Services
The service catalog is the bridge between what you offer, what it costs, and what it consumes. A well-built catalog means appointments book faster, invoices generate themselves, and inventory math stays correct.
An appointment type is a free-text label ("Consultation", "Emergency"). A service is a structured catalog entry with pricing and materials. Use services whenever you bill for the work - use appointment types for non-billable visits.
Building Your Service Catalog
Open the Services Page
From the sidebar, click Services. You will see two tabs: Services and Categories. Start with categories.
Create Service Categories
Categories group services by type ("Preventive", "Restorative", "Consultation"). Each category has a name and optional description. Categories make the appointment booking form easier to navigate.
Add a Service
Switch to the Services tab and click Add Service. Fill in:
- Name (for example, "Routine cleaning")
- Category from your list
- Description
- Duration in minutes (used to size the calendar slot)
- Price (the base fee charged for this service)
- Cost (your internal cost, for margin reports)
Link the Materials it Consumes
Inside the service form, add the inventory items this service uses every time it is performed. For each, specify the quantity. These materials will be auto-planned whenever this service is booked.
The materials list drives both stock decrement and capacity reports. If a cleaning really uses 4 gloves, list 4 - not "1 set" - so the inventory math stays accurate.
Save the Service
Click Save. The service appears on the catalog and becomes selectable when creating appointments or invoices.
Pricing and Cost
Every service has two money figures:
Price
The fee charged to the patient. This populates the appointment fee and the invoice line item when the service is performed.
Cost
Your internal cost (materials, lab fees, time). HM Praxis uses this to compute margin per appointment and per service in reports.
You can override both at the appointment level if a particular visit needs a different price (discounts, payment plans, special cases).
Service Capacity
When a service has linked materials, HM Praxis can answer "how many of this service can I deliver with my current stock?" The Dashboard surfaces this as a capacity card showing the limiting material for each service.
- If a cleaning needs 2 gauze and you have 10 gauze, capacity is 5
- The limiting material is named explicitly, so you know what to reorder
- Services with no material links show unlimited capacity
Best Practices
- +Use realistic durations - they drive your calendar density
- +Group services into 4 to 8 categories - too many makes the picker noisy
- +Link every consumable, even cheap ones - precision compounds across visits
- +Update cost when supplier prices change - your margin reports depend on it
We use analytics cookies to understand how the site is used and improve the product. They stay off until you accept. Privacy notice