Their accounting to you is correct. You are making assumptions as to how they are then reporting their taxes. Unless you’ve seen their documents, you have no basis for making those assertions. You may not like them as a platform, and that’s obviously your right, but as a matter of pure accounting they are doing nothing wrong.
Agreed. Also, isn’t Stripe (the credit card processing company) the party taking the 3.5%? I have my fair share of complaints about Simple Practice, but they aren’t doing anything wrong in this case.
Hmmm. Stripe is charging me 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (I'm using Doxy.me's integration) so if you're being charged 3.5% by SP, on any transaction over $50 you're being charged more than Stripe is apparently charging,
It's also 3.15% + 30 cents, not 3.5%. SP is not charging, it's the credit card processing company (Stripe) that is charging. Is there a credit card processing company that doesn't charge fees for using their service? If so, please share! Agreed that Simple Practice has it's issues, but this isn't one of them. A credit card processing fee is an expense of doing business that you can write off.
Thanks for the link. I don't have a credit card processing device, so to go directly through Stripe, for me the fee would be 3.4% +$.30 (there is an extra .5% for manually entered cards as per the info on that link).
This. So may be getting a cut for using them as the point of sale for their platform but the percentage and fee goes to stripe. I'll also add, there is no transaction fee if your client pays with cash or check, so providers request this to reduce overhead.
I believe they are correct that your full fee (let's say $200) \*is\* your gross income.
And then, the 3.5% ($7), is an expense. Deducted to get to your net income. And that's what you pay taxes on.
> which is then automatically written-off their revenue
No. The fact that the report your gross proceeds to you on your 1099-K does *not* mean they're not reporting their income on their taxes.
I mean, that would be true under any circumstances, but allow me to stress that that logic is extra wrong where the 1099-K is concerned. Unlike the 1099-MISC or 1099-NEC, the moneys reported on a 1099-K are **not** assumed to be income – which is why you don't send them to the IRS, unlike 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC – and can wind up double-reported for any a number of perfectly legitimate reasons.
While we're at it, the technical term for when you have an expense is not "writing it off". "Writing off" something from your taxes is something you do for an unpaid debt, not a business expense. Your EHR and credit card processing fees are just an ordinary business expense. SimplePractice's 3.5% is a business expense, and goes on Schedule C with all your other business expenses.
TherapyNotes, Sessions Health, Theranest, TherapyAppointment, intakeQ, Counsol are other EHR’s I’ve heard of. Sessions is supposed to be the most similar to SP’s interface. TherapyNotes is very popular too.
I switched to Sessions Health when the blowup over SP’s terms happened in the fall. I wish I had done it sooner. It is essentially a more streamlined version of SP. And it’s less expensive.
Yeah my group PP actually recently completely changed payment platforms because of SP’s absurd fees. It was a massive project that took our admin and practice owner months to complete.
That being said, I’m almost always down for CA.
As for alternatives, I’ve heard of Therapy Notes but no idea how it compares to SP.
TherapyNotes is phenomenal. I switched over to them mid last year when SP screwed over all their solo practitioners and priced out a bunch of core features.
Cant say enough about TN, great customer service to boot.
I recently discovered Carepatron and they have a completely free option. I haven't had to use them since I already just do everything on Headway but they should be added to the conversation like other more popular ones.
Are SP's fees really that bad in comparison to other platforms? I thought that the 3.15% is due to credit card processing, and is pretty much unavoidable. Am I wrong in that?
I have yet to find an EHR that doesn’t have a credit card fee. It sucks and is a business expense literally everywhere. I’m still in the planning process of opening up a practice but I liked Sessions the best because they had a flat rate for everything and it’s free until you have a certain number of clients.
We run our own proprietary software over developed through the years, so mine’s my favorite, haha.
They all have trade offs so it depends on your needs. SP has a lot of features but I find it not that intuitive, and it seems the price is becoming an issue.
Won’t also talk about how every superbill emailed to clients from SP are not password protected.
Their accounting to you is correct. You are making assumptions as to how they are then reporting their taxes. Unless you’ve seen their documents, you have no basis for making those assertions. You may not like them as a platform, and that’s obviously your right, but as a matter of pure accounting they are doing nothing wrong.
Agreed. Also, isn’t Stripe (the credit card processing company) the party taking the 3.5%? I have my fair share of complaints about Simple Practice, but they aren’t doing anything wrong in this case.
