End of the Year Tips to Minimize Your 2016 Taxes

As many dentists know, the upcoming year end is always the time to consider minimizing your taxes. Here are a few tips from the CPAs at the Dental CPAs.

1. Maximize your contributions to retirement plans. Contribute more to your 401k by the end of the year to reduce your taxable income and your tax bills.

2. Consider using a credit card to prepay expenses that can generate deductions for this year such as supplies. 
   
   
3. If possible, defer your income. Take capital gains in 2017 instead of 2016.  This move only will be beneficial if you think you will be in the same or a lower tax bracket next year.

4. Consider bonus depreciation, it’s a way to write off the cost of an asset purchased for business use. The Section 179 2016 deduction limit is $500,000, which can be used on new and used equipment and off-the-shelf software. To qualify for the deduction, the equipment must be financed or purchased and put into service by the end of the day on December 31, 2016.

Remember to keep records of the equipment or software purchases that you plan to claim for the Section 179 deduction, including where it was purchased, the date it was acquired, and the date it was placed into service.

5. Give away your money. If you were planning to give a lot of money to someone, utilize your annual gift exclusion of $14,000. This is not an income tax savings strategy but rather is an estate reduction strategy.  If you are concerned about having a large taxable estate, don’t miss the opportunity to utilize your annual gift exclusion each year.
   
   
6. Finalize your records. If you plan to deduct mileage on your personal car, make sure your mileage logs are complete.  Review how long you need to keep your paperwork before throwing out any records.
7. Sell investments such as stocks and mutual funds to realize losses. Then use those losses to offset any taxable gains you have realized during the year. Losses offset gains dollar for dollar.

8. If possible, contribute the maximum to your retirement account ($18,000 for 2016, $24,000 if you are age 50 or over). These accounts can grow to a substantial sum because they compound over time free of taxes.

9. Fund your IRA.  If you cannot make a deductible IRA contribution, consider whether you should make a non-deductible IRA contribution as it could become a possible future Roth IRA conversion for retirement or estate planning purposes.  You have until APRIL 15, 2017 to make IRA contributions for 2016 but the sooner you get the money into the account, the sooner it has the potential to start to grow tax-deferred.

10. Do an alternative minimum tax (AMT) analysis. If there’s a chance that you will be subject to AMT, analyze your deductions to see if you are better off waiting to make some of the above moves. Once AMT comes into play, some of the end of the year tax moves will have no tax benefit.  Deductions such as state income taxes and real estate taxes are always an AMT deductibility issue.

Get Your Education On!

Get Your Education On!

Have you ever wondered what you need to know about the financial operations of your practice? Have you ever wondered what you should be looking at and monitoring when it comes to your practice numbers?  Well, you can stop wondering! Next month, our very own Lance Jacob will be teaching dentists on Dentaltown about these very issues, and you can learn as well.

Lance prepared a video course for Dentaltown that qualifies for CE, and the topic is “Improving Patient Care by Improving Practice Performance”. Let me tell you a little about it and some of the things you’ll learn.

Viewers of the course will gain some insight on what they need to be looking at when it comes to the operational performance of their practice and how their practice financials can aid in that insight. You’ll learn some of the key performance indicators you should be calculating and how to interpret the results. You’ll learn about what our latest performance statistics showed so you can compare your practice with those results.

Lance will discuss production, production adjustments, collections, production by provider, etc. This will include various revenue ratios you should be looking at and what the typical GP practice looks like as it relates to these ratios.

Lance will also talk about practice overhead for a GP practice and things you need to know about overhead specifics and what our survey results showed about the average overhead statistics for a GP practice.

If you’d like to get your education on, schedule an hour to view the course then login to Dentaltown today and begin learning. Lance's CE course will be available the first week of December. 

If you’re not a member of Dentaltown you should be, their motto is “You’ll never have to practice alone again!” Sign up and become a member so you can view this course and many other courses...it’s a one-stop shop for much of your CE needs. The forums board is incredible with forums on just about every practice topic you can think of so you can get feedback from dentists just like you as well as other dental related consultants and experts.

