Category: Dental Advisor

Why should I work with a dental CPA instead of a traditional, general CPA? By utilizing the skills and knowledge of a dental CPA, you’ll be able to manage your practice more efficiently, so you can devote more time to dentistry and become more profitable.

You can gain valuable information about the health of your practice from a dental CPA, get assistance with planning to ensure that you will achieve your personal and professional goals, and get excellent advice on how to improve profitability from a dental CPA firm.

The three main areas of focus for a dental CPA when setting up a new client relationship are:

A solid bookkeeping system

The first step in working with a dental CPA is to get your bookkeeping in order. While this is the most basic service that a CPA can provide, a dental CPA’s industry knowledge can help ensure that the information is presented clearly and in a useful way. You can arrange your accounts so that the important information is prominent and easy to compare.

Your dental CPA will also make sure that accounting principles are being applied correctly to your bookkeeping so that an outside agency looking at your books will not question the practice’s presentation or health. Many dental CPAs offer monthly bookkeeping services along with monthly or quarterly meetings to review financial statements, so you can understand and act on the information. Dental CPAs provide a wide range of services, but bookkeeping is the foundation of all of them.

Dental Practice Planning and Projection

Developing a long-term plan and making projections is crucial for your practice’s success. Planning and projections can be done by a dental CPA to ensure that your practice is on the right track and on track to meet your goals. Due to their familiarity with the collections and expense patterns experienced by dentists, dental CPAs are generally better equipped to make accurate projections for your practice. Having created a reasonable projection, a dental CPA can assist you in determining your initial plans or executing existing ones.

The three things most dentists want to plan for are taxes, retirement, and the education of their children. Are you utilizing tax strategies to minimize your taxes? Will you be able to retire comfortably and on your own terms? Will your children and grandchildren (if you have any) be able to attend college?

Services provided by dental CPAs

The majority of consulting services provided by a dental CPA will be in conjunction with other services. For example, during a quarterly bookkeeping meeting, a dental CPA will typically review your monthly or quarterly statements in order to assess the profitability of your practice and identify areas for improvement or investigation. During half-yearly planning, a dental CPA may review your fee schedules with you to ensure that you are not undercharging or overcharging.

During year-end planning, a dental CPA might discuss equipment and expansion plans with you to ensure that your capital investment will result in a healthier practice and more enjoyable dentistry for you. As a result of this type of consulting, your 70808 dental CPA can help you identify trouble spots in your practice or identify opportunities that can be utilized to your advantage. Although a general CPA may be well equipped to help with financial consulting and a dental consulting firm may be well equipped to assist with practice management, a dental CPA can provide both financial and practice management services.

You can rely on our Baton Rouge, LA dental accounting firm for assistance. Get in touch with us today to schedule a consultation.

There are a number of reasons why dentists need a dental CPA. You can grow your revenue and cut costs with the help of financial housekeeping.

In addition to keeping track of your books and maintaining your accounts, dental accountants are also responsible for ensuring that you take advantage of all government schemes and programs that support small businesses. Additionally, they ensure that you are always in compliance with the policies. Dental CPAs are also responsible for tax preparation and optimization.

Many experienced CPAs offer virtual CFO services to help dentists scale their practices through budgeting, forecasting, planning, and strategic implementation of financial decisions. The guidance and mentorship of a virtual CFO is invaluable for ambitious dentists who are interested in expanding and scaling their practices.

Dental Accountants: What You Should Consider

It is common for small business owners and dentists to overlook some crucial elements when choosing a professional dental accountant, which can end up costing them a lot in the long run. When hiring a dental CPA for your practice, consider these factors.

1. Provided Services

CPAs can either be generalists or specialize in serving a specific segment of the industry. Ask your CPA about their range of services and how any additional services that they recommend will impact your revenue at your next meeting. If your CPA only offers a few services, it may be time to switch. 

2. Dental accounting knowledge and experience

When searching for a dental CPA, you should consider the level of experience and expertise they bring to the table.

An experienced dental accountant will optimize your tax position, claim necessary deductions, and take advantage of specific government programs. In addition to ensuring accounting compliance, dental accountants can often be a jack of all trades and help your business grow.

3. Transparency and communication 

Many dental accountants don’t disclose their activities and strategies transparently due to the complexity of the field. It may not be a good fit for your business to hire an accountant who isn’t openly communicating, guiding, and mentoring you. Transparency and the quality of communication are therefore crucial factors to consider.

4. Providing value for money 

Revenues and costs are two essential components of a business. Hiring a dental CPA should provide you with more value than the cost itself in order for it to be a worthwhile investment.

Choosing the best option doesn’t mean choosing the cheapest. Consider the cost and benefits of your investment before making your decision.

