Keep records of transactions
Collect applicable taxes
Financial reporting
Efficient invoicing
Owning your own medical practice comes with its perks! From being able to limit clients to choosing your own schedule, you practically get to be your own boss. But neither formal medical education nor your passion for medical practice, could prepare you for the associated financial problems.
Similar to other small and medium enterprise, medical practitioners also face the added burden of adhering to accounting and billing norms. Getting the accountancy process right is the pre-requisite to running a successful business.
You might be lacking formal financial education or intimidated by the bookkeeping process or simply not interested. Whatever the case may be, you need to maintain proper financial records. Below are some tips on how to keep your accounting books healthy:
Keep detailed record of money coming in and going out of the business. Bank statement can provide you a summary of non-cash transactions conducted. Maintain receipts of cash transactions preferably sorted according to months. However, it is important to maintain digital versions of these to aid the work of the accountant. Maintain backups of all these online receipts and create additional cloud copies to ensure data availability.
Remember to collect taxes whenever applicable be it at the point of sale or when employee payrolls are generated. Do-not postpone collection of taxes till the end of the year, as this can only lead to greater hassles during financial year end.
While deferring tax payment might be tempting either to save time or to gain temporary access to additional money, it causes more errors in the long run. However medical practitioners should also consider the tax exemptions means and components of tax return to gain the most out of tax filing.
With the expansion of your practice the associated financial complexities will also increase. Maintaining regular cashflow statements, profit & loss statements and balance sheet is mandatory to check on the overall financial health of your practice.
To ensure proper financial recording, hire a professional for the same. Doctors can also fund their daily expenses or cater to newer a patient base with a loan for doctors.
How doctors can take their practice to the next level
Like any other form of business, generating revenue is important even for medical practitioners. However, keeping track of invoices should also be considered equally important, to ensure financial health of your practice. An easy means to achieve this can be by automating the invoicing process. But it is in the healthcare professional’s prerogative to ensure outstanding invoices are met in a timely manner.
The best way to overcome your adversity towards accounting is by learning about it. Try to invest sometime educating yourself how to better organize your finances. Attending accountancy seminars and reading self-study materials can provide self-confidence and also simplify accounting for you.