Tiff and Kristy provide guidance on how to assess your practice’s financial health as 2025 begins to wrap up (and what to start thinking about for 2026). They touch on…
- Reviewing those P&Ls monthly
- Aligning spending habits
- Keeping emotions in check
- And more!
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The Dental A Team (00:01)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. I am so excited to be here with you today. I truly love this portion of what we get to do in our worlds and getting to get you so much valuable information out to the masses is something that Dental A Team has worked and strived just so hard to achieve in our.
consulting world of just getting you all this information and I have with me today one of my faves. I seriously, I have the most amazing consulting team and if you guys haven't heard from all of them yet, you soon will and if you don't know them personally yet, they're not your consultants. I hope that you get to meet every single one of us even if you're just coming to the events, however it is, but I...
have a personal favorite here for recording podcasts with. She calms me, she just keeps the energy light and fresh and I love any time that we get together. Kristy, thank you so much for being here today. How are you doing? The weather is like weird today. I always tell everybody about the Arizona weather and it's so much fun to have everybody here in the same place. We all live in Arizona in the Phoenix area. Jane is down in the Tucson area, but.
We really love it. And Kristy, how's your world over there? You're just in the beautiful little pocket of Phoenix. And how is it?
DAT Kristy (01:23)
Yeah, it's awesome. I love that you say that because we do pride ourselves on the weather here, right? But even with that, this weekend we got a lot of rain, what they say the most in like seven years. Yet all of us, even as close as we are, we experience it so different, right? Like some places flooded. I didn't get flooding, thank goodness, but it downpoured. It was fun and it's made it for cool mornings. So we're taking it.
The Dental A Team (01:42)
Yeah.
I agree. I agree that humidity is hitting us hard. So we're not super used to that, but it is making for some, some really beautiful mornings. totally agree. And yes, Britt and I were actually in Reno at our quarterly in-person traction event where we have a, implementer who comes in and leads it for us. And he helps us to build out the company structure and,
teaches and trains us on how to run large meetings like that. So it's always super cool. But we were up in Reno with Britt and or with Kiera Shelbi and Britt and I actually got stuck. Jenna got out. She got back to Denver, which is crazy because Denver always shuts down. And so she got back to Denver. But ? we got stuck until Saturday because the airport was shut down. And then there was a storm in Vegas because we thought, OK, well, we'll fly to Vegas because it's only a five and a half hour drive from there and we'll still get home. And then ?
that flight got canceled too. So it was wild. was meant to be, got more time in Reno and got to spend a little bit more time with Kiera. So that was great, but it was kind of crazy. It's not usually Phoenix that disrupts the flight patterns. And it was a hundred percent Phoenix. There were so many flights canceled because so many planes were stuck here and other planes couldn't get in. So it was wild, Kristy. It was wild to watch it from afar. We just got like TikTok notifications and you know, news articles are like, my gosh, all the Waymo's stuck in the puddles and things like that. So.
DAT Kristy (03:15)
Yeah,
they just stopped in the middle of the road like what the heck.
The Dental A Team (03:18)
Yeah,
that's why whenever somebody says, you use the way most? I'm like, heck no, I have seen them stuck in the middle of intersections far too many times. I'm sure one day it's going to be fantastic, but I haven't built that trust muscle just yet.
DAT Kristy (03:30)
Yeah, agree. Well, I'm glad you made it home safe. And ? yeah, the humidity is odd for us too.
The Dental A Team (03:34)
Thank you.
Yeah,
yeah, it totally is. And my son was like, Oh, you go to the East Coast enough, Mom, you're fine. Stop complaining. And I was like, Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. But but in the spirit of planning, we we truly had an amazing time really just one getting the time together as a leadership team and then to really looking and projecting like where are we at? What's Q4 going to look like? And then also kind of prepping and planning for 2026. So super relevant in this conversation here.