For more information on accessing this CE course or to set up an appointment for a consultation on improving your practice's performance, please give us a call at 844-DENT-CPA, or visit www.dentalcpas.com 

Click Here To Be Directed to Dentaltown's Continuing Education Page 

About Lance Jacob

Lance Jacob is a Principal with Naden/Lean, LLC. He provides accounting, tax, and consulting services for individuals and businesses which include dentists, other healthcare providers, retail, and equine. With his equine clients, Lance works to ensure they are in compliance with the federal, state, and local taxing authorities with respect to employment, business tax and reporting issues.

Practice Sellers - How to Maintain Practice Value Before a Sale

During my many buyer representation engagements I tend to see some common issues when it comes to practice valuations that sellers could have avoided to help maintain their practice values. Here are some of those areas. 

1.     Clean Record Keeping: 

Remember, buyers and their advisors will be picking over your information, it’s like inviting someone into your home, and you want it to be clean. Your practice books and records should be the same way, clean, easy to read, and at your finger tips. For example, your Quickbooks file should match the tax return numbers and if not to the dollar, pretty darn close and easy to match up. 

2.     Complete and Accurate Practice Management (PM) Reporting: 

Make sure your PM software is current and accurate. You should be recording production, adjustments and collections by provider. Clean up your accounts receivables WELL before you plan on selling.  

3.     Don’t Coast: 

This is one of the worst things a seller can do prior to selling their practice. It decreases dentistry production and therefore, decreases practice revenue which buyers AND bankers do NOT like. 

4.     Don’t Reduce Your Hygiene Hours: 

Let me correct myself, THIS is the worst thing you can do. Not only are you reducing your practice revenue, you’re potentially losing patients as well. 

5.     Update Office Appearance and Equipment:  

Again, just like a house, an outdated décor with old equipment will generally create less excitement with a buyer and less excitement means a reduced offer. Create excitement with your buyers with current décor, updated equipment and a fresh appearance. 

6.     Overpaid Staff: 

Be aware of your staff compensation and make an effort to make sure it stays within “market” for your area. There’s nothing wrong with showing appreciation to your staff with discretionary bonuses, fancy trips, paying for CE travel, etc., however, make sure they’re aware that these are not customary fringes so they don’t come to expect it from their new boss. 

7.     Inflated Overhead: 

Well before you sell, I’m talking 2-3 years ahead of time, begin to evaluate your practice overhead expenses and make sure you’re ONLY spending on things you NEED. I’m not talking about skimping on updated equipment; I’m talking about wasting money on unnecessary supplies, small toys, unnecessary services, etc. Become a good CFO! Profits will drive value most of the time and wasted overhead eats into your profit and will usually drive down the value of the practice. 

8.     Office Policies and Systems: 

Well before you sell, make sure you have excellent operating systems and policies. If you’re not collecting a patient’s portion of the fee at the time of visit, make that change now. If you don’t take credit cards, start taking them. If you’re not running daily, weekly and monthly management reports, start doing so.  

9.     Track Your Referrals: 

At least one year prior to a sale, begin tracking the procedures you refer out every day and be prepared to provide your broker with some really good, accurate information for the prospective buyers. 

10. Dont’t Change or Eliminate any PPOs Prior to a Sale: 

This can backfire if you begin to see fewer patients even if the revenue stays about the same. In most cases when a practice decides to eliminate PPOs, there’s a transition period where you’ll have holes in the schedule.  Those PPO patients that opt NOT to come back for their scheduled recare appointment or follow-up work will in turn cause revenues to be lower for a period of time.  

Tim Lott, CPA, CVA has decades of experiences working with dentists at all stages of their careers. He is a regular speaker at study clubs, societies, and dental schools. Tim is a partner at Naden/Lean, of which the Dental CPAs is a division. You can reach Tim at tlott@dentalcpas.comor (800) 772-1065.  

Buying a Dental Practice and Wondering if Overhead was Adjusted Properly?

There’s a great thread on dentaltown.com about why buyers should NOT pay for potential and projections. Part of the discussion revolves around normalizing cash flow, particularly the overhead of the practice. This prompted me to write a blog post to help potential buyers evaluate a seller’s cash flow specifically with overhead.

