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Dental Practices
Practice management software reports production. It does not close the books.
Production is what the practice performed. Collections are what it received. The gap between them is where insurance adjustments, write-offs and receivable age all live, and it is invisible in most practice reporting.
Steingard Financial reconciles the practice management system to the financial statements, so the operational reports and the financial ones stop disagreeing.
What makes these books different
Production is not collection
A strong production month can accompany weak cash. Reporting one and assuming the other is how practices misjudge their own performance.
Insurance adjustments and write-offs distort revenue
Recording gross production as revenue overstates it, sometimes substantially, and the correction lands unpredictably.
Equipment debt and associate pay complicate the statement
Financed equipment, leases and associate compensation arrangements each need to be represented correctly to read the practice’s actual margin.
What the service includes
- Practice management software reconciled to the books each period
- Collections tracked against production, with the variance explained
- Insurance adjustments, write-offs and refunds recorded distinctly
- Payroll and associate compensation coordination
- Equipment loan, lease and financing tracking
- Monthly financial statements reflecting the practice’s real margin
How the engagement works
Reconcile the two systems
Steingard establishes how practice management data maps to the financial records, and reconciles the difference rather than ignoring it.
Represent the adjustments correctly
Insurance adjustments, write-offs and refunds are recorded so revenue reflects what the practice actually earned.
Close monthly
Statements are produced on a defined calendar, reconciled to both the bank and the practice management system.
What is different here
Production, collection, and the gap between them
A dental practice can produce a great deal of dentistry and collect considerably less of it. The gap is where practice bookkeeping earns its keep, and it is invisible in an ordinary profit and loss.
Production is not revenue
Work performed at full fee is not what the practice will be paid. Contractual adjustments, insurance write-offs and unrecovered patient balances all sit between the two, and a practice tracking only production is tracking an aspiration.
Insurance receivables age quietly
Claims denied, underpaid or simply unpaid accumulate without anyone raising it. Ageing that is not reviewed regularly turns into money that is written off by default rather than by decision.
The practice software is not the accounting
Practice management systems report production, collection and ageing very well. They are not the general ledger, and the two disagreeing is one of the most common findings in a practice cleanup.
Getting the reconciliation between the two systems right is usually the highest-value change available in a dental practice’s books.
Where this fits best
- Solo practices where the owner is also the operator
- Group and multi-location practices needing comparable reporting
- Practices employing associates under varied compensation arrangements
- Practices carrying equipment financing
- Owners whose software reports have never matched the bank
What the books need to handle
The mechanics that matter in a practice
The recurring work below is what makes practice financials usable for decisions rather than merely compliant.
- Daily collections reconciled to deposits. What the practice system records as collected and what reaches the bank should agree, every day. Differences found late are rarely resolved.
- Adjustments and write-offs visible. Contractual adjustments by payer are operational information. Netted into collections, the true cost of a given insurance relationship disappears.
- Insurance ageing reviewed on a schedule. Outstanding claims tracked and chased before they age past recovery, rather than discovered during a clean-up.
- Provider-level detail where there are associates. Production and collection by provider, so compensation arrangements rest on figures rather than estimates.
- Equipment purchases and financing recorded correctly. Practices buy expensive equipment on finance. Payments split between principal and interest, and the asset recorded rather than expensed.
Supplies and lab costs are worth watching as a percentage of collection rather than in absolute terms — the ratio moves before the total does.
Frequently asked questions
Can you reconcile our practice management system to our books?
That reconciliation is central to how the engagement works. The two systems disagreeing is the most common issue found in practice bookkeeping, and closing that gap is usually where the value is.
Do you track production and collection separately?
Yes. Reporting only one of them hides the adjustment and write-off picture, which is generally the thing worth managing.
We have associate dentists. Can you report by provider?
Where the practice system records it, provider-level production and collection can carry through to reporting — which matters when compensation depends on those figures.
How should we handle insurance write-offs?
Recorded so they remain visible by payer rather than netted away. That is what makes the cost of each insurance relationship answerable.
Do you handle payroll for a practice?
Payroll coordination and its integration with the books is covered under payroll support, including practices with mixed employee and contractor providers.
The reconciliation gap
Two systems, two answers, and no reconciliation between them.
Most dental practices run two financial pictures at once. The practice management system reports production, scheduling and receivables. The accounting file reports cash, expenses and profit. Neither is wrong, and they are rarely reconciled to one another.
The consequence is that the practice cannot answer basic questions with confidence — what a procedure category actually nets after adjustment, how receivable age is trending, whether a strong production month converted.
Reconciling the two is not complicated once the mapping is established. It is simply work that has no obvious owner: the software vendor does not do it, and a bookkeeper unfamiliar with practice management reporting will not know it is missing.
Reconcile the software to the statements.
Tell Steingard Financial which practice management system the practice runs, and the review will cover how it would reconcile.