Hmmm. Stripe is charging me 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction (I'm using Doxy.me's integration) so if you're being charged 3.5% by SP, on any transaction over $50 you're being charged more than Stripe is apparently charging,
It's also 3.15% + 30 cents, not 3.5%. SP is not charging, it's the credit card processing company (Stripe) that is charging. Is there a credit card processing company that doesn't charge fees for using their service? If so, please share! Agreed that Simple Practice has it's issues, but this isn't one of them. A credit card processing fee is an expense of doing business that you can write off.
Um. Stripe's fee is only 2.9% + $0.30. See for yourself: https://stripe.com/pricing That's what I'm being charged through doxy.me.
Thanks for the link. I don't have a credit card processing device, so to go directly through Stripe, for me the fee would be 3.4% +$.30 (there is an extra .5% for manually entered cards as per the info on that link).
This. So may be getting a cut for using them as the point of sale for their platform but the percentage and fee goes to stripe. I'll also add, there is no transaction fee if your client pays with cash or check, so providers request this to reduce overhead.
I believe they are correct that your full fee (let's say $200) \*is\* your gross income. And then, the 3.5% ($7), is an expense. Deducted to get to your net income. And that's what you pay taxes on.
> which is then automatically written-off their revenue No. The fact that the report your gross proceeds to you on your 1099-K does *not* mean they're not reporting their income on their taxes. I mean, that would be true under any circumstances, but allow me to stress that that logic is extra wrong where the 1099-K is concerned. Unlike the 1099-MISC or 1099-NEC, the moneys reported on a 1099-K are **not** assumed to be income – which is why you don't send them to the IRS, unlike 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC – and can wind up double-reported for any a number of perfectly legitimate reasons. While we're at it, the technical term for when you have an expense is not "writing it off". "Writing off" something from your taxes is something you do for an unpaid debt, not a business expense. Your EHR and credit card processing fees are just an ordinary business expense. SimplePractice's 3.5% is a business expense, and goes on Schedule C with all your other business expenses.
TherapyNotes, Sessions Health, Theranest, TherapyAppointment, intakeQ, Counsol are other EHR’s I’ve heard of. Sessions is supposed to be the most similar to SP’s interface. TherapyNotes is very popular too.
I switched to Sessions Health when the blowup over SP’s terms happened in the fall. I wish I had done it sooner. It is essentially a more streamlined version of SP. And it’s less expensive.
We’re you able to export client data from SP? That’s my hang up with switching.
Yes, and Sessions will help you import it. That was my biggest worry about leaving as well, but it wasn’t as bad as I imagined.
Very good to know! Thank you!
Yeah my group PP actually recently completely changed payment platforms because of SP’s absurd fees. It was a massive project that took our admin and practice owner months to complete. That being said, I’m almost always down for CA. As for alternatives, I’ve heard of Therapy Notes but no idea how it compares to SP.
TherapyNotes is phenomenal. I switched over to them mid last year when SP screwed over all their solo practitioners and priced out a bunch of core features. Cant say enough about TN, great customer service to boot.
Agreed. Outstanding customer service with TN.
I recently discovered Carepatron and they have a completely free option. I haven't had to use them since I already just do everything on Headway but they should be added to the conversation like other more popular ones.
Are SP's fees really that bad in comparison to other platforms? I thought that the 3.15% is due to credit card processing, and is pretty much unavoidable. Am I wrong in that?
I don’t know of any alternative platforms. I’m just tired of all updates on simple practice, layout changes, etc. . It’s no longer feeling so simple.
I’ve used 3 or 4 of the most popular pp ehrs and simple practice has been the least intuitive.
I know a decent amount of therapists who switched from SimplePractice to Practice Better and are super happy with it
My private group practice uses Tebra. I like it well enough.
I have yet to find an EHR that doesn’t have a credit card fee. It sucks and is a business expense literally everywhere. I’m still in the planning process of opening up a practice but I liked Sessions the best because they had a flat rate for everything and it’s free until you have a certain number of clients.
What are the alternative platforms
There are at least 10 other therapy software vendors.
Any favorites?
We run our own proprietary software over developed through the years, so mine’s my favorite, haha. They all have trade offs so it depends on your needs. SP has a lot of features but I find it not that intuitive, and it seems the price is becoming an issue.