Australasian Dentist Magazine March April 2021

Category 106 Australasian Dentist Dear Dr Toni, How do I create budgets and targets for the practice? Dr NR, Tas. Great question! It’s always a good time to be thinking about numbers! The first thing you need is an annual plan. That is, have a look at all the expenses you’re likely to incur this year. What are you likely to be paying your staff, and yourself? What are your likely lab bills, or supply bills? What are your current loans or leases? Do any of them finish this year? Are there any new ones you’re likely to take on? What are you planning to spend on marketing? Some accountants can do that, but most are focused on tax reporting and look at past expenses rather than future forecasts, so get in touch with us if you want some ideas for ways to do this. Essentially, once you’ve added up all of the expenses, that becomes your annual production goal. The next question becomes: how do you produce that goal? The answer depends on the number of clinicians you have, and the mix of dentists to hygienists/OHTs, and is a bit more than I can comfortably explain here. Then, when you have a budget, you need to stick to it! Track your expenditure each month to make sure that you’re within budget and on track for your financial forecasts. Only buy new fun toys if you have a budget for them, or if you’re way ahead of your production targets. Make sure that the team has a clear budget for supplies, too. The way you do this is to take the likely dental supplies expense and divide it by 12 to give you a monthly total. Let the team know that their ordering must come within that total, or they need to get approval for over-spending before the place the order. For example, if your total annual supply bill is estimated at $120,000, the team gets $10,000 per month for supplies. Let’s say that they want to do a big bulk order because there’s a sale on, so they come to you and show you that they’re planning to spend $12,000 this month, but that the next two months will come down to $800 because of the bulk order. You might approve of this and sign off on it. But maybe they come to you asking to overspend because an associate has asked for something expensive that you haven’t approved. You might decide that they can’t spend that extra, and have a separate conversation with the associate about your expectations. Q&A with Dr Toni Surace Best Practices Q&A It’s always best practice to develop business skills, systems, techniques and industry knowledge that could impact your practice. BEST PRACTICES Q&A is a forum allowing you to ask the tough questions to Australasian Dentist columnist Dr Toni Surace. Dr Toni Surace BDSC (Melb) Managing Director, Momentum Management Mentor, coach and international presenter. Finally, make sure that you’ve got good tracking in place for both spending and production, and the practice should be cash-flow positive every month. Dear Dr Toni, I can’t believe we’re in the new year already! What would you recommend for how to start the year right? Dr LP, ACT. I love the idea that you want to start the new year right. Here are some ideas as to how to do that! Set up the systems in the practice. Use whatever time you have now to identify any systems that you feel need improvement. Everything from appoint- ment scheduling through to training, through to communication skills and so on. Momentum has a list of 50 practice systems that I can give you if you email me, but you can also just identify what- ever you think is a system in the practice. Talk to the team about how to improve whatever’s missing, and make sure that you document the new improved version of the system. You should make sure that not only is the current team aware of what’s required, but that it’s embedded in BEST PRACTICES 4 “ “ For the daily and weekly maintenance of dental aspiration and suction systems. Suction Cleaner Daily & Weekly Thank you for supporting Australian made • Three actions – decontaminates, sanitises and deodorises • Aldehyde free, Phenol free, Chlorine free • Non disruptive foam solution • Pleasant fresh smell