today and really looking at ? practice health from a financial standpoint. And this is something that your CPAs and your financial advisors and all of those professionals should be looking at with you as well. This is the time of the year that we're really looking at what is this last year? Because we get to Q4 and it's like, well, it's kind of like the end of your senior year, right? You get to the end of your senior year of high school or college and you're like, well, everything's kind of basically submitted. So from here,
It's really just like, let's do our best and make sure that we really cross that finish line strong, but there's not a ton of pivots to be made to really change the game. So kind of prepping and planning. And I think looking ahead at 2026, putting in some really solid ways of checking in on that financial health, something that I've seen that, Kristy, I know you do this as well, but something I've seen a lot of clients really ramp up is a monthly pulse and even like,
weekly sometimes pulse on what the financials of a practice actually look like has really been beneficial in helping them to really reach those goals. And Kristy, you are really fantastic at figuring those financial goals out and then like backtracking them to see, okay, well, what do we need to do to get there? And how do you help practices really keep that financial pulse top of mind and that
running that way so that they're constantly looking at those numbers without feeling overwhelmed and also without losing sight of it. Because you know sometimes you do something too often, you start glazing over it. What's that fine balance that some some tactical tips that you have that you and your practices are working on right now?
DAT Kristy (05:52)
Yeah, well, first and foremost, I believe that you have to be getting your P &Ls from your accountant monthly, right? We can't be waiting. I have seen some clients where they're begging for them for three months ago, you know, and it makes it really hard to stay on top of it if we're not getting them monthly. So first and foremost, make sure you're getting them from them monthly so that we can take a look at them and evaluate. And I like what you said, Tiff. ?
you can be, you can go over the top. It's a fine line, right? So I love looking at them every month and I'm not going to freak out if something's out of whack one month, but certainly let's look at the quarter, right? And make sure that those metrics are in alignment for the quarter. And to your point, I always like to speak in terms of like, we're going to crawl before we walk and we're going to walk before we run. Like,
In the crawling stage, let's just make sure where's your overhead, right? What percentage are we at there and what is our profit or EBITDA, so to speak, right? Where are we ranging there? That would be my first little steps to take and start looking at it.
The Dental A Team (07:10)
Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. And I think what time of the month do you usually push for those PNLs to be received? I have my judgments, but what are yours?
DAT Kristy (07:21)
like to say by the 15th. I'll give you a little grace and give you by the 20th, but the 15th is my ideal target.
The Dental A Team (07:28)
Yeah, yeah. I think I'm a little stricter. If I don't have those CPAs reaching out to us by like the eighth to the 10th, I'm like, my gosh, how are we supposed to work with this? There's a lot of, and I ask that because there's a lot of clients out there that are getting them like the first week of the next, next month. And so maybe December, we're finally looking at October.
DAT Kristy (07:35)
Thank
The Dental A Team (07:53)
And that is like, gosh, such a lag that we've got these questions floating around of like, where's my cashflow TIF and how do I fix this, Kristy? And it's like, I don't know, because I don't have eyes on what's happening. The P &Ls should be much quicker and much cleaner than that. And realistically, it's just it's the bookkeeper going in and allocating the certain expenses to the category that they should be in. So it's time consuming.
but it shouldn't be too crazy. And if yours is too crazy, then we probably need to look at your spending. Do we need to dial back the number of orders that you're placing every month? Do we need to make sure that things are a little bit more simple on that side, that it can be done quicker? Because we wanna be able to make real-time adjustments as quickly as we can. If we're on a two-month lag.
then we're adjusting for two months ago, it could look totally different. And then next month we get two months ago and it's like, it was totally different. We didn't need to change it. And so we're just constantly spinning our wheels in that way if we're not getting the data fast enough. And that is, in my opinion, one of the easiest ways to ensure that you're financially healthy is really just ensuring, like you said, Kristy, that on an overtime basis, things are consistent and they're clear, that they make sense.
DAT Kristy (09:08)
100%. I like that you said push to the 10th, because obviously if, you know, in the walk or crawling stage, we're just learning, right? We have a little bit of buffer, but as we get to the top of our game, it should be more. And if everything is electronically done, it really is in there already. It's just a matter of organizing it, right?
The Dental A Team (09:30)
Yeah, and I like to give myself the grace because I know or give them the grace. I typically know if we ask for it by the 10th, we're getting it by the 15th to the 20th. If I give them that leeway, they'll take it. And we know that's just how it works in that world. That's fine. We work with what we've got and figure it out. And I think it's a massive place to start, Kristy, is those P &Ls. And I think the P &Ls really outline
DAT Kristy (09:39)
Thank
The Dental A Team (09:56)
the financial health in so many different areas because it gives us insight to what is actually happening. Having those categories split out, we've talked about that a ton, we've done a ton of webinars on it and if you need help with that, reach out. We've got really simple sheets and documents that you can even send over to your bookkeepers and your CPAs that kind of outlines what we like it to look like so that it's simple to review.
