Approve and fulfil rewards

The referral lifecycle

• Submitted — the friend's lead exists and is being worked like any other. A referral stays open for 180 days by default.
• Qualified — the friend's journey was won. The rewards are minted with the wording configured at that moment and start the hold window.
• Disqualified — declined by staff (with a reason), or automatically when the "friend" was already a patient.
• Expired — the qualification window passed without a win.

If a won journey is reopened while rewards are still pending, the referral drops back to submitted and its rewards are declined automatically — approving a reward always re-checks that the win still stands.

Once a reward has been marked issued, its fulfilment record is never rewritten or deleted. If the qualifying win is later reversed or the referral is disqualified, SmileLine creates an Adjustment required event for staff instead of pretending the issued voucher, credit or donation did not happen. The practice can then record the correcting adjustment as a second event.

The same rule applies to a referral that is already Disqualified or Expired. If that final status was wrong, click Correct status and record the right status with a reason. SmileLine keeps the original status and shows the correction beside it. This does not rerun an automation, reopen a journey or create a reward. Handle any financial reward through the normal approval and fulfilment steps.

Work the queue

The Referrals page in the sidebar has four tabs:

• Approval queue — rewards whose hold window has elapsed. Each row shows the reward, who receives it, the friend and advocate, and the treatment value that qualified it. Approve commits the reward (the advocate gets a "your reward is ready" message); Decline requires a reason, which lands on the audit trail.
• To fulfil — approved rewards waiting for the practice to act: apply the credit, hand over the voucher, make the donation. Mark issued records fulfilment with an optional reference (voucher code, credit note); vouchers stamp their expiry date at this moment using the expiry period saved when that reward qualified. Changing the programme later does not change an already-earned voucher.
• All referrals — every referral with status filters, plus Disqualify for fraud or ineligibility. Issued and expired rewards show their original amount, signed corrections and effective total. Owners and managers can click Record correction to enter either an amount change (for example -20.00 to reverse 20.00 in the practice's locked currency) or a corrected fulfilment reference.
• Top referrers — programme KPIs (referrals, qualification rate, outstanding and issued reward value) and your champion patients by referrals and won value. Status and issued-value corrections are reflected in these current totals without deleting the original events.

Approving, declining and issuing need the approve rewards permission (owners and managers). Coordinators and telesales can view the page and record referrals.

Every correction records the reason, the team member and the time. If SmileLine has already flagged Correction needed, the new entry closes that exact flag; the original issued event remains visible in the history.

What the advocate hears

Three messages, sent on the patient's preferred channel and always from the practice to its own patient:

1. Welcome — on enrolment: their link, spoken code and status page.
2. Friend got in touch — when a referral is submitted (friend's first name only).
3. Reward ready — when their reward is approved.

The referred friend receives no referral messages at all — after submitting the form they are an ordinary lead, contacted through your normal new-lead flow.