5. Fees that are clear and transparent 

Dental bookkeeping and accounting costs need to be transparent and clear in order for you to plan your dental expenses effectively. Wouldn’t it be nice to avoid unpleasant surprises down the line? The dental accountant you hire should offer transparent pricing and be open to discussing all the costs involved in hiring them before you sign on.

6. Having the ability to answer complex questions 

You rely on your dental accountant for a variety of things related to money and finances. Would you want to work with someone who can not answer complex questions? It is unlikely that you would. Our Baton Rouge dental CPA with a background in accounting should be able to answer any money-related question you may have openly and transparently.

The best people to work with are those who are always able to provide you with the correct answers whenever you have a question. It is only possible for them to accomplish this if they have a clear understanding of what they must do and what dental practices require from their accountants.

So there you have it! We hope that you now understand why dentists require specialized dental accountants. Our accounting firm specializes in assisting dentists. To schedule a consultation with one of our experts, please contact our dental accounting firm in Baton Rouge, LA today.

You are responsible for many non-clinical tasks as a dental practice owner, including human resources, tax filing, contracts, and insurance. When ignored, these things can inhibit growth and even cause significant problems in a business.

The practice of keeping accurate accounting records is known as bookkeeping. A company’s sustainability depends on its records. In addition to managing cash flow and meeting financial obligations, accurate bookkeeping helps businesses plan their investments.

In the eyes of some business owners, it is a tedious task that must be completed before their CPA can file their taxes. Keeping clean books can help you do more than just file your tax return on time. You can use it to spot fraud, map business growth and identify areas of overspending.

Types of financial ledgers

A financial ledger shows your company’s profit and loss. A comparison is made between the revenue coming in and the expenses going out.

Profit and loss statements and balance sheets are the most important ones to review.

Balance Sheet

Essentially, a balance sheet is a statement of a company’s assets, liabilities, and owner’s equity at a particular point in time. The balance sheet is typically prepared at the end of a set period (e.g., quarterly or annually). There are two columns on a balance sheet. On the left, you can see the company’s assets. Liabilities and owner’s equity are listed to the right.

A balance sheet provides important information to a business owner about the health of the company. The owner, however, isn’t the only person who looks at the balance sheet. If you plan to sell your practice, lenders, investors, partners, or buyers will review it when you apply for financing.

Profit and loss statement

In finance, a profit and loss statement (P&L) shows a company’s revenues and expenses during a particular period. This statement explains how revenues are transformed into net income.

In addition to recording the practice’s collections, the P&L separates your statement into two sections:

• Direct expenses: costs that vary according to production. As you see more patients, these costs will increase—like lab fees, supplies, hygiene, and chairside salaries.
• Fixed expenses are costs that are specific to your company and remain constant regardless of the quantity of goods or services produced.The cost of your building rent, insurance, pension, or subscriptions, for example, is the same month to month, regardless of your production level.

By tracking both direct and fixed expenses, the business can identify overspending or areas for growth.

It is important to be organized.

No matter who manages this report, whether you do it yourself or hire a bookkeeper, a poorly organized P & L will not be helpful. Expenses should not be listed in separate categories on five pages. As with tracking your personal expenses, categorizing your expenses allows you to focus on the big picture. You will not use it if it is not usable.

An organized P & L allows you to sit down every year and review where your business is this year to date, last year, and even the year before. As a result, you can spot outliers and trends.

A monthly review is also very important. There may be things that come through that you will not remember at the end of the year. For example, if your insurance fees were extremely high last month, you will remember that you had paid your annual insurance premiums. Given everything you have going on, it is unlikely that you will remember each detail like this at the end of the year.

Our dental CPA in Baton Rouge can not proactively plan your tax projections if your books are not up-to-date. Furthermore, if you only prepare them for a six- or nine-month period, they will be unable to strategize for you.

Outsourcing

It is important to leave financial statement management to a professional to ensure that all the categories are reported consistently, as well as to ensure that bank and payroll reconciliations are done on a monthly basis, which allows the owner to ensure that they are always tied to cash. It is also possible to detect fraud by staying organized.

In addition to other benefits, having good, clean books will make filing your tax return easier for your tax preparer. It can save you both time and money on your tax bill. As a result, it is cheaper, but it also prevents errors from occurring. You pay more in taxes when stuff gets missed.

It’s not only time-saving to have a professional accountant handle your monthly bookkeeping; it’s also strategic.

Rather than categorizing expenses, owners can now use the output strategically to enhance their businesses. It could be that accounts receivable have been running too high and have gone unnoticed, or lab supplies have gradually risen over the past six months. Early insight into changes can increase profitability in the short and long term. To schedule a consultation with one of our experts, please contact our Baton Rouge, LA dental accounting office today.