But being able to see those over time is huge. I know I have a client that like one month was 48 % overhead and that's before Dr. Pay, that's before loans, right? And it's like, holy cow, we killed it. But then it's like, okay, but hold on, because the next month was 64%. So taking an average there because likely something got shifted, payments got posted, or I don't know, I've had some clients that's like, my gosh, I forgot to pay Henry Schein for two months. So then it's like that third month had this massive Henry Schein payment.
but over the quarter, it wasn't that bad. So making sure that we're looking at it month by month and over the quarter is huge. ? Something that we've done, that we've ramped up ourselves and that we do ramp up with a lot of clients is really looking at our bank accounts constantly. And I know that Kiera and our financial team, they look at our bank accounts weekly on a weekly basis to make sure that everything makes sense, that things are.
where they're supposed to be that, you know, that we're not getting charged for things we shouldn't have been, et cetera, but then also that we're staying in alignment with the budget that we had set. And those budgets come from those P &Ls and those total numbers. Kristy, something I've realized recently in the recent years is while I was in practice, I would build our budgets for our spending. like our...
you know, five to 8 % for supplies or what have you or ortho budget, things like that. I would build it based off of our collections, air quotes on that word, and it would be our collections from Dendrix. I'd pull the collections for the last month. I'd build that budget based on the collections. And then Doc would be like, where's all the money? Like, well, I don't know, it should be there. But there's such caveats to what's been posted in Dendrix or your operating software.
compared to what's actually in QuickBooks, I found that I was running this like ragged race of trying to play catch up all the time with like even just the percentages for credit card fees and third party financing being taken out of our payments, just those simple tweaks make a massive difference. So building those budgets, Kristy, off of our actual P &L numbers, our actual QuickBooks collections has...
made a massive difference, I know, for a lot of my clients. How do you see that working for clients? And also, how do you see that working with a leadership team that maybe doesn't have access to or not looking at those P &Ls together? How do you suggest for financial stability and health in the practice, they really get that information down to the people that need it?
DAT Kristy (13:08)
Yeah, absolutely. One of the things, ? well, there's a couple things. We at Dental A Team keep scorecards for our clients and it could be as simple as adding that line in there and having the doctor put that dollar amount and having the budget calculate right there. Everybody can see it. They know what to spend. The other thing to that point Tiff is,
You know, a lot of times we look at the practice management, we see our collections, but how many times do we reconcile it with our QuickBooks? Like, really look at that and see. And obviously, just like you said, it could be a matter of when something was posted or when it came in, right, to the bank account. But I think that's an area that sometimes is overlooked. You know, there can be variance in there, obviously, for when things post, but...
what is that variance and how consistent are we having that variance? again, depending on which method you're using, if you're using the collections from your PMS or the collections that are posted in the P &L, we better be clear what that difference is and ? account for it for sure. Right.
The Dental A Team (14:25)
Totally agree.
And you actually reminded me just last week, I was in an office and I was like, what is happening here? I was going through their P and L and I'm like, okay, we've got, we've had some changes in the office. We've got some places that it was decreasing. Some places we spent more, some places we actively spent more on purpose. Like, but things just weren't adding up with what was coming through from the software. And I realized after an hour and a half of digging, I'm like, why is...
I put a line items, I updated the scorecard and I put a line item for like QuickBooks collections and then the PMS collections. And in comparison, I had it subtract and like tell me the difference in numbers. And there were months that were coming up $30,000 different that it looked like we collected $30,000 more in their software than what QuickBooks was showing us. Luckily, I know this office manager very well personally, like familiarly.
And I'm like, I know there's no conclusion to jump to here. Like something is not reporting correctly. And what I realized is they specifically use Dentrix. Dentrix will allocate any positive write-off or adjustment. if there's an adjustment that's adding money, it'll allocate it to production. If there's an adjustment that's removing money, it automatically adds it to collections.
