Re-releasing a DAT listener favorite!
Morgan Hamon, president of HDA Accounting Group, is on the pod! HDA is a dental-specific accounting group, and knows dentistry inside and out. Kiera and Morgan discuss profit margins, benchmarks, and AR aging, plus why having good financials will help you make smarter decisions.
A profitable practice is more helpful for patients, more secure for team members, and less stressed out in times of uncertainty. Don’t run your practice blind; get a good CPA.
About Morgan:
Morgan is a graduate of the University of Arizona school of business. Following graduation, he was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy and served for over ten years as a Naval Aviator flying carrier-based F/A-18 Hornets. During that time, he deployed to Persian Gulf and flew combat missions over Iraq in support of Operation Southern Watch. He also served as a flight instructor and landing signal officer for newly winged Naval Aviators transitioning to the Hornet, training pilots in air-to-air combat and landing on aircraft carriers.
After leaving the Navy, Morgan obtained a master’s degree in accounting with a concentration in taxation from Metropolitan State University of Denver. He is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and is the co-founder and President of HDA Accounting Group leading a large staff of professional accountants delivering a variety of financial accounting and tax services. Morgan regularly conducts practice profitability advising for over 500 dentists nationally, helping them analyze their financial data and identifying strategies for profit improvement.
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Transcript:
Kiera Dent (00:00)
Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera. And today we are bringing you something so special. I am so excited because this is one of our most popular episodes from the archives. Whether you're hearing this for the first time or catching it again, I am so excited because it's jam packed with a ton of takeaways that you can start using right now in your practice. We have released thousands, literally thousands of episodes. And I wanted to start bringing a few of these amazing episodes back for you. So I hope you enjoy. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time.
on the Dental A Team podcast.
speaker-0 (00:33)
Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and you guys, I am so excited. It's always fun when I'm getting ready to start a podcast and the person on the other side of it is somebody that I have just idolized. I refer to their company all the time and then I'm like, oh my gosh, it's you. And that was what just happened with this guest. Today I'm bringing you guys Morgan Hamon He is the president of the HDA accounting group. So you guys know we have a lot of accounting groups that we work with at the Dental A Team. I'm really pro vetting them.
and finding out one of things I love about HDA is they literally have incredible forms for profitability of a practice. Also, watching all your different overhead and you guys know we're super, super pro. But something really fun about Morgan before we bring him on is that he is a graduate of the University of Arizona School of Business. So after that, he actually was commissioned as an officer in the United States Navy and served for over 10 years as a naval aviator flying carrier-based F-18 Hornets. So I'm dying to find out about that.
because he was deployed to the Persian Gulf and flew combat mission over Iraq in support of Operation Southern Watch. Insanely cool stuff. So not only are you a CPA and sometimes CPAs can be boring people. So the fact that you did this and I say that with love to all my CPAs, I was almost fired from a CPA firm once upon a time because I talk too much. So I'm super jazzed. So Morgan, welcome to the show today. How are you?
speaker-1 (01:51)
Thanks, I'm doing well. Appreciate being here.
speaker-0 (01:53)
Ha
ha, awesome, okay, so I brought you in. You are with HDA CPA, which is amazing. We have a client in Hawaii right now looking to work with you guys. Several of our clients work with you. you guys, I, Bailey, those are my top two CPAs, Profi, top three that I usually refer. So I'm super jazzed to have you on the podcast. But before we dive into like CPA stuff, which I'm always excited about because I feel as a business owner, that was where I was the most weak. And so I'm excited for you to share some tips and ideas. But tell us about flying.
being, you know, flying hornets, like just kind of give us a quick like one or two stories because I'm dying to hear about that.
speaker-1 (02:30)
Sure. Yeah. So I like my family is all CPAs. My dad's a CPA brother, cousins. And I, that wasn't what I wanted to do growing up. You know, I wanted to be a fighter pilot. So I went off to college, Navy paid for it, which is a super deal. And then I, then I owed them some time after that, of course. off the flight school, um, did an operational tour.
and F-18s as a West Coast guy. And that's where we went over to Persian Gulf, over Iraq and all that. And ? after that, I was an instructor pilot on the F-18. So that was definitely my favorite part of my service was teaching the young pilots how to actually use the F-18 as a weapon system and landed on the carrier, which was ? probably obviously my favorite part of naval aviation.
pretty exhilarating. Could be incredibly stressful too, especially at nighttime. And I think there's definitely a few stories where I was just absolutely terrified because the weather was terrible. ? There's nowhere else to land. The ship's rocking around and you literally have to figure it out or you're not gonna see the next day. And it's all gonna be happening in seven minutes. It's very...
