Getting Started with PracticeRunner
A practical guide to setting up your organization, understanding the main areas of PracticeRunner, and configuring the first settings most practices need.
Welcome to PracticeRunner
PracticeRunner helps therapy practices keep scheduling, intake, billing, secure communication, documentation, and follow-up work in one place. This guide walks through the basics so you can set up the first pieces your practice needs and start using the system with real clients.
1. Creating Your Organization
Getting started is meant to be straightforward.
- Sign Up: Create an account using your email. We use a secure magic link system, so you don't need to remember another password.
- Create Organization: Upon your first login, you will be prompted to create your organization. Enter your practice name and basic details.
- Onboarding: You will be guided through a short onboarding flow to set up your initial preferences and main location.
Once completed, you will land on your new dashboard, ready to start.
2. Main Areas of the App
Most of your work will happen in a few main areas:
Calendar
Use the calendar to:
- schedule appointments
- see your day, week, or month
- block off time
- open appointment details, notes, and billing actions
Clients
Client and case records bring together:
- contact and demographic details
- diagnoses when they apply, notes, and uploaded documents
- forms and signed paperwork
- billing history, invoices, receipts, and superbills when they apply
Billing
Use Billing when you want a practice-wide view of:
- invoices
- payments
- statements
- superbills when they apply
Tasks
Tasks help you keep up with follow-up work, especially when something belongs to a specific client or appointment.
Reports
Reports help you review income, attendance patterns, and other practice trends.
Activity
Activity shows a record of important actions inside your organization.
Conversations
Use Conversations to manage secure messages, prospective-client inquiries, appointment requests, and client replies in one place.
Team roles
Owners can invite admins and, on supported plans, associates or additional providers. Admins are for non-clinical practice support such as scheduling, billing, intake, and settings help. When authorized, admins can use Act as Provider to configure provider-specific operational settings while the activity log still records the admin as the person who performed the action.
3. Configuring Your First Settings
Settings includes many practice preferences, but you do not need to configure everything on day one. Start with the areas that shape how clients schedule, complete paperwork, and pay.
Practice profile
Open Settings → Practice to confirm your practice name, primary location, contact details, and any provider information that should appear on client-facing materials.
Services and fees
Open Settings → Practice → Services to add the services you offer, including session length, fee, location, session format, and whether the service is used for therapy, consultation, group work, or another practice workflow.
Billing
Open Settings → Practice → Billing to set invoice defaults, payment methods, bank transfer (ACH) or card availability, and any per-session bank transfer or manual-payment discounts your practice uses. If you plan to accept online payments, connect Stripe before turning on card or bank transfer payment options.
Portal
Open Settings → Practice → Portal to turn on the client portal for intake, forms, documents, secure messages, appointment reminders, and client calendar feeds. When the portal is enabled, you can copy the portal link and share it with clients who need secure access.
Client Scheduler
Use the Client Scheduler settings to control online scheduling.
- Settings → Practice → Client Scheduler controls the practice scheduling link, public scheduling availability, consultation request behavior, buffers, and age rules.
- Settings → Account → Client Scheduler controls whether you appear in the scheduler, your provider scheduling link, and your provider-level booking limits.
- Calendar → Availability controls the actual times clients can request. Add availability blocks for the services, locations, and session formats you want to offer to prospective and existing clients.
If clients should be able to request or book sessions online, configure the practice scheduler, the provider scheduler, and your calendar availability. After you test the link, add it to your website as a clear call to action such as Book a Session Now, Request a Consultation, or Make an Inquiry.
4. Add Your First Clients or Cases
You can start with an individual client, a couple, a family, a therapy group, an individual consultation, a consultation group, or a workshop group. PracticeRunner uses the same core workflow for scheduling, documentation, billing, and communication while still keeping the context of the work clear.
For a broader overview, see One Workflow for Therapy, Consultation, and Group-Based Care and Why Cases Matter.
5. Send Intake or Shared Materials
After the first client or case is created, send only the materials that fit the situation.
- For clients receiving therapy, intake may include profile details, consent documents, policies, payment authorization, and assessment forms.
- For consultation cases, use consultation agreements, payment authorization, scheduling, invoices, receipts, secure messages, and consultation notes. Diagnosis, treatment plans, insurance claims, and superbills are not part of the default consultation workflow.
- For workshop groups, use shared documents and forms for agreements, handouts, registration details, payment authorization, or other non-clinical materials instead of a psychotherapy intake packet.
For more detail, see Send Intake to a Client and Send Forms and Documents to a Client.