The open case accelerator

The source workbook Clarity replaces is a cash receipt log: every row is a payment tagged with a treatment type, with no patient entity, so multi visit and instalment treatments cannot be linked. The dentist tracked who still owed him money by hand, in margin cells, invisible to any formula in the file. Roughly 31% of workbook volume was multi visit work, enough repeat business to make patient tagging worth the extra keystrokes.

How it works

Typing a patient surfaces their open cases first, and selecting one autofills the treatment type. Case grouping is deterministic, with no model involved: on save, if a patient and treatment match an existing open case of the same type, the new entry attaches to it; otherwise a new case opens. Ambiguity surfaces a chooser rather than guessing.

Why it is built this way

First visits cost more keystrokes than the spreadsheet ever asked for, and follow up visits pay that cost back by skipping treatment entry entirely. The feature follows the project's stated priority: when portfolio ambition and the dentist's workflow conflict, his workflow wins. Nothing about entry is required beyond treatment and amount, so a half tagged entry beats an abandoned one.

See overview and numbers for the workbook findings behind this decision.