BLOGS AND PRESS

Succeeding as a dental practice owner entails more than just having great dentistry skills. As a business owner, you need to be acutely aware of your finances to ensure business survival. But simply knowing how much money is coming in and out won’t help you grow into a thriving dental practice. What will help your practice thrive is getting clear on your goals and creating a plan to achieve them. Aside from providing exceptional service to your patients, you probably have other goals for your business such as revenue growth, increased profitability, more income for you as an owner, etc. But how do you achieve the goals you have for your dental practice? First, you need to get clear on what those goals are. Second, you need accurate financial information to help you achieve those goals. Let’s break it down a bit more… 1. Identify your short-term goals Think about your practice and personal goals for the next 1-5 years. Do you want to hire three new associate doctors, or add a new service that will require special equipment and training? Do you want to hire more so you can work less? These are the types of questions you should ask yourself. Once you know your goals, create a financial projection to help you figure out what you need in terms of revenue to invest in your short-term goals. On our website, you can access a spreadsheet to begin tracking your expenses. Knowing your goals for the short-term will help you create a budget and projections that will help you move toward those goals in more strategic manner. 2. Plan out your long-term goals What do you want your practice to look like in 5-10 years? These types of goals may include opening new locations or retiring and selling your practice. Obviously, these goals don’t need to be set in stone, but it’s good to have an idea of where you see your practice going in the long-term so you can start planning now. For example, if you know you want to sell your practice in 6-8 years, how much do you want to get for your practice? What revenue goals do you need to hit to get that sales price? What is the roadmap you need to create for your practice to achieve your retirement goals? Take a look at your current financial situation in your practice and create a projection that can help you plan accordingly. For a short video on what a few of those questions and answers are, click here . 3. Get your processes in order In order to do financial projections, you need to know where you are now. This is an area that can be particularly challenging for dental practices, creating process around financial management, bookkeeping and payroll. It’s not easy to create process when your front office employees are handling patients and tending to bookkeeping and payroll needs, but it is critical that this function is handled properly. If you find yourself wondering why your cash flow isn’t where you want it, why you can’t seem to grow your profits, or scrambling to figure out how to grow your business without working more, then it’s time to take a look at the bigger picture. Take a look at your current process around bookkeeping, payroll and financial analysis and ask yourself: • Are my books up to date? • Do I feel comfortable with the data being reported in my financials (is the data accurate)? • Is my internal team qualified and able to handle this process or do I need to outsource it to free up their time for patient needs? • Am I reviewing my financials regularly and do I understand what the numbers are telling me? If you answered no on one or more of those questions, then it may be time to think about outsourcing your financial analysis and bookkeeping function to an outsourced dental CFO service that can take all of those functions off yours, and your team’s, plate. You can reach your goals As a dental practice owner, you can reach whatever goals you set for yourself and your practice. But the key to reaching those goals is to know where your practice is now financially so you can be strategic in your decisions. You absolutely want to be making informed financial decisions that will fully benefit your dental practice and move you in a direction towards growth - or retirement! If you are at a place where you could use help with setting goals, financial analysis, clean-up and/or planning your next phase in business then we’d love to partner with you. When you work with CFO Dental Partners, you get not only a CFO, but an entire financial team that will help manage the back-office bookkeeping and payroll pieces of the business. Reach out today for a free consultation!

CE event coming up! Dinner at Twigs Bistro - Dentists only. Tag your favorite Treasure Valley dentist to make sure they sign up and get a seat! Space will be limited and will likely go fast. Here's the link to Register http://bit.ly/cfodp_rsvp