So it really, grows you up really fast. And I think, you know, after close to 11 years, my wife and I were ready for, you know, a little more normalcy in our life. moved off to private industry. My wife's ? a nurse. She's been in healthcare for 25 years. ? But in terms like the, like what the Navy did for me and how I apply that to business is you,
learn to assimilate a lot of data, complex data, and hash out what you really need to know so you can execute in a very timely manner. there's a lot of noise. You learn how to disregard that and boil it down to some key action items that'll get you through the mission. And that's how I approach business ownership myself.
And I am definitely not the typical CPA. My value is not that I can no account, like I'm the best accountant in the world, not far from it. But I do know how to run a business and systemize. being a business leader is a completely separate skillset from being a clinician. And I see that, I get it. And the reports...
that you mentioned is those full color dashboard style reports that practice profitability analysis. That is straight from my Navy background. It just serve up what you need to know. Here it is. Here's the checklist, so to speak, so that you can make it happen. that's a bit of my background and where I came from. I co-founded HDA accounting group with my dad, in 2009. So we were the two owners for a long time. And then
for your listeners out there that perhaps use us, they'll know Courtney for sure. She's our tax partner. We made her a partner just over three years ago, which was probably one of the best decisions we ever made. She's wonderful. The clients love her. So there's three owners on one of them. And I spend the bulk of my time meeting new doctors, doing like what we're doing right now, and then spending time with our clients, trying to help them make money, make more money.
speaker-0 (06:10)
For sure. That's fun. love that you shared. mean, thinking about trying to fly and land a plane, one that would be hard and then try to put it on a moving target and wish you luck. And if you don't make it, you're dead. And so just the, was like, wow, that's kind of like tax deadline, right? Like you're like so stressed and advanced to get there.
speaker-1 (06:29)
It puts stress in perspective. Your hardest day in accounting, death is not on the table.
speaker-0 (06:31)
I bet it does.
So
this might not be something you want to talk about so we can always cut this part of the podcast if need be Like were you ever really in combat or did you get a primarily be away from that? So thank you for your service. I'm just always curious. Like how was that?
speaker-1 (06:48)
It was limited exposure. So back then when I was there, it was still operation Southern watch. So it was not full blown conflict. However, ? they did not want us there. They would shoot at you. ? they were scared to turn on their radars. So they would not typically engage with missiles, the more deadly type of anti-aircraft threat that we would face. They're too scared to turn them on because we would have ?
countermeasures to do with that. they would just, they would shoot like artillery at us. And so you would just, you could like barely see, you knew it was there and it was sort of concerning because you're a couple hundred miles in Tyrak. Like if anything happens, you're not going to receive a warm welcome, know, eject or something. So it was definitely had your attention. I remember that my first mission was at night. I was, you know, I had butterflies.
just because we're like all the almost all the way to Baghdad at night. You're on night vision goggles. It's a big strike package. Like the biggest thing I'd ever done before your aerial refueling over Kuwait, both inbound and outbound a lot going on. And, you know, while we're on this topic before these types of missions, you're in a brief for two to three hours ahead of time. There's a lot of moving parts, a lot of things you really need to know. But when you get in the jet,
you have a knee board card where you write stuff down, you have a strike packet, but you've got a very finite amount of time to put some notes. And that's where you get really good at cutting through the noise and putting down like this, no matter what, I need to know this. And that is how I approach the business. You know, with that report we prepare monthly, but also like when the COVID crisis went down last,
March. I think we all remember it very well. It was very scary and we didn't know what was going to happen. We're getting shut down. We got sent home. The dentist got completely shut down. So I, know, when, when you're stressed, one thing I learned in the Navy was you need to, to, they had a term for it, compartmentalization. You need to put that in a compartment and then
speaker-0 (08:53)
Right.
speaker-1 (09:12)
get out your compartment that is your training and what you know how to do. And you just got to focus on doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done. And so I started putting out content, I use constant contact to reach out to all our doctors and just giving them updates on the crisis saying, is all noise, concentrate on this, do this. Like PPP is coming on, this rapidly changing massive government program.
