The Dental Practice Financial Calculator

During challenging economic times, dental-practice owners need every advantage they can get. In addition to advice from their consultants, most dentists receive a four-page monthly financial statement from their accountants, a cover letter, and a trial-balance statement of their income and balance sheet accounts. This statement normally reflects the current month and YTD results. That's it! This is the financial information most dentists use to make their routine and key practice decisions - and it's not enough for sound practice management.

With very little training in a short period of time, you can take those standard monthly financial statements from your accountant and convert them into remarkably useful management insights. Mere awareness of the bottom line is one thing, but clearly seeing the impact of even slight changes to the practice can make the difference in long-term profitability.

The Dental Practice Financial Calculator is a highly effective management tool designed to promote the financial success of a dental practice. It creates 12 graphical and summary reports that provide a unique method for reviewing practice financials and employee productivity and assisting with routine and crucial practice decisions. It provides everything you need for practice financial management, employee productivity planning, adding partners, or buying/selling a dental practice.

• Shows financial and productivity results in clear, understandable graphical reports.
• Calculates the fair market value of your dental practice.
• Offers an easy-to-implement practice partnership tool that presents a choice of three easy-to-understand, logical formulas for compensation and profit distribution. These methods simultaneously encourage individual productivity.

The software is priced at just $399, making it easily affordable for every dentist. The return on this software investment can be rapid and significant. Merely identifying even one management issue or assisting in one crucial practice decision can easily pay back the cost many times over.

The software creates clear and understandable graphical financial and productivity reports using data that's readily available from your business software or practice accountant. It requires very little training and very little time. In about an hour, you, your office manager, or your accountant can learn the software. After that, it only takes a few minutes each month to enter data, review and understand the practice's financial and productivity results, and get new perspectives on routine or crucial practice decisions. The software also enables your practice accountant to enter data over a secure Internet connection. However, we recommend that you enter your data directly. This provides an excellent way to review business activities and results. It's fun and quickly becomes intuitive.

The software separates the conventional income statement into four major activity-based categories. This enables you to quickly understand the financial drivers that affect the profitability of the practice and spot unusual items that may require further investigation.

Another important report the software generates is the productivity graphics. Dentist and hygienist productivity appears clearly in graphical form and helps you set and measure reasonable productivity objectives. These reports can also be used for performance reviews or other communications with professionals. The graphics were also designed to give a new practice owner, who may have little prior management experience, a tool to discuss productivity with employees.

Beyond the rich functionality, our software can actually serve as an excellent tool for learning practice-management concepts. The terminology used throughout the program has been carefully chosen and structured as concisely and as clearly as possible to explain what you need to know. If your financial and computer skills surpass those of the average dentist, the software is even easier to learn and understand.

The software is virtually foolproof. The only mistake that you can make is to enter incorrect data. You cannot make a mistake that affects or damages the program. The software was designed for computer, accounting, and financial novices. In clear, understandable terms, the program explains financial formulas and terminology that you will need to understand when buying, selling, or bringing a partner into a dental practice.

Even if you are not interested in using the software as a management tool, you can use it to calculate a fair market value of a dental practice simply by entering a one-month estimate of financial and productivity metrics and entering data for the nine data categories in the Control Panel. This estimate should be based on the practice's current or anticipated level of business and expenses. (For optimal projections, enter 24 months of prior historical data.)

The Dental Practice Financial Calculator creates custom reports that identify the strengths and weaknesses of the dental practice and assist with financial assessments, forecasting, and employee planning. In about an hour, you can calculate the fair market value of your practice, examine productivity trends, and analyze critical data if you are considering adding a partner. You can also gauge exactly where the practice is and determine how to increase the bottom line. Graphical summary reports show money spent, hours worked, and staff productivity. For forecasting, the software provides a "What If" feature to show the impact of various scenarios.

The software was developed from scratch over a two-year period through careful collaboration with and drawing on the experiences and expertise of Dr. Joseph Pesicek after he acquired his dental practice in 2004. He spent $20,000 with a consulting company to determine the fair market value of the practice he acquired - but needed more information than consultants could provide. Many factors, skill sets, and other issues were considered in the design and development of this software, including:

• Computer skills
• Business-management exposure
• Prior supervisory experience
• General understanding of accounting and finance

The goal was to develop a dental practice management tool that is easy to learn and use. After all, dentists are trained in medical science, not business management. Most dental schools only offer limited courses in finance and management in their dentistry curricula. When you're in practice, you may consult with great accountants and financial advisors, but those experts aren't always available to help with key practice decisions. Likewise, while there are plenty of software programs to help automate bookkeeping, set appointments, and store images, none of those programs teach you to become better, more successful business owners.

The American Dental Association (www.ada.org) lists 40 vendors in its directory of practice management software solutions. But these solutions fail to address the strategic challenges that practice owners face.

The Dental Practice Financial Calculator is different. It doesn't automate bookkeeping, set appointments, store images or provide other dentistry related services. Instead, it focuses on the financial aspects of practice management not tactical processes and workflows. No other dental-practice programs address the full range of strategic financial issues like calculating the fair market value of a practice or bringing in a partner.

Only one other software vendor focuses on practice financial management - Sikka Software Corporation (www.sikkasoft.com) - which positions its solution as "business intelligence and optimization."

Sikka builds business management and business intelligence solutions for the dental and medical provider marketplace. It focuses on certain key areas of the practice and return on investment (ROI) in marketing, patients, fees, and insurance that enable practice owners to make informed business decisions. Sikka focuses on enabling dentists to focus on essential areas that require attention. However, Sikka is very expensive - $200 to $500 per month, depending on functionality used. By contrast, The Dental Practice Financial Calculator sells for a one-time fee of $399 - with free unlimited telephone support.

