Financial Success Tools

A leader's intuition is not enough. You must pay attention to numbers in your practice as illustrated. Remember, these are now actual numbers, your numbers, no longer assumptions or projections. So, where do I get these numbers to help manage my practice you might be asking. Well, there are three tools that will be helpful for you. The first of profit loss statements and then Williams Group has two excellent tools that will help you as well. First being a forecasting tool spreadsheet and the second being a stats tracking tool and we'll look at each of those. 

You will work with your accountant to get your QuickBooks setup and generate a profit and loss statement that you should review every month. Here's a snapshot of a P and L or profit and loss, if you aren't familiar with one. Think of your QuickBooks as an electronic checkbook. Debits, deposits, or your income and credits, expenses or payments as your expenses. Let me point out here in this snapshot, you'll see cost of goods category. Have your accountant break this down into three main categories of cost of goods in your practice. As mentioned, those would be your contact lenses, frames, and lenses, primarily those three. We do this so that you can identify which area or areas need attention. If cost of goods is high or has trended up, meaning increased, it allows you to target where you need to dig.

You will be provided with tools from Williams Group. A forecasting spreadsheet and a stats tracking spreadsheet. Measurement is how we see the trends. Measurement is how we determine the gap between where we think we are and where we actually are. Here's a snapshot of the forecasting spreadsheet. Again, you’ll receive a download, so it's a little bit difficult to see, but you'll see you’ll input a lot of numbers. Those numbers will be pulled from a couple places. The first will be your practice management software reports and then the second will be from your QuickBooks. So, your profit and loss statement. 

And here's a snapshot of that stats tracking spreadsheet. You can begin to use this spreadsheet right away, from your first day seeing patients. Most of this information will be pulled directly from your practice management software. So, you're going to manage the day. You're going to know so much about your practice, just by looking at these numbers. 

Established protocols for end of day procedures. Run daily reports to reconcile receipts, print your daily production reports from your practice management software, verify all charges and payments were entered and review them against the end of day patient schedule. Were all services from the day entered and billed? Look at your daily deposits, by check, cash, insurance, credit cards, and make sure they balance with the postings for the day. You may not have enough cash or checks to make deposits at the bank every day, but bundle those “deposits” together by the day. This makes it easier in the event you need to go back and track down a payment. Doctor, pay attention to receipts on a daily basis. As I mentioned, look at cash, credit card, checks, and insurance payments. Initially, this will help you review what happened that day. Does everything match up to the reports, did the payments get posted to the patient accounts? You can catch procedure glitches and make changes, right? If you catch them early on. Make those changes. It's all good for your staff to know that you pay attention. Be the leader.