Rowan Physiotherapy
A fictional one-practitioner clinic, showing deposits that confirm bookings in Cliniko automatically and treatment plans that collect themselves — with clinical records staying exactly where they belong.
Where the Time Was Going
A fictional business, drawn from a real and common shape — and the payment admin it was carrying.
Patients asked to “pop the deposit over by bank transfer”, treatment plans tracked in a spreadsheet, and every morning starting by checking transfers against the day’s diary.
Rowan Physiotherapy is a fictional single-practitioner clinic run on Cliniko: diary, notes and invoicing all in one place, a card machine at the front desk, and a part-time receptionist. New patients were asked to "pop the deposit over by bank transfer" before their assessment, and six-session treatment plans were tracked in a spreadsheet — who had paid which instalment, noticed mostly when something looked wrong. Each morning began by checking transfers against the day’s diary.
- No-shows: the NHS alone recorded 8.4 million missed outpatient appointments in 2024–25 — and a missed private slot is unsellable revenue plus a gap in someone’s recovery
- An unpaid deposit was only discovered the morning of the appointment, when it was too late to refill the slot
- Roughly 2 hours a week of reception time went on matching transfers to bookings and updating the plan spreadsheet
- A failed plan instalment surfaced a month late, as an awkward conversation mid-treatment
Try the Interactive Demo
A working page in the Rowan Physiotherapy branding — a fictional brand, running in test mode only.
Rowan Physiotherapy
Chartered physiotherapy clinic
Deposit Paid
£40.00
Your initial assessment on Fri 19 June is booked.
Booking reference RP-0934
A receipt has been emailed to you.
Funds settle directly to the clinic's own bank account.
Your Card Was Declined
No payment has been taken. Your details have been kept, so you can try another card.
Rowan Physiotherapy is a fictional brand created for this demonstration — it is not a SettlePay client and no real payments are taken.
From Payment Page to Payment System
The page is the visible part. The build is everything that stops payments needing to be chased, matched and remembered.
- The deposit and treatment-plan page (the demo below)
- New assessment booked in Cliniko → deposit link sent automatically
- Deposit paid → the booking is confirmed and marked in the diary
- Instalments collected on schedule; a failed card is retried, then flagged by name
- A morning summary: today’s list, with anything unpaid highlighted
- The plan spreadsheet, retired
Choose a StoryPick a customer to follow their payment end to end — every screen below is simulated, no real money moves.
This month: every plan instalment collected without a phone call.
Deposits, plans and instalments in one place — matched to the diary automatically. The plan spreadsheet is retired.
A simulated, user-controlled walkthrough — pick a customer to follow their payment end to end, or open The Board to see the week at a glance. Fictional data and simulated system connections; nothing plays until you choose.
What We Could Realistically Touch
An honest map of the existing setup — because what a third-party developer can and cannot access decides what should be promised.
Already in Place
- Cliniko — diary, clinical notes and invoicing
- A card machine at the front desk for on-the-day payments
- A part-time receptionist and a treatment-plan spreadsheet
What We Worked With
- Cliniko’s public API, authorised by the practice — bookings come out, payment confirmations go back
- The clinic’s own processor account — settlement straight to the clinic
- Booking references and amounts only — the payment layer is built to need nothing else
What Stayed Untouched
- Clinical records and notes — they never leave Cliniko, and SettlePay’s layer is designed so they never need to
- The diary itself — bookings are made exactly as before
- The front-desk card machine — still there for patients who pay on the day
Clinics sit in the middle of the access spectrum: the API is real, but the line that matters is data minimisation. The integration passes booking references and payment states — never notes, never conditions. For a practice, "what can you see?" is the first question a patient would ask, so it is the first question the build answers.
What That Adds Up To, Honestly
Quantified from published UK industry figures — and labelled as the model it is, not passed off as a client result.
Practices commonly report fewer no-shows once a deposit secures the booking — and when one still happens, the slot is no longer worth zero.
The morning transfer-checking ritual becomes a glance at a screen that has already matched everything.
A declined card is retried and raised the same week, instead of surfacing a month later mid-treatment.
How These Figures Are Modelled
- ~70 appointments a month for one practitioner, with deposits previously arriving by transfer and checked against the diary by hand — the 2-hours-a-week reception figure is our stated assumption.
- Scale of the no-show problem: 8.4 million NHS outpatient appointments were missed in 2024–25 (NHS Digital); the NHS costs a missed appointment at around £160. The effect of deposits is reported by practices rather than measured in published UK studies, so we state it qualitatively.
- Reception time costed at typical UK administrator pay of £12–£14 an hour (2025 salary data).
Like the business itself, these figures are illustrative: a scenario modelled on published UK industry averages, not measured results from a real client. Your own numbers will depend on your volumes and on how you get paid today.
Now Try It on Your Own Numbers
Drag the sliders — or type your own figures — and the savings recompute live, costed against the same UK data. The model fits any scale, from a sole trader to a saleroom settling thousands a month.
And the bigger win is off this chart: a deposit that secures the booking changes the no-show maths, and an empty slot is no longer worth nothing.
A model, not a measured result: reception hourly rate and time-per-item are yours to set, costed against published UK figures. Your own savings depend on your volumes and how you get paid today.
Curious what this would recover in your own business?
How It Connects
Behind the page, every payment carries its reference — an invoice number, tenancy, lot or mandate — so it is matched back to the business's records automatically, reminders go out on schedule instead of from someone's evening to-do list, and the books update themselves. Funds settle directly from the processor to the business's own bank account; SettlePay never holds funds. Payments are processed by FCA-regulated partners.
What Would This Look Like on Your Numbers?
Tell us how you get paid today — bank transfers, cheques, card numbers over the phone — and what systems you already run. We'll map what we could realistically automate for you, and what it would save.