While very impressive, Sikka Software requires a major commitment to learn, use, and integrate with other practice management and financial software. If the practice financial statements are not generated by QuickBooks or similar software (perhaps prepared by an accountant), you cannot download them into Sikka.

By contrast, our software was designed for computer, accounting, and financial novices. Everything is completely configured and there are no adjustments required or allowed. The scroll bars are the only way to navigate or change the view of each screen. You enter data by pointing and clicking on clearly identified yellow cells. There are only 28 financial data fields and three productivity data fields for each dentist and hygienist that you record each month - information that's easily obtainable from the monthly trial balance reports prepared by most practice accountants or practice software. It only takes a few minutes each month to enter required data and the process is very intuitive.

What also makes this software unique is that almost every dentist in the world can benefit from a dental-practice-management tool. A dentist in Tokyo who can read English can derive the same benefits as a dentist in Topeka. There are few aspects of this application that preclude any dentist in any country from achieving the same benefits as a U.S. dentist.

This software includes FREE unlimited telephone customer support and FREE lifetime upgrades!

This free support includes a complete range of services:

• We'll walk your administrator through the process of loading the software onto your computer.
• We'll explain to your accountant the process for entering your monthly financial data using a secure Internet connection to your computer. We will also give them free software to enable them to log onto your computer or any other authorized computer. However, we suggest entering data yourself - it's a better way to review what's going on in your business. It's fun and intuitive.
• We'll explain to you, the practice owner, how to use the software to review your practice results in just a few minutes every month. We'll also explain how to use the software for crucial practice decisions.

Our goal is to help you utilize the Dental Practice Financial Calculator to take control of your practice and ensure your future financial success.

Below is a summary of the personalized, comprehensive reports that Dental Practice Financial Calculator can generate.

Productivity Graphics - Dentist and hygienist productivity appears clearly in graphical form. These reports help you better understand your personal productivity and compare the performance of all other professionals in the practice. They also give new practice owners (who may have less employee management experience) a tool to discuss productivity with employees.

Dashboard (Stoplight) Graphics - On one screen, you can view six key graphics that alert you of any variances that must be addressed. There is a graph for all four Activity-Based categories, and a similar graph for Profit and Cash in the Bank. All graphs highlight the same information for each respective category.

Percentage Graphics - Activity-Based categories are expressed as a percentage of Dental Service $s Provided. This allows you to quickly see expense trends and monthly variances.

Cumulative Income Statement Graphic - This shows a graphical view of the cumulative dollars and the percentage of Dental Service $s consumed in each Activity-Based category.

In addition, the software generates several easy-to-understand reports to make this software a complete management tool for dental practices.

Activity-Based Income Statement - By separating the conventional income statement into four major Activity-Based categories, this report enables you to quickly understand the financial drivers that affect the profitability of the practice and spot unusual items that may require further investigation.

Control Panel - This enables you to compare historical financial data against a projected financial model, which helps with practice planning. This detailed data provides the statistics that help you make crucial practice decisions and get a clearer view of the future. The Control Panel also lets you generate "What If" probability analyses that project the effects of various planning strategies by simply changing any variable (e.g. patients per day, billing rates, days worked, open hours, number of employees, etc.).

Fair Market Value Appraisal - The software can determine the current dollar value of the dental practice. This appraisal can be presented to a potential buyer or partner to secure a loan to purchase or buy into the practice.

Partnership Calculator - This tool presents a choice of three easy-to-understand, logical formulas for compensation and profit distribution. In other words, this is where partners go to understand and agree upon the compensation and profit distribution. These methods simultaneously encourage individual productivity.

The Partnership Calculator shows how to add a partner (without paying expensive attorneys' fees). It also walks you through reconciling compensation calculations against tax or other period requirements. The software can accommodate up to five partners.

• The tabs in the software are the same as seen on the Web site. The Fair Market Value appraisal is presented in the last three tabs.
• You cannot make a mistake that will affect or damage the software.
• Every tab can be printed by using the Excel print icon (print parameters cannot be changed). Each tab must be printed individually.
• Use the "Print Preview" icon to see a screen image of how the printed tabs will appear on paper.
• Only the yellow cells can be used to enter data or clicked on using your mouse.
• Every tab is password-protected, which limits the number of Microsoft Excel functions that can be used.
• The "Print," "Print Preview," and "Save" icons are the only icons or functions you use.
• Everything in the software is completely set. There are no adjustments required or allowed.
• The Excel scroll bars are the only way to navigate or change the view of the screen.
• To enter data in the yellow cells, use the mouse to point to the desired cell and click.
• Save files using the "Save" Excel icon like any other Excel file.
• The optimal monitor screen resolution is 1024 by 768 pixels.
• The financial rates used to calculate the Fair Market Value appraisal are updated on the first day of every month and posted on our Web site. Both the financial rate and financial criteria that we use for the FMV calculation can be updated or replaced with different rates or criteria that you or your financial advisor feel are more appropriate for your practice. Try changing some of the financial rates; you will be amazed how it changes the appraisals.
• The simple English terminology used in the FMV tabs is intended to be a teaching tool and reference guide to define commonly used financial formulas used in most FMV calculations.

We stand by our product. If for any reason you are not completely satisfied, we will give you a full refund -for any reason, or no reason at all within 30 days from the date of purchase. Please call our toll-free number 866-828-9140 and a credit will be issued immediately. That is how convinced we are that you will use this tool as long as you own your practice! Our unwavering goal is to exceed your expectations - in software and customer support.