Over the past 25 years or so, as I’ve assisted buyers with managing their due diligence, assessing the asking price, and improving the performance of the practice, I’ve witnessed how the overhead assumptions used to normalize cash flow can drive the price that sellers ask for their practices.

 I’ve compiled a list of common overhead expenses categories and some of the issues we’ve uncovered over the years. Buyers need to consider how various expenses might be impacted when they take over and how these expenses may have been adjusted for cash flow purposes. Keep in mind that many professionals  (broker, CPA, seller rep, sometimes the seller themselves, or anyone charged with the task of determining a practice's asking price) who are trying to normalize cash flow, may not have known about these issues with the expenses they adjusted or simply didn’t take the time to understand how their adjustments might impact other expenses.  After all, their primary responsibility is determining an asking price, NOT performing due diligence. That said, we know there are some professionals who will use overhead as a way to increase cash flow and therefore price. One way to accomplish this is by reducing overhead by adjusting (reducing) certain expense categories to “industry norms”. While the reduction in certain expenses may be valid and logical, unfortunately, we rarely see expenses adjusted by increasing them to “industry norms” which should follow the same logic.

The items below should assist a buyer when evaluating a practice’s overhead and how that overhead might change under their control and how “industry norm” adjustments might impact price. At the very least this will help them to know the appropriate questions to ask.

-          Accounting/Professional Fees:
Reducing this to “industry norms” may not take into account a CPA firm which also does payroll, maybe full-service bookkeeping, etc., a buyer may have to pay for the payroll processing and bookkeeping, therefore,  automatically reducing this may be an oversight.

-          Advertising:

 If a seller’s cash flow has little to no advertising, a buyer has to ascertain whether or not they will need to add this expense in order to properly maintain the seller’s existing patient base with an increased flow of new patients. Many professionals overlook this as a necessary expense and will sometimes reduce it to “industry norms” for a FFS practice when that’s how the FFS gets its patients. So make sure you understand the appropriate level of this expense.

-          Computer Maintenance & Expenses:

Many times we see old practices that haven’t been computerized and this expense is missing completely from their cash flow. With today's technology, it makes absolutely NO sense to operate any business, including a dental practice without computers, software, and other technology. Buyers must determine how much they need to budget for this expense as part of their overhead.

-          Contract Labor/Temp Help:

Many times when a practice pays an associate as an IC, the seller will categorize their compensation to this category. However, they may also use this category for temp assistants, temp hygiene, and maybe other necessary vendors. Sometimes, a professional will eliminate the entire expense assuming it is all associate related. A buyer needs to ask for details, maybe general ledger details, and/or associate 1099s.

-          Insurance:
Many times, professionals fail to adjust (increase) insurance expense for some of the additional insurances that lenders may require to provide a loan to buyers.

-          Office Expense and Supplies:

The industry norm is around 1%-1.5%, many times if its more than that, the professional will reduce this expense to industry norms without any consideration for what the seller may be including in this category. We’ve seen the following expenses coded as office expense and supplies: payroll processing, merchant services, software maintenance and monthly PM software fees, employee expenses like bottled water, telephone expenses, cable/internet, janitorial, dental supplies, repairs & maintenance, etc. Buyers need to see the details and determine if the adjustments the professional made are valid.

-          Office Rent:
This is primarily an issue when the practice owner also owns the space. We see some professionals completely overlook this missing expense or choose a very low rent assuming the buyer will buy the space or include the mortgage payment as the “normal” expense. We believe to maintain separation of the practice value and the value of the real estate, the normalized cash flow MUST include a fair market rent and related expenses that an arms-length tenant would pay. Buyers need to know what the fair market rental rate is, even if they’re buying the space.

-          Repairs and Maintenance:
We’ve seen situations where the seller is very handy and will do their own repairs to equipment and the space or, repairs and maintenance was included in dental supplies of office expenses that have been reduced to industry norms. Unfortunately, everyone can’t be a handyman & therefore, if a seller’s cash flow has very little repairs and maintenance, the buyer needs to understand why and include an amount for this, especially if it’s been eliminated from other categories.