So when you pull up the adjustment space in Dentrix, it'll show all positive production, all negative collections. So it was showing drastic differences. And so I was like, gosh, I totally forgot about this space in Dentrix that it does this. It's just, I call them the Dentrix-isms. It's just a Dentrix thing. It's very frustrating, but it just is what it is. So when I went through, I reallocated where the write-offs should be coming from. Now, caveat, messes up.
production collections for forever because it's now correcting it. So what you thought you had done, you didn't, and it fixes it. So the new numbers are more accurate, but you're going to be frustrated because it's different. But what it did when I did that and re-put in the collections numbers is that it brought that $30,000 difference down to a more manageable $1,200 to $3,000 difference, which is what we tend to see with the
care credit fees and all those different credit card processing fees, we typically see, I say like 5,000 or less, I'm not going to freak out about too much as long as it's inconsistent. I don't want to see consistency. I want to see really low numbers. And then again, sometimes some of that money is going to be pushed over to the next month. So quarterly, it made sense. Quarterly, it was beautiful. Month by month, it was a little wonky, but just making that
change because we were checking the financial health of the practice because things didn't feel like they were making sense. So we, the office manager and I pulled the full year's PNL and we did line item by line item comparison 2024 to 2025 percentage change on each space, went through and figured out where the spending was, went through and line itemed everything and then added it like you said to the scorecard to see those differences, massive.
massive improvements where the docs were feeling like cashflow was like, ? we were freaking out. And it was like, well, these are the areas where you intentionally spent money and were actually only a 16 % difference overall year to year. And they were like, ? so we didn't increase enough, but their spending was purposeful for taxes. We just didn't look that way yet on paper.
Regarding financial health of the practice, that was exactly what we did, but adding it, like you said, to the scorecard and looking at, I think the scorecard's just really cool because it allows you to see over time. Whereas a new sheet is I'm only dealing with today. So I'm only looking at today. I might look at it and say, oh my gosh, my employee percentage was 42%. That's real life, I've seen that in an office. It was 42 % this month, and you're like, cut hours. But over the quarter, it was,
30 % or 31%. We had a spike because we had a collections dip or whatever. So I think adding it where you're seeing that kind of comparison allows you to see what is the trend here or is this an abnormality? Does this level itself out? Am I on track for over time or do I need to jump and hot fire? And Kristy with that said, like, you think, as I'm saying that I'm thinking,
Is that a space where we could even tame our emotions around finances? Because we're seeing so much data in a bigger spectrum where we can see trends, uptrends or downtrends, rather than this like, my gosh, payroll was so high, I've got to tackle that. It's allowing us to see a broader picture. Do you think that helps reduce some of the emotional, like just quick fixes?
DAT Kristy (19:34)
Absolutely. And we don't want to react, right? Many times we go to that mindset of cut, cut, cut. you, and you know, one of the things that I learned a long time ago is you can't focus on the opposite. So if we're focused on cutting, then we're not focused on producing, right? And so yeah, you're 100 % right, Tiff. I think it does calm the reactionary, right? It's good to know, notice, but then look at the bigger picture.
The Dental A Team (19:48)
Yeah.
Mmm.
Yeah, gorgeous. As I was talking like, my gosh, Kristy, that's why you do so well with coaching in my opinion, because you are very, very good at being data and results driven, acknowledging the emotional aspect and not discrediting that by any means, but being able to focus back to what the drivers are and then being able to acknowledge and address any emotions that are still present. But you do well removing that because
we're looking at data and data is non-emotional. You can come up with something and there's been so many times where I could think of so many offhand where I've data-drivenly discussed something with a client and they're like, ? and the emotion kind of disintegrates, it dissipates because it was attached to what they thought to be true. And when they saw the reality, there was no need for that emotion anymore.
DAT Kristy (20:59)
Exactly. Well, and to be honest with you, it goes both ways, right? It's the same thing as if we're only looking at the practice numbers, sometimes they think they're doing very well or not doing well, either one. And then once we look at the overhead numbers, it's like, actually, you're here, you know? So ? it goes hand in hand both ways. I always like to say, you know, if I had a pizza business and I was going to sell pizzas,
The Dental A Team (21:18)
Yeah. Yeah.
I love that.
DAT Kristy (21:29)
I need to break it down and figure out what it cost me to make the pizza, then I can go sell the pizza. But so many times we don't do that and we just put it out in front of us, right? And then on the back end of it, we do have to measure how many pizzas did we sell and how much did we actually spend. Sometimes we forget to go back and look at the cost too.
The Dental A Team (21:34)
Yup.
Yeah, wow, that's a very good point. Very good point, which is where the P &Ls come in handy and the line items. And I think the P &Ls will group it and lump it into categories, but every now and again, maybe like once a quarter or so, really looking at what are they putting in those categories so that one, you're making sure they're still super accurate from the bookkeeper and two, that you're not like Amazon spending. There was a couple clients that I saw.
