If your practice includes NHS or mixed private/NHS associates, running pay each month takes more than splitting a percentage of private fee income. NHS Units of Dental Activity (UDA) payments, statutory deductions and NHS statement data all need to enter the calculation before a practitioner’s final payout is correct.
This article covers how Clever Pay handles that extra workflow. It explains how to enable NHS functionality for a practice, import NHS statement data, set practitioner-level UDA rates, and review private and NHS income together on one payout and statement. It assumes the practice has already agreed how NHS and UDA pay should work. What follows is how Clever Pay lets you configure, run, and audit that agreement in software each month.
Why NHS and mixed associate pay needs a different workflow
A private-only associate’s pay is a straightforward calculation. It is a percentage split of the fee income they generate that month, minus any agreed deductions. NHS and mixed practices add an extra layer on top of that.
NHS income does not arrive through the same channel as private fee data. It typically comes as a separate NHS statement, published on its own schedule, and needs to be brought into the practice’s pay calculation rather than pulled automatically from the practice management system the way Dentally or Xero data is.
Each NHS or mixed-fee practitioner also needs their own UDA rate and UDA activity recorded, because practitioners on the same NHS contract can be paid differently depending on what has been agreed with them individually. Once NHS income enters the calculation, it carries its own statutory deductions too. The NHS Statutory Levy and Superannuation Contribution have no private-pay equivalent, and both need to appear correctly on the final statement.
None of this is a comment on what any of those figures should be. That conversation belongs to the practice and its accountant. It is simply more moving parts than a private-only calculation, repeated every month for every NHS or mixed practitioner, which is exactly the kind of repetitive work software should carry instead of a spreadsheet.
“With a mixed practice, the most common issue is how NHS income has been recorded in the books, it needs to agree with the journals and reflect properly in the accounts. And NHS is not complicated because the accounting is hard. It’s complicated because of the pressure of managing UDA targets, since NHS claws back payment if a practice underachieves against its contract value for the year.”
Natasha Gnanapragasam, Director of Operations – Accounts & Tax, Samera
“Private associate pay depends on the invoices and payment reports Dentally produces. NHS and UDA pay works differently. There is a pre-defined UDA rate for the dentist, multiplied by the number of UDAs they have completed that month, verified against the statement downloaded from Compass, the NHS portal. Because the source documents are different, the calculation has to work differently too.”
Deepak Madolia ,Clever Practice Project Manager
How NHS associate pay fits into Clever Pay
Clever Pay brings NHS pay into the same monthly workflow as private pay, rather than treating it as a separate process. At a high level, the practice is set up for NHS functionality, the NHS statement is imported for the period, each NHS or mixed practitioner’s UDA Rate and UDA Activity are set or confirmed, the combined payout is reviewed, and the resulting statement is sent. The sections below walk through each stage.
Set the practice up for NHS functionality
NHS features in Clever Pay are switched on at the practice level, based on the practice type set when the practice was connected. Setting this to Private + NHS is what makes UDA-based pay rules and NHS statement imports appear for that practice further down the line.
If a practice has not been set up this way yet, or Xero and Dentally are not fully connected, that is covered in the Settings & Setup guide rather than here. The short version is that NHS pay depends on the same underlying connections as the rest of Clever Pay.
NHS practices sometimes run on a different practice management system altogether, Exact SOE rather than Dentally, which is part of why this setup step matters before anything else.
“NHS practices sometimes run on a completely different practice management system, Exact SOE rather than Dentally. That needs its own integration to make sure the data comes into Clever Pay properly.”
Deepak Madolia ,Clever Practice Project Manager
Import the NHS statement
Unlike Dentally or Xero data, NHS payment information does not sync into Clever Pay automatically. Today, it means downloading the NHS statement as a PDF from Compass, the NHS’s own portal, and uploading it into Clever Pay for the period.
On the Pay Rules screen, NHS Statement Imported, Download and Re-import sit above the practitioner table for exactly this. Once a statement has been imported for the period, its NHS figures become part of every relevant practitioner’s calculation alongside their private fee split, without needing to be entered by hand practitioner by practitioner. Re-import is there for the times a statement is corrected or reissued after the fact, so the practice is not stuck working from an outdated figure for the rest of the period.
“Right now, for NHS and SOE clients, you still have to download the NHS statement as a PDF from Compass and upload it into Clever Pay yourself. We’re looking at automating that, so a practice could just forward the statement to a dedicated inbox and have it read automatically, but that’s still in feasibility, not built yet.”