-          Taxes:
If your locality assesses personal property taxes on the value or cost of equipment, many times the assessed value of a seller is very low or nothing. A buyer needs to understand this and determine how much they’ll have to spend due to state or locality regulations.

-          Dental Supplies:
Here’s another category where professionals like to reduce it to “industry norms” without looking at the details to see if they should be doing this. We have seen practices combine their lab expense, office supplies, repairs and maintenance, etc. in dental supplies. For example, many supply vendors will issue their monthly invoices that include dental supplies, repair services and\or contracts, computer services and software and even equipment. Unless sellers are careful to allocate these invoices to the various categories, it winds up in dental supplies. The professionals simply miss this fact and reduce dental supplies to industry norms blindly. Also, if the practice uses a CADCAM/milling  machine this will also explain “higher than normal” dental supplies, so you have to look at this area closely.

-          Lab Expense:
As noted above, we see situations where the professional has lowered dental supplies that include lab to “industry norms” and fail to INCREASE lab expense to an appropriate level. We’ve also seen situations where practices may use an in-house lab or employee, or maybe the doc creates some of their own “stuff” which makes this expense  low for them, however, the buyer may not be making their own cases or choose to use an outside lab they’ve been using.

-          Wages:
 Here’s another area where many professionals fail to look behind the total wages to learn more about who’s getting paid & why. This is why we want to see the W-2s, to see how much is being paid for assistants, hygiene, front desk, and admin. We’ve seen situations where professionals will lower the wages to “industry norms,” then, when we get the W-2s we see they have the cleaning person and/or bookkeeper on payroll. These are expenses the buyer will likely need yet the professional has eliminated them to industry norms.

-          Capital Replacement (replacing old f&e):
Here’s an area where we rarely see professionals ADD expenses to accommodate the need of a buyer to replace old equipment that’s either on its last leg OR is simply too old to even be used in dentistry.

-          Telephone/Utilities/Internet:
While we don’t see many issues with these categories, they should still be looked at for reasonableness…we’ve seen reductions for “estimated” personal cell phone usage that’s too high or reductions for “assumed” home phone or internet connections and we find out they are legit office expenses. We’ve also seen sellers use utilities for all three of these expenses, and the professional will reduce utilities to “industry” norms without looking at the details and asking the seller about them.

As a buyer, you’re getting ready to go on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt for a business. Don’t hesitate to ask for details of certain expense categories to see what the seller has been paying or to understand why a professional adjusted them.

You, the buyer, are responsible for doing your due diligence on the business you’re buying, you better know exactly what it is you’re buying. That doesn’t mean you have to go into overkill and stuck in  paralysis by analysis, however, unless you do this sort of work every day, you won’t know what to focus on or what to move beyond.

Hopefully, this serves as a guide to those looking to buy a practice on how to evaluate the overhead of a practice and understand why normalization adjustments were made, if they should have been made and should different adjustments should still be made.

About Tim Lott
Tim Lott, CPA, CVA has decades of experience working with dentists at all stages of their careers. He is a regular speaker at study clubs, societies, and dental schools. Tim is a frequent participant and a moderator on Dentaltown.com. You can reach Tim at tlott@dentalcpas.com or any of the other dental partners/principals at (800) 772-1065 or info@dentalcpas.com. For more blogs, visit our Dental CPAS blog page.  

2015 PRACTICE FINANCIAL STATS COMMENTARY – WHAT’S CHANGED FROM FIVE YEARS AGO?

We’ve completed the process of compiling our dental practice financial statistics based upon 2014 & 2015 data and the results show very little change compared to five years ago.

Remember, the US economy went through a downturn beginning in late 2008 which lasted probably through the majority of 2012. Therefore, the 2010 results included some of those down years and compared to 2005 we saw some interesting changes, likely due to that downturn. However, many practices began to rebound sometime in 2012, and we saw significant upticks in some practices in 2013, 2014, & 2015. We were curious to see how this would impact the financial statistics for dental practices.

