Dental practices present unique accounting challenges requiring specific dental bookkeeping and accounting services. Besides, today’s challenging business environment prompts dentists and dental practices to use accurate techniques in business planning, accounting, and bookkeeping for the success of their enterprises.

What Does A Dental Accountant Do?

Although the job of a dental accountant may seem simple, it is more complex than it looks. A professional bookkeeper in the dental industry must exhibit an understanding of the current accounting standards, tax code, accounting laws to handle financial transactions for a dental practice. A dental accountant from Cooper Norman benefits your business in the following ways:

• Records dental purchases
• Develops systems for your dental accounting practices
• Handles tax matters
• Maintains accounting controls
• Provides bookkeeping services for dentists
• Provides financial planning services for dentists
• Provides financial advice on dental office purchase due diligence
• Includes tax and accounting services to dental practices
• Provides payroll services for dentists
• Manages payroll for dentists
• Provides IRS tax resolution services for dental practices
• Files income taxes for dentists and dental practices
• Provides financial planning services for dentists and dental practices
• Provides CFO services for dentists

Advantages of Having A Dental Accountant in Your Dental Practice

A dental CPA often has experience in the dental field. As a result, they understand the business decisions, challenges, concerns, and accounting questions in the everyday operations of a dental practice. Like general accountants, dental accountants’ services extend beyond accounting compliance into financial guidance of decisions around wealth building, profit optimization, and business exit planning. Dentists rely on dental accountants’ in-depth knowledge to excel financially in their practices. You may need a dental accountant for your dental practice for the following reasons:

• To help the dentist concentrate on their core competency in assisting patients
• Dental accounting can help predict potential cash flow issues that may affect the practice
• Provisions such as virtual bookkeeping minimize tax compliance errors during the tax period for a dental practice
• Dental accounting guarantees audit preparedness for any dental practice
• Dental accounting improves ease to secure funding and finances for the dental practice
• Dental accounting services from an effective firm improve the work-life balance of a dentist
• Dental accounting firms offer services such as payroll management that guarantee timely payments

Dental Accounting Services

Dental accountants design their dental accounting services to align with what is needed to bring your organization to a superior financial planning position. The main dental accounting services offered in the industry include the following:

TAX PLANNING AND PREPARATION

Like any other business, a dental practice is subject to taxation. Fortunately, dental accountants specialize in minimizing the impact of taxes on your dental practice. Besides exhibiting effective tax planning techniques, their knowledge of state and federal tax laws enhances their accuracy in tax preparation for dentists and businesses. Experienced dental accountants engage in possible tax breaks, tax breaks, and tax incentives to minimize a dental practice’s burden. Their expertise and tax planning techniques allow them to protect your practice from IRS harassment as they work year-round to remain up-to-date with any changes in the tax code that may affect the dental industry. Therefore, having a proactive tax planning strategy is essential in effectively managing dental business and practice compliance. Tax services include the following:

• Tax estimation
• Tax returns
• Tax preparation
• Retirement or succession planning
• Tax planning
• Resolution or consultancy on IRS tax problems

MANAGEMENT CONSULTING FOR DENTAL PRACTICE

Dental accountants provide management consultancy services such as overhead analysis and start-up consultation to dental practices. Combining practice and business management is among the day-to-day challenges that may overwhelm dentists. However, dental accountants specialize in consulting and practice management to allow dentists to enhance patient care quality. Healthcare consulting services include the following:

• Overhead analysis
• Tax planning strategies
• Analysis between a lease and buy of a dental practice
• Consultation on start-ups

DENTAL PRACTICE BENCHMARKING

Align your dental practice with your financial targets by conducting a dental practice benchmarking. A dental accounting firm uses benchmarking data to highlight areas that require adjustments for the proper function of the business. Dental practice benchmarking service may include strategic business planning, office operations assessment, and merger assistance. Besides, a firm with more than one dentist can use benchmarking data to determine the revenue share of each partner.

PAYROLL SERVICES FOR DENTAL PRACTICES AND DENTISTS

Dental Accounting includes payroll services for organizations overwhelmed with tax filing, reporting, and payroll processing. They provide outsourced payroll solutions that fit the dental practice’s needs. The most common payroll processing services in dental accounting include the 1099s preparations, personalized payroll reports, direct deposits, unemployment claims, and W-2s and W-3s preparation.