DAT Kristy (21:56)
Mm-hmm.
The Dental A Team (22:19)
I'm like, what is going on? Why is this category so jumpy? One month it's massive, another month it's not, and they get lumped into office supplies and front office supplies, and all of a sudden it's $3,000 when realistically budgeting-wise it should be $1,200. I'm like, what is in here? And they're like, Amazon goes in there. Every time we want something or Doc says something, we just press the order. And I was like, ?
Got it, we need some systems around Amazon or Walmart. I've seen like, I just run to Walmart and I grab what we need every week. And I'm like, my gosh, there's weekly ordering will hurt you every single time. Any kind of weekly ordering. If you can't budget the ordering in a monthly fashion or maybe twice a month, I'll give leniency on twice a month, then we need to talk. Cause that weekly ordering will hurt you every single time.
I think this is all really good, Kristy. I love this. I love this. And I go ahead.
DAT Kristy (23:16)
Yeah. I was
to say, I agree with you. mean, we can liken it to our own space if we go to the grocery store with a list or without a list. What is our end result when we pay? You know, so I'm with you. I'm with you. I'm like for dental supplies, we can go to twice a month, but have it fixed and then make sure you're staying within the confines of the budget.
The Dental A Team (23:27)
Yeah.
Yes, yeah, that's actually brilliant. Yeah.
Yeah, I agree. And I think that was that was a super great thought process there. Because if you're not planning even your dinners, right, I'll plan my dinners for the week. So then I know what ingredients I need and what ingredients if I know what ingredients I need for specific dinners, I know what I can reuse as well. Otherwise, I'm going to the grocery store just kind of getting random things that I think I can make into something. And I'm ending up at the grocery store a couple times a week to replenish or, you know, supply those missing pieces.
And so if you know what your schedule is, if you know on average how many crowns you're doing, how many fillings you're doing, how many implants you're doing, you can have an average guesstimate of how much of each supply you need to keep on hand, which is then going into your budget for your ordering. So that was beautiful. Yeah, good job. All right, guys, financial health is massive. And it's something that I think all of us, Kristy,
Trish, Monica, Dana, myself, we all just work really, really hard to ensure that it's top of mind for all of our clients. But if you're here listening and you're not yet a client of ours and you're a Dental A Team podcast listener for life, we love you and we wanna make sure you have this information too. please, by all means, somewhere around the 10th of the month, because we know it's probably gonna go longer, make sure you've got those panels in there. Talk to your bookkeeper. If you are the bookkeeper, I have a couple clients like that.
Put it your calendar, you guys. If you are your own bookkeeper, that's fine. I'm not gonna judge you. I think it is a task that you can easily pay for, but I'm not here for that. If you are your bookkeeper, put it in your calendar and you should have that sucker done by like the fifth or the eighth of the month because everything should be closed out. Review your PNLs monthly and quarterly and yearly. Review your spending habits constantly. I have a lot of practices that'll look weekly.
I have a lot of practices that'll look monthly, whichever works best for you. Just make sure you're reviewing those spending habits and then budget for your team. So your supplies ordering, your front office, those are the easiest places to budget. Make sure that you've got an ortho budget added in there. If you have ortho fees and ortho costs that are outside of like Invisalign, things like that. I have a lot of practices that do bracket style ortho and they need a lot of supplies that has to be separated out.
Those are your pieces, you guys. Those are the easiest ways that you can tackle real life, real life, in time, financial health. And we want you to go do that. Kristy, thank you so much for your insight. You truly do so well with your clients and we get to see their progress constantly and those needles are always moving. And I know that it's because you can take that black and white results driven perspective. So thank you for everything you do for your clients and everything that you bring to Dental A Team every day.
DAT Kristy (26:33)
Thank you, it's fun.
The Dental A Team (26:35)
I know,
I know, I love watching you do it. You really do love it. And it makes me really happy. All right, guys, that's a wrap for today. Go leave us a five star review. Let us know what was super helpful. Maybe there's some tips and tricks you've got that you can share with the world. I'm telling you, people really do go read those. So if you have things in there, they will see them. You can drop us an email, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. We'll be happy to get you over any documents that might help. We do have some.
budgeting information, we do have some overhead spreadsheets, things like that. If you need help with that, just reach out and we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast. Thanks guys!