At the height of the crisis, I was putting those out maybe every third day. There were times when I was getting 40 to 50 emails an hour from clients. Yeah, everyone's like, what do I do? So I would hear from people, like my friends, they're like, oh, know, the COVID, you're getting like lots of house projects done. I said, no. I'm working 12 hours a
speaker-0 (09:55)
I'm sure, because it was terrifying.
speaker-1 (10:11)
I never worked harder. but that was, that was how I generated those newsletters was cut, through the noise, do these action items and then standby. so that was, I have a lot of very positive feedback on that. And I owe a lot of that just to my Navy experience, cause that's how we did things.
speaker-0 (10:31)
That's such an interesting way Morgan of just kind of how you're combining your worlds. I mean, my undergrad was marriage and family therapy.
And then I now coach a bunch of dentists and I'm like, feel like half the time I'm talking to you about your personal life to help with your business.
speaker-1 (10:45)
I'm sure that comes up.
speaker-0 (10:47)
So I am curious though you talk about I love that you brought up the the examples and the conversation of That you had to just cut through and see the things that are the most important you have a two or three hour debriefing and you've really got to know your most important things because honestly Truly at that point in my opinion it is life and death and so I would imagine not that we're gonna have the same Comparison with a practice of life and death. Sometimes it can get that way. What do you feel are the most? important metrics or numbers or data
that a practice should be knowing you have all this accounting information, you work with hundreds of dentists. ? Obviously I've got my opinions, but like this is where you're the expert on this. So tell me kind of what are the main key factors that if I could only watch so many items on my practice, what should I really be watching to make sure that I'm a successful practice?
speaker-1 (11:33)
So first and foremost, the number that I think not every just practice owner, any business owner, what they need to know, I think at all times is what is their profit margin? And I hear stories from clients, you they're at Starbucks or whatever with their colleagues and they'll use someone else as an account firm and they'll ask their friend, what's your overhead on your practice? And they'll say, I don't know.
And they're horrifying. Like how could you not know what your overhead is? Totally. First and foremost, and just to clarify as a CPA, I think in terms of margin, sometimes dentists think in terms of overhead, we're kind of about the same number, you know, a 40 % margin, 60 % overhead. So you have to know your profit margin. And that's not just being greedy or just trying to count the dollars. If you think about a business, owning a business is difficult.
It's stressful. It's risky. All of our doctors signed a personal guarantee on probably a half million dollar note or thereabouts. If they bought the real estate, it could be a seven figure note. That's very stressful. if you're, and then you have employees, which is if we're going to talk current events and some frustrations, we could definitely talk about some staffing, but you have all these responsibilities and challenges and risks.
If the profit is not there, like why are you doing this? Why own a business if you do not receive the corresponding financial reward that should accompany taking that risk and taking on that workload? like profit margin hands down, you have to know that. Then you also, I think, need to know what's influencing profit margin. And that is the equation for profit margin, okay?
is total revenue, less expenses divided by total revenue. ? So there's two sides of that, like revenue and expenses. So what impacts profit? Well, we can definitely look at the expense side. How much are we spending? Do we have any categories that are maybe, maybe we're overspending. So that's one thing to consider. other thing to consider is the revenue.
Are we collecting enough money? Totally. That can be influenced by your fee schedule. Inflation is real this year. to consider. But I think the bigger challenge specific to our industry, the private dental practices, is collections. If you do the production and that doesn't ultimately result in some timely collection, that is going to erode a profit margin very quickly.