Dental Bookkeeping

We are all better at those things we have focused our time on. For dentists, that means that you can spot a cavity from a mile away, tell who is a great flosser and who isn’t, perform a root canal with gentle precision, and polish someone’s teeth to a splendid pearly white. While your skills in dentistry are top-notch can the same be said for your bookkeeping skills?

Many business owners make the mistake of thinking that a spreadsheet that they enter things into and reconcile once a month or on a weekly basis is going to be enough to keep their business in the black. That is like someone thinking that brushing their teeth once a week is good enough to keep their oral hygiene on point. While the spreadsheet is better than nothing, there are a ton of tools that do the job better, more efficiently, and that ultimately save you time and money down the road.

KEEP YOUR FINANCES IN ORDER

Many businesses and business owners swear by the spreadsheets they keep in order to reconcile their business’s finances. The biggest pitfall that many specialists fall into is not thinking about the different things you have to consider when reconciling your finances for your business. Someone that sells clothes or food only has to think about a set number of financial obligations. As a dentist, there is much more that you have on your plate, for example:

• Point of Sale transactions
• Accounts Payable
• Accounts Receivable
• Cash Flow 
• Medical/ Dental Insurance Billing

Having a solid grasp on all of the different aspects of your business and having each categorized helps you not only understand your business, but gives you a better understanding of how the business is doing each month. 

UNDERSTANDING HOW YOU RUN YOUR BUSINESS FINANCIALLY

One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make is not taking an opportunity to reflect on how they are running the business from a financial perspective. While you are busy taking care of customers and employees, networking, and sharing your passion, your business could be heading toward disaster or not running as efficiently as it could. 

Having the numbers on your business can help you answer questions such as:

• What are my biggest expenditures? Are there ways to bring that cost down?
• Does my cash flow align with my goals for the business? Am I reinvesting enough back into the business to see future growth?
• What area or group accounts for the majority of my income? Am I working to support growth?
• Are there financial goals that are being attained? Are there financial pitfalls that aren’t being accounted for? Are financial gaps present?

While these questions may not be fun to ask, they are imperative when running a business. We can help get the data that can drive informed decision-making and allow you to know how you are running your business, and what you can do to make changes to meet your financial goals.

INCREASE YOUR PROFIT AND DECREASE YOUR STRESS

The biggest benefit to dental bookkeeping is one that drives pretty much every business owner regardless of the field that they are in, profit. By having someone run your bookkeeping for you you can identify what areas are making the most income for your business, how you can support the areas of your business that make you money, and identify what areas are causing your financial setbacks. 

Bookkeeping services are beneficial for a number of different reasons.

• Reduce the stress of not knowing if you are running the business correctly. An outside expert can provide you with evidence-driven data to help guide your financial decisions.
• Spend more time focusing on the growth of the business.
• Spend time focusing on the things that increase your business’s income.
• Enjoy peace of mind that an expert team is behind your business.
• Know that your records are being kept by a professional. This means not only is the information accurate but your records will be kept safe to access any team you need them.

Dental accounting FAQs

The most common FAQ questions about Dental Accounting include the following:

• As a dentist with an in-house accountant, Do I have to terminate the contract of my accountant?

If you already have an accountant, many solutions require you to retain your in-house accountant. However, dental accounting firms provide well-trained accountants that understand the dental industry.

• Are dental accounting solutions long-term contracts?

Most dental accounting services are short-term contracts based on month-to-month agreements

• Must I upgrade my accounting Software systems to work in a dental accounting firm?

You can keep your software because dental accounting firms work with most of the dental software available. However, most recommend QuickBooks online for its ease-to-use or set-up provisions.

Why Choose Cooper Norman

Outsourcing an accounting service such as Cooper Norman remains essential in reducing bookkeeping and administrative burdens. Such a strategic decision helps dental firms remain committed to delivering quality services. Dental accounting firms utilize the current tax preparation and accounting services to guarantee a seamless compliance process. Leverage valuable benchmarks to stay updated and informed about your dental practice’s financial decisions. The main services include:

• Virtual controllership
• Historical accounting
• Business operations outsourcing
• Collaborative dental practice advisory services

Cooper Norman has a full-service accounting team that can benefit your dental firm with its accounting services. The firm customizes its accounting services to allow you to focus on the important aspects of your dental practice. The rights accounting software backed by the accounting team enables them to provide the best services for your dental practice’s daily accounting. You can reach out to your experienced Cooper Norman representative for dental accounting clarification.