Just like a yearly pet's physical, your practice should have a look under the hood at least yearly. Understanding the financial
condition of your hospital enables you to make intelligent financial decisions, plan for capital expenditures (equipment purchases)
and avoid cash flow issues that may arise throughout the course of the year. What should you check on to make sure the practice
is running smoothly? The hospital's finances are broken down into five categories. Assets, liabilities, equity, income and
expenses. Assets, liabilities and equity are reported on a balance sheet and income and expenses are reported on an income
statement. Assets and liabilities are broken down into categories know as current assets and current liabilities. These are
defined as having a life cycle of one year or less. Anything beyond one year is defined as another asset or long term liability.
Begin your check – up with the assets of the practice
Cash- How much is available on average at all times? Do you maintain an adequate cash balance? You can judge this by maintaining
30 days of obligations in the bank at all times. Thirty days of obligations will include vendor bills, credit card debt and
payroll for a month. Smaller practices may average $30,000 to $35,000 while larger practices may average $80,000 to $100,000.
Does your practice have too much cash on hand? Excess cash makes it an unproductive asset and consideration should be given
to a distribution to owners for personal investment or additional retirement contributions. If you are always running out
of cash, it is a good sign that the practice is suffering from profitability issues or too much cash is being drawn for the
owners benefit and to the detriment of practice obligations. In these cases, cash flow projections or cash flow budgeting
should be considered so a picture can be taken of what and when issues with bill payments will exist. Seasonal sales can also
affect cash flow and should be planned for.
Accounts receivable- How much are they and what's the percentage of gross revenue? An accounts receivable aging should be run each month. These
can be printed from your veterinary software. This will tell you how much is owed by each client and how old their account
balance is. Accounts receivable should not run more than 2.5% of gross revenue in a small animal practice and 11% in a large
animal practice. Develop a good accounts receivable collection policy and keep activity up to date. Turn uncollected accounts
over to a collection agency in a reasonable time period and follow through to small claims court or write them off. The IRS
only recognizes bad debts if you report on an accrual basis of accounting and you have exhausted all means of collection.
Otherwise you have a sales allowance.
Inventory- What are the inventory issues? The first is do you know how much you have? Many practices do not take a physical inventory
count and have no idea how much drug and supplies they have on hand. 75% of practices do not use or only use limited portions
of their veterinary software's inventory system. If you report on an accrual basis of accounting you must report the full
inventory value of all drugs and supplies for tax purposes. If the inventory value or quantity on hand is an unknown, it is
not possible to manage it effectively. Use the inventory module of your veterinary software completely. It is a significant
tool in controlling quantity levels, reorder points and pricing. Take a complete physical inventory of what's on your shelf
at least once a year. Adjust inventory counts within the veterinary software.
Inventory is an essential asset of the hospital offering full service care, but the cost to maintain it can be expensive.
A hospital should turn its inventory completely over four to five times a year or once every 90 days. The formula to compute
this is as follows:
Drug and supply costs / Average Inventory = Inventory turns
Example
All Pet Animal Hospital has $24,000 of inventory at the beginning of the year and $30,000 at the end of the year. During
the year they have $130,000 of drug and supply purchases. Their inventory turns are 4.81 times or once every 76 days
$130,000 / $27,000 (A) = 4.81 times
(A) Average inventory on hand = 24,000 + 30,000 = 54,000 ÷ 2 = 27,000