So if profit is low, I I think people are predisposed to ask where my overspending totally what's preventing me from having that. And in my opinion, more often than not, it's because they're not collecting money. And we see that because like most CPA firms are pretty tax oriented. They want to do a tax return, maybe do some tax planning. The bookkeeping is sort of, as long as somebody does it and gives us a P and L we can, we can do, but that's not how we do. ?
certainly do tax planning and tax returns, but we have to have up-to-date data all year. And the intent of that is to, you if we have to have this data for taxes, why not use it along the way and make as much money as we can? So where I'm going with this is if you have a CPA who's fairly tax oriented, all of our clients and your clients, they have pass-through entities, whether that's an S-corp or partnership or sole proprietor. So they pay tax on their individual or joint personal tax return. That's done on a cash basis.
because of that, most CPAs, don't care about AR. Right. whatever's in dentrics or open dental, forget it. Like they don't care because it doesn't impact their world. Every month we ask for the total production collection. And I want to see what the AR aging looks like. Not that it has anything to do with, it'll never hit their books. It'll never hit their taxes, but it is on page one of our practice profit analysis because
If we're trying to diagnose a low profit margin, we have to know if the practices collected money and the AR aging is what's going to tell us. So that is it's profit margin. You got to know some expense benchmarks and you have to watch the AR aging. Those are the top three. ?
speaker-0 (16:03)
Yep.
Mm-hmm. I totally agree and I love that you said that because ironically I just came back from a practice and they had multiple partners in there and I didn't feel like I was super savvy on business at all when I started I think most people who start businesses I didn't know what a KPI was I didn't know what overhead meant I didn't know and then I always was puzzled how I could be making quote-unquote so much money But I would never see any of this money and I think a lot of us get puzzled with that we say like well I'm running this much revenue
But why do I feel like I'm always broke or I don't have any money? I hear it constantly. And so I was just in a practice the other day because my first two years of business, I literally made less than a Starbucks barista and I was flying all the time. I would travel over 300 days a year. And I'm like, I'm fine to be a Starbucks barista. If I'm working half days, I'm home every day. I'm going to yoga every single day. Like I'm totally fine with that salary, but I'm working like 90 to a hundred hours a week. Plus I'm traveling. I'm destroying my body.
Like where is this money going? It doesn't make any sense. And so that's where I really got fascinated with overhead and really learning more about the business. But I was just at a practice, they have five partners and I asked all of them, said, what's your overhead? And none of them could tell me. And then they told me they're only checking their margins and their profitability about once a year. And I said, what? Like that is where I feel. And so was interesting because we were hired to come help their team and to help all these different pieces. And I thought, you know,
That's really interesting because they're having a hard time making decisions and agreeing because they don't have the dashboard of information that they need to have. And that's what I feel your KPIs, your overhead, having really, really good financials of a practice help you make smarter decisions. And that's what I'm about of we can make decisions all day long, but why fly blind? Like for you, like, let's go back to flying planes. You can fly a plane blind. You absolutely could. You're probably not going to get great results with it, but you could do it.
speaker-1 (18:09)
be
a short, short duration.
speaker-0 (18:11)
Right, which I also think is very equivalent to running a practice blind is it can be a very short duration and so watching those numbers I also think it gives you less stress as an owner It helps you be a better boss because you know, can I give this person a raise? Can we hire another person? Also, are we collecting the money doctors? Like if you're producing you should be collecting money for what you're doing I would hate to go do a job Morgan I'm sure you're the same way go do a job where I do the work, but I don't get paid to do the work that just feels
Insanity to me and so I love that you guys as a CPA firm Make sure that your practices know these numbers It's right in the line with what we do all of our clients have to know their numbers and if they don't know their numbers They're going to learn them very quickly because me as a consultant me as a coach I'm flying blind if I don't know what dials to turn you're constantly turning levers hoping to fix the problem But not ever addressing the problem at core
speaker-1 (19:02)
I totally agree. And every time I have a visit with one of our doctors and I don't hold myself out there as a coach. But anytime we go over the practice profitability analysis, sometimes they'll sort of head that direction a little bit. ? And because the answer, sometimes they can see the numbers, but they don't necessarily know how to tie it together. And so I try to have...
break it down into one or two action items. Because it is a dental practice owner, they really have finite time to work on their practice. They have their time as a clinician, time as the business leader, time as, should carve out some time to be the CEO. But there's finite time. So if we're gonna dedicate some of that valuable time to improve profit, I think they need to be given.
one or two key action items, use that valuable time on this, because it'll make a difference. sure. So that's, again, another added benefit of having some data is you can, I think, be more effective in your limited time.
speaker-0 (20:12)
Agreed. And I will say that I love this because, I was like two years into being an owner before I even knew I should be looking at these things. Also, as an office manager, I did not know I should be looking at these items and that I could directly impact them as a team member. I didn't realize as a team member, I could be impacting overhead and that I could help with profitability of the practice because I will promise you, team members, a profitable practice does more things for their teams. They're able to help more patients and they're able to be more secure with their employees.