Deepak Madolia ,Clever Practice Project Manager
Set UDA Rate and UDA Activity
Each NHS or mixed practitioner has their own UDA Rate and UDA Activity fields, found by opening their row on the Pay Rules screen. UDA Rate is the agreed rate per unit of dental activity for that practitioner. UDA Activity is the number of units they have delivered in the period. Multiplying the two gives the UDA-based portion of their pay for that month.
These sit alongside the practitioner’s private Clinic Share, Associate Share and Materials percentages, so a mixed practitioner’s private and NHS pay are configured in one place rather than two separate systems. What rate to set for a given practitioner is a decision the practice and practitioner have already made between them. Clever Pay’s job here is to apply it consistently every month.
Review NHS and private pay together
Once NHS statement data is imported and UDA rates are set, Associate Payouts brings everything together. Private, NHS, Card, and Materials columns appear per practitioner, reconciled against the rules just configured, with a Net Payout figure for each person.
This is the point to check the numbers before anything goes out. Reviewing NHS and private income side by side on the same row means a practice can catch something that looks off, an unusually high or low NHS figure against a normal private one, for example, before it reaches a practitioner’s statement rather than after.
“Integrating private pay and NHS or UDA pay into one calculation, for a single practice, was the hardest part to build. That’s where the developers spent the most time, making sure it was accurate every month, not just once.”
Deepak Madolia ,Clever Practice Project Manager
What appears on the NHS associate pay statement
For an NHS or mixed practitioner, the branded pay statement Clever Pay generates can include a full NHS Income section alongside the private breakdown, showing UDA Payment, Orthodontics Income where relevant, and the statutory NHS Statutory Levy and Superannuation Contribution deductions. This sits next to the practitioner’s Private Income section, covering Gross Earnings, split percentage, and any lab bill deductions, and ends in one combined Net Payable to Associate figure. The example below shows the private breakdown; on an NHS or mixed practitioner’s statement, the NHS Income section sits alongside it in the same way.
The result is a single statement a practitioner can read and understand, rather than a private payslip and a separate NHS calculation they have to reconcile themselves.
Example NHS month-end workflow
A typical month end for a mixed practice might look like this.
The practice’s NHS statement arrives and is imported into Pay Rules using NHS Statement Imported. Deduction rules already set up for card and materials charges are carried forward using Copy Deduction Rules, so nothing needs rebuilding from scratch. Each NHS or mixed practitioner’s UDA Activity is checked against their agreed UDA Rate and updated if it has changed since the last period. Associate Payouts is reviewed practitioner by practitioner, checking that Private, NHS, Card, Materials and Net Payout figures look right for that month. Once the figures are confirmed, each practitioner’s statement is sent, and the period is locked to prevent further changes.
That last step matters more than it might sound. Locking a period is a simple safeguard, not an optional extra, and it is worth treating as the final step of the monthly routine every time.
“When associate pay is prepared manually, it’s genuinely hard to catch an error, or even recognise one’s happened. A centralised system that keeps everything in one place is a smart solution, especially for a practice with a larger volume of associates, because this is sensitive. It’s reflecting someone’s pay.”
Natasha Gnanapragasam, Director of Operations – Accounts & Tax, Samera
Managing different arrangements across practitioners
Mixed and multi-site practices rarely have one NHS arrangement that applies to everyone. Different practitioners can have different UDA rates, different private split percentages, or a different mix of NHS and private work altogether, sometimes across several practices in the same group.
Because UDA Rate, UDA Activity and private share percentages are all set at the individual practitioner level rather than practice wide, Clever Pay handles that variation without needing a workaround. This is a question of software flexibility, not a view on what any given rate or split arrangement should be. Those decisions still sit with the practice.
What Clever Pay does not decide
Clever Pay applies the NHS and UDA pay rules a practice has already agreed. It does not recommend a UDA rate, decide what split is fair between practice and practitioner, or interpret an NHS contract. For that side of associate pay, including the underlying calculation and contractual considerations, see our guide, How to Calculate Dental Associate Pay.
FAQs
Does Clever Pay support NHS and mixed private/NHS practices? Yes. Setting a practice’s type to Private + NHS enables NHS statement imports and UDA-based pay rules for that practice.
Can different practitioners have different UDA rates? Yes. UDA Rate and UDA Activity are set individually for each practitioner, so a mixed practice or group can reflect different arrangements without extra setup.
Does the statement combine private and NHS income? Yes. The associate pay statement shows Private Income and NHS Income sections together, ending in one Net Payable to Associate figure.
Can figures be reviewed before a statement is sent? Yes. Associate Payouts is designed to be checked before anything goes out, and locking a period afterwards prevents accidental changes.
See NHS associate pay in Clever Pay
If NHS and mixed associate pay is currently a manual, separate process at your practice, see how Clever Pay brings it into the same monthly workflow as everything else.