We also know that over the past five years there’s been even more technology that practices are buying and using whether it’s their dental equipment, office equipment, computers, software, and even outside service providers (to handle calls, etc.). While we were a little surprised to see that overall, the changes were minor, we’ve summarized our findings below and provide commentary as to why we think some changes occurred.

     1.     Revenue:

The mix of dentistry to hygiene production has increased slightly in favor of the doctor, with a ratio of 3.1:1 as opposed to 3:1 five years ago. We expected the ratio to be even higher with practices adding implants, invisalign, other ortho, sleep dentistry, etc., however, we didn’t see a big increase.

The surprising statistic is the adjustments or write-offs. Five years ago the “average” practice was writing off 19% of their gross production, and it’s decreased to 14.4%. With all the talk about everyone joining PPOs, especially with the downturn years, we expected that to increase. That said, we’ve also seen an increase in the number of practices that have been maturing and attempting to reduce their PPO participation. Many practices have implemented in-house membership plans to battle the PPO participation urge. In-house membership plans will show a write-off percentage in the 10% neighborhood. It’s also possible and likely that more practices are opting to report their GROSS production based on their PPO reimbursements instead of the UCRs…that’s unfortunate.

We also see a positive increase in the ratio of hygiene production to hygiene wages of 3:1, up from 2.7:1 back in 2010. This increase is likely to the impact on hygiene wages that were forced down in many parts of the country due to the economy and practices doing a better job of making sure their hygiene departments are operating as efficiently and productively as possible.

      2.     Labor:

There wasn’t much of a change overall. If anything, we saw the lower end of the total labor cost range dip down to 25% and as high as 29% In some cases.  The average is still around 27%, and that includes wages, payroll taxes, retirement plans and other benefits. Hygiene remains around 8-10%. However, assistants actually came down a little on the top end, from 9% to 8% while front desk wages bumped up on the lower from 5% to 6%.

     3.     Facility Expenses:

There was no change in the facility costs and rent expenses. They both remained similar to 2010, 6-7% overall facility costs and 5-6% for rent expense.

     4.     Lab and Dental Supply Expenses:

These categories are beginning to show the changes in technology and additional procedure offerings. Whether it’s the use of CADCAM equipment or adding implants to the procedure mix, we think we’re seeing the changes. Dental supplies were at 4-7% back in 2010, and we’re seeing them around 6-8%, again, the cost of implants, maybe some milling supplies and even some practices doing more endo. Lab was 5-8% back in 2010, and the top end has dropped down to 7%. Practices manufacturing their own crowns will see the drop in lab and practices doing larger cases without a milling machine could see their lab hit 10-12%.

     5.     Other Costs:

In total, other costs went from 8.8% in 2010 to around 10% in 2015, a slight increase of 1.2%. We see an uptick in advertising and marketing to 2% on average, up from around 1.5% and 1.5% for collection expenses, like carecredit and merchant services, up from around 1.2% back in 2010. We also see more use of outside service providers like call centers, providers offering in-house membership, patient reminder systems, website SEO services, etc. which is likely driving the increase in some of these other expenses.

In summary, total overhead went from 48.8% in 2010 to around 51% in 2015. Keep in mind, this is based on gross production, we also provide the stats based on net collections for those practices that record their production based on PPO fees, NOT their UCR fees.

So overall I’d say the changes from five years ago have been nominal, yet there are a few areas like revenue, production, and clinical costs that are showing signs of “changing with the times” and for the better no doubt.

CLICK HERE FOR THE 2014-2015 GP Dental Practice Financial Survey Results

Tim Lott, CPA, CVA has decades of experience working with dentists at all stages of their careers. He is a regular speaker at study clubs, societies, and dental schools. Tim is a frequent participant and a moderator on Dentaltown.com. You can reach Tim at tlott@dentalcpas.com or any of the other dental partners/principals at (800) 772-1065 or info@dentalcpas.com 

Protecting Your Goodwill

The most valuable component of the price of a dental practice is the portion allocated to “goodwill.” Goodwill represents the intangible assets of a business—the difference between an established, successful business and one that has yet to achieve success. In an established dental practice, goodwill consists largely of the name, reputation, and skill of the dentist and team, which have led to a strong, loyal patient base and consistent inflow of new patients. For the buyer, goodwill greatly increases the likelihood of continued cash flow from retention of that patient base and from new patients.For you, the seller, preservation of the goodwill of your practice is paramount to a successful transition. 

