two or three doctors, read each doctor's weekly patient count and collections side by side. The two should move together. If a doctor's patient count holds but collections fall, look at waivers and voids on that doctor's patients. If collections hold but the count falls, check whether the fee changed. A doctor whose count drops on certain days may be starting late or leaving early, which shows up first as patients redirected to another doctor or sent home.

Use this report for planning (sessions, fees, which doctor needs a second attendant), not to rank doctors against each other. Patients choose doctors for reasons a report cannot see.

No-shows and skipped tokens

Two different things. A no-show is a booked patient who never arrived. A skipped token is a patient who was registered and given a token but was not there when called. Read both weekly, by session. No-shows concentrated in one session or one booking channel point to the booking process: reminders, the time offered, or bookings taken without a phone number. Skipped tokens concentrated in the busiest session point to waiting: patients who registered, waited, and left.

• Ask the desk: when a token was skipped, did the patient come back later in the session, and was their place held?
• Ask the desk: for no-shows, was a phone number taken at booking, and did anyone call?

The guide to reducing no-shows covers what the desk can do about them.

Waiting time

You do not need a waiting-time report to learn what you need. Pick one busy session a week and have the desk note, for each patient, the time of registration and the time they were called in. The gap between the two is the wait. Read it alongside the skipped-token count for the same session. If waits stretch at a particular hour every week, the fix is usually in the session: when the doctor starts, how many bookings are taken for that hour, or whether a second doctor's session can overlap.

• Ask the desk: what time did the doctor actually start, and were there long consultations or calls in between?
• Ask the desk: do patients ask how long the wait is, and what are they told?

Follow-up conversion

When the doctor advises a patient to return on a date, that follow-up is either kept or missed. Once a week, take the list of follow-ups that fell due and mark which patients came back. This is the clearest early signal for repeat footfall: if fewer due patients return, it tends to show up later as a fall in the monthly repeat count. It is also the number the desk can do the most about, by calling patients who are due before the date.

• Ask the desk: who was called before their follow-up date this week, and who could not be reached?
• Ask the doctor: are follow-up dates being written on every visit where one is advised?

Warning signs of leakage

Any one of these can have an innocent explanation. Two or more together, from the same person or the same session, is the time for a closer look and a conversation, with the reports in hand.

• Voids without reasons, voids entered after the patients have left, or the same vague reason repeated.
• Voids that fall mostly on cash bills.
• Cash share of collections drifting up over several months with no change in your patients.
• Fees waived that the doctor does not recall approving.
• Patient count on the visit list lower than the doctor's own count of patients seen that day.
• Pending dues that only grow, or that sit mostly against one person's entries.
• UPI credits that land somewhere other than the clinic's own account.

Before suspecting anyone, check the system. If a saved bill can be edited or deleted without leaving a record, honest staff cannot prove they are honest, and the reports above cannot be trusted. The fix is a rule that saved amounts are never changed: a mistake is voided with a reason and a new bill is issued, and both stay visible.

A daily, weekly and monthly routine

1. Every evening: read the closing sheet or day book. Patients seen, collections by mode against the visit list, each void and waiver with its reason. Sign it or reply to the WhatsApp photo the same evening.
2. Every week, same day: pending dues oldest first, per-doctor patients and collections, no-shows and skipped tokens by session, follow-ups due against follow-ups kept. Write down two questions for the desk and ask them in person.
3. Every month: new versus repeat patients, cash share trend, voids by staff and reason, dues written off. Compare with the same month last year if you have it.
4. Every quarter: spot-check waiting time in your busiest session, and review whether the reports are still answering the questions you have.

The day book is also a book of account

These reports are not only for management. Section 62 of the Income-tax Act, 2025, in force from 1 April 2026, requires any person carrying on a "specified profession" to keep and maintain books of account and other documents that let the Assessing Officer compute income, and section 62(4) lists "medical" among the specified professions. Section 2(19) says books of account include "ledgers, day-books, cash books, account-books and other books", kept on paper, in electronic or digital form, or as printouts. Which books a doctor must keep, what they must contain and for how long are prescribed by the Central Board of Direct Taxes under section 62(3). Ask your CA which ones apply to your practice; a day book you read every evening is a good start on them.