The Perfect TimeTo Budget

Fall is the perfect season to calculate your practice budget for the approaching New Year. The process can be as simple as listing your annualized expenses for the current year, and next to these numbers, writing the anticipated changes for the following year, whether they are higher or lower. When you total the difference, you will know how much additional revenue you must earn in the New Year to cover your expenses. There are a number of simple strategies to assure you easily attain this “breakeven budget.” The important point is that with this simple budgeting exercise, you eliminate the guesswork about knowing where you stand financially during the New Year.Additional budget planning should include calculating the financial impact of implementing strategies which will increase your practice revenue beyond your current salary and office expenses. This “growth budget” may include ideas such as adding capacity to your office by equipping an extra operatory, or perhaps adding high-profit clinical procedures to your procedure mix, such as efficient, rotary endodontics. You may employ strategies to increase the number of high-dollar, therapeutic procedures being performed in your hygiene department, which will increase your hygienists’ hourly production.

Once you total the estimated annual financial gains that the growth budget items will add to your practice revenue, you can finalize your office budget for the New Year. It is simply a matter of long division to estimate your monthly, weekly, and daily goals for the New Year.

Mike Goldstein
Goldstein Management