Keep on Building Goodwill

In order to assure that you retain goodwill not only prior to selling but also through the critical transition time during and after the sale, you should maintain your reputation and good name within the practice and community at all times. Through the transition process and even afterward, remain involved in study clubs, the local dental association, community organizations and volunteer groups such as Rotary. This not only will help ensure that you receive proper compensation for your years of practice building, but also that your buyer receives full value. Even after you retire, positive support and praise for the new dentist (such as in social settings) will go a long way toward continued retention of  patients in the new practice.

Choose the Right Broker

Working with an experienced and ethical transition broker is also invaluable in preserving goodwill and value. The right broker will perform a legitimate appraisal and value the practice in a manner that reflects the true anticipated cash flow following the sale, rather than telling you what you may want to hear and subsequently luring a buyer into a bad deal that destroys goodwill. The right broker will also work to find a buyer who is an appropriate fit for the practice, one whose abilities, ethics and practice style match your own, preserving your reputation and the reputation of the practice. Additionally, the right broker will guide the entire process, working with lenders, accountants, and counsel who are knowledgeable in dental transitions. The right broker will also work toward the ultimate goal of having a satisfied seller and buyer, preventing negative interactions that can sometimes occur when working with an inexperienced or self-serving advisor.

For more information, visit www.dentalcpas.com 

Buyer Beware – Practice Prices Based on Rules of Thumb

We’ve recently seen an uptick in practice purchase/sale transactions involving specialists such as endo, oral surgery, perio, and prostho. Obviously, the vast majority of practice purchase sales we see are general dentistry because the vast majority of practices out there are general dentistry.

A common problem we’re seeing when reading through reports prepared by brokers for these specialty practices to determine selling price is using general dentistry rules of thumb to determine that price.

Here’s what I mean:

One very common rule of thumb as it relates to the selling price for a general dentistry practice is that statistically, the “typical” general dentistry practice will sell for between 60-75% of the practice collections. I know, some will use 80-85% as the top end of the range and even bump the bottom number to 65-70% when using this as a valuation method, at the end of the day it’s still a statistic, a rule of thumb, NOT a valuation method.

The problem we see in some of the reports used to establish the price for these specialty practices is that they’re using the general dentistry statistics of 60-75% to determine the asking price for these practices, and these are NOT general dentistry practices.

You see, most specialty practices are uniquely different than general dentistry practices in that their revenue is derived AND dependent on referral sources from other professionals. Rarely will a specialty practice’s location, name, signage, telephone number or website be the driving force behind their revenue like you’ll see in many general dentistry practices.

Practices, where revenues are driven by referral sources, present a higher degree of risk to any buyer of these practices since these referrals rely mainly on personal relationships with the selling doctor, especially when the practice has only ONE doctor/owner or a part time associate. IF it’s a group practice where the buyer is buying in to an interest of less than 100%, some of that risk is mitigated since there are other doctors/owners who are still working and can retain those referrals and assist in transitioning those referrals to the buyer.

Because there is a higher risk with retaining these referrals and transitioning the personal relationships from seller to buyer, the capitalization rates used to value profits are generally higher than you’ll see for general dentistry practices. Or said another way, the multiples of profits are generally lower for specialty practices compared to general dentistry practices.

Therefore, using general dentistry statistics or rules of thumb to determine the asking price of a specialty practice that depends on referrals will almost certainly provide a false or misleading number in terms of the value of the practice.

So for those specialist buyers out there looking to purchase a practice, just beware of this and make sure you do your own assessment of the practice financials to determine if the asking price is reasonable.

Written by Tim Lott, CPA, CVA. For more information on our services, please feel free to contact one of the members of the Dental CPA team by calling 844-DENT CPA or emailing info@dentalcpas.com.

What Percentage of the Purchase Price should be Allocated to Goodwill?

I see this question frequently, and occasionally I get asked this question from potential buyers. I see claims made by sellers’