Those offices who are highly profitable were not stressing as much through COVID. Their teams were more secure. The offices who were not profitable, they were in hot water, they were scared, they were closing down doors, they were making very rash decisions. And so I think it just helps you keep, like you said, a more level head. So I think it's a big important step of number one, making sure you have a really good CPA and you can outgrow your CPAs. I talked to a lot of clients and sometimes they outgrow their CPA, maybe their friend, their neighbor.
Like guys, that's who I had. had a neighbor friend who was helping me at the beginning and I outgrew that CPA. They didn't know how to run a multi-level business with lots of different factors that I was bringing in. They'd never had a consulting client. And so making sure you work with a CPA who knows your world ? is one of the biggest things that I would suggest. And it's hard because sometimes we go to church with them or we see them at the little league game. But I'm really big on if my CPA is going to give me my guide for my business.
I think it is my moral responsibility to make sure I have a CPA that I can trust, that gives me the correct information in a timely manner, and that way I can actually steer my business in the correct way versus just guessing all the time. So I don't think it's ever too late to get a really good CPA and to use that. And that's something I love about HDA. You guys have some of the most gorgeous reports. The reason I found out about you guys as a company is because one of my offices came to me with all the reports when I was asking these.
the items of how's your AR, how's your overhead? And they're like, actually, this is what my CPA gives me. And I was like, who is this company? And I literally like, I ripped your name off the top of their report and stuck it in my planner, like my little notebook that I had from the office. And I'm like, I need to look into this company. So that's how I actually found out about you guys. So I will say your reports are stunning. So Morgan, if people want to just even talk to you guys to see if you're a good fit for them, they're wanting to know more about their business, making sure they know how profitable they are.
How's the best way for them to connect with you? What do you guys do for Dennis?
speaker-1 (22:33)
So I visit with all the dentists, you know, if they're looking to make a change, I'll do those personally. And they could either email me or on our website, there's like multiple places where they can set an initial consultation. I am a firm believer. So myself, my leadership team, all our calendars are public on our website. So there is no gatekeeper. If somebody has a question and wants to run it by me, for example, you know, once they're a client, they can email me.
very serious about email response, like same day. ? Sometimes you need to talk those. Sometimes an email doesn't do it. So we have these 10 minute, 10, 20 minute appointment blocks that anybody can set anytime something's on their mind. So you can also do that with the initial consultation. Those come to me and I do those. So my email, it's just, it's easy. It's Morgan at Morgan@HDAGroupDental.com
speaker-0 (23:29)
I'm
sure you guys got that that's H is in house D is in dental A is in Academy HDA So that way it's really clear of this company's name
speaker-1 (23:37)
HDAGroupDental.com. That's also our website. So yeah, they could email me, jump on there, make an appointment. I can visit with them. What we specialize in, and this goes along with the discussion you just had on knowing your business, we're very disciplined in staying in a very narrow niche. Because I get asked all the time, why don't you, are you going to do a veterinarian and these other verticals? And the answer is absolutely not.
We know dental practices inside and out. And when you're looking through the soda straw, so to speak, in a very particular niche, we have deep knowledge just in this one industry. it puts us in a position to really be able to help our clients very quickly and very meaningfully. I can't imagine.
being a CPA in public practice where you just sort of have one of everything. I just can't think of a worse existence. So we're very disciplined and staying in our lane. It is private dental practice owners, those owner operator practices that that's who we support. And we have clients just about every state, know, and so we're real adept at working remote. Cool. And staying in touch and making sure that the clients know we're responsive to what's on their mind.
they need.
speaker-0 (24:57)
That's amazing.
really love that. And just to clarify, guys, I did not know accounting world. I still don't feel like I do. So Morgan, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's bookkeeping, which kind of reconciles your books. Then there's your CPA who does like tax filing for you. They also make sure that you're within like you guys have it in the correct categories. And then you have your tax planning, which is a completely different world. And then you can also have a financial advisor as far as investments.
your 401ks, your trusts, your funds, all of that. Is that correct? Like, have I gotten?
speaker-1 (25:27)
Yeah,
no, you've got it just right. it's actually a really good thing to discuss. And I talk about it on every time I meet a doctor, the first time I try to explain this very carefully. Because one question I'll get is, all right, it's whether it's our firm or anyone else. The question I will get is, so if HDA, if I decide that's a good fit and I come with you guys, who's my person? Yep.
And the answer is there is not one person you actually get three because one person can't do it all. So it starts just like you said, the bookkeeping, sometimes that gets called accounting too. It's really referring to the same thing. It is tracking all the dollars, doing all the reconciliations, preparing financial statements. But that is done. Every one of our clients gets assigned a staff account.
and we like to have a lot of permanence there as much as we can. So they just get to know the practice inside and out. We know where they're buying everything. ? And so the coding's all very accurate and the clients get to know the staff account, but that's all gonna be transactional related. They're gonna do the reconciliations, prepare the work papers, assemble the practice profit analysis and deliver it. When the client has questions, like you mentioned earlier, why do I feel like I'm working myself to death and the bank balance is flat?
That is not going to be a question for the staff account. That's with me or Lauren Dunn, also a CPA, former auditor, really excellent account, better account than me. She's a fabulous account. So she and I do the practice profitability analysis calls and talk about the financials. Then as you pointed out, when it comes to tax, totally separate skillset. And at our firm, that's led by Courtney, our tax partner, our team of senior tax advisors.
And that they do both the tax returns and the tax planning. So those two are very separate, but they're done by the same folks because it requires that skillset. So the tax planning is absolutely the most challenging thing we do because as you know, revenue and expenses change every month. ? It's a very equipment heavy industry. So somebody finally pulls the trigger on that Sarek machine they've been thinking about in November.
speaker-0 (27:35)
Yep.
speaker-1 (27:45)
That can change things overnight in a hurry. So we look at everybody's tax situation quarterly. And in quarter one, we don't really know what's going to happen during the year. If I could pick accurately choose every peak and valley. A lot of money. a client's revenue curve, I wouldn't be a CPA. I would day trade.
speaker-0 (28:03)
On a-
I would too.
speaker-1 (28:11)
But what we can do is just take a look, a reasonable look, how's the practice doing at this point? And what is a reasonable estimate that we could make to keep people on track, avoid those under deposit penalties. So that's quarter one and quarter two. Quarter three, which we're just wrapping up now, and then quarter four, that is where we have much more hard data, where we can do some more accurate forecasting.
to see where we are and then just make sure we're checking the box on all those tax strategies. We don't want to leave any money on the table unnecessarily, but we want to make sure everybody's prepared. So we're having those discussions now. We're letting people know now what we think the 2021 tax liability is going to be like seven months in advance. So there's lots of time to plan. It's never awesome news. Every successful practice.
you're going to have some type of effective tax rate no matter who you are. And if you're making big money, know, those can be big numbers. ? We do what we can to mitigate that as an avoid as much tax as possible. But at end of the day, we still got to do some planning ahead. that's tax planning. And then when it gets into the business coaching and consulting that is outside of our
area of expertise and into yours. If it is financial planning, we don't do the financial planning that goes into a separate ? level of expertise. That's very helpful. Yeah, we're all part of the team of advisors, but the monthly accounting, the profitability advising, and the tax and tax planning, that's our world.
speaker-0 (29:48)
Fantastic because I wanted and I'm so grateful you broke this down because I will be honest when I thought I hired a CPA I thought they did everything and I think that's a very common misconception I didn't realize there were four people to this just like I learned with marketing. There's not just a marketer There is a brand or there is this there's this there's like SEO and I thought wow, I just didn't understand So I think it's really important for people to differentiate because I was getting frustrated with my CPA not giving me tax advice But at the end of the day, that's not what they specialize in
So as soon as I figured that out, because I'm like, why am I always feeling like I'm being hit with these huge tax bills? Because my CPA can tell me what my taxes are, and they're really good at preparing that. But as far as tax strategy and planning and figuring it all out, that's not necessarily their world. And so once I finally differentiated that, they all work hand in hand, things got a lot clearer for me as a business owner. So guys, make sure you're looking at that. Do you have somebody who's a really fantastic bookkeeper keeping all your books super clear?
Do have somebody who you can talk to about like, I don't feel like I'm making any money. Are you getting consistent reports every single month? I am a big believer in Morgan. sounds like you're the same way. Every month I feel like you should be getting your financials. Then do you have somebody who's doing your tax strategy? I used to somebody call me in November and tell me what my tax bill was or beginning of December. Like November was generous. It usually was the first week of December and I'd cry my eyes out every single year. Just because I'm like, how did we not prepare for this? We've had, you know, 11 months and now we're on month 12.
speaker-1 (30:57)
Absolutely.
speaker-0 (31:15)
It was very stressful for me as an entrepreneur and a business owner. So I love that you said you guys do tax planning earlier. I'm a big believer, like you're right, it's gonna fluctuate, but at least kind of having a plan starting mid-year, then touching base right before Q4, because there's a lot of things that can be done and I can make smarter decisions with more time and then moving into financial planning. So that was insanely helpful. I love the reports you guys do. I'm a huge advocate of the reports you guys do. I think they're gorgeous and they're so helpful.
So guys, would definitely recommend, if you like your CPA, rock on, keep them. Like I said, I have about three that we recommend and HDA is one of them. So if you're considering it, I think it's a great time. We're not into Q4 yet. And so it's a great time. Now is a time that you can change, get those things kind of squared away. That way you have really great, great just direction and guidance. So Morgan, it was such a fun conversation with you today. Thank you for podcasting with me. Thanks for your knowledge. love it.
speaker-1 (32:09)
I really enjoyed it. We covered a lot of good stuff.
speaker-0 (32:12)
We did. So guys, go check them out. And if nothing else, make sure you know your practice profitability. I'd say if you don't know that set that as a 2021 or 2022 goal, because the sooner you have that information, even if it's bad, that's okay. cause then you can start making correct changes. If it's great, fantastic. You can make ? even smarter decisions. So I would just challenge everyone listening. If you're an office manager and you don't know your practice profitability, find out.
That way you can help. really suggest team members should also know office overhead. That way they know how they can help guide it and it's not just one person trying to do it. So Morgan, it was a pleasure guys. Go check him out. HDA accounting group. Check him out. They specialize in dentists. They work in all the states. So Morgan, thank you for your time today. I super appreciate it.
speaker-1 (32:53)
It was my pleasure. I really enjoyed being here. Thank you.
Kiera Dent (32:55)
I hope you all loved today's episode as much as I did. It is crazy to think that this many episodes have been released since we started the Dental A Team Podcast. And I started looking to say, my goodness, our listeners need to be reminded of some of the things they may have learned a year ago or two years ago or five years ago, because so many things in our practices weren't relevant back then when we heard them, but they are relevant today. And I would be doing you a huge disservice if I didn't re-release some of these episodes for you to remember, to refine.
to optimize and really truly if you ever need a topic or you're like, my gosh, I wonder if the Dental A Team has anything like this, go onto our website, TheDentalATeam.com, click on our podcast tab and you can literally search any topic. So whether it's overhead or hiring or firing or team morale or engagement or case acceptance or hygiene
onboarding or whatever it is, we have so many episodes for you. And so I am going to intentionally be
re-releasing some of the top best episodes for you, pulling back some of the ones that I needed to remember, some of the things that I feel for you to really, really relearn right now and to re-remember, or if it's the first time, welcome. I'm so happy you're listening to it, but I hope you truly enjoyed today's episode. I hope that you share this with somebody. I hope that you go and implement today because we only have one day. We only get today. And so making today the best that it possibly can be. If we can help you in any way, shape or form, reach out Hello@TheDentalATeam.com.
And as always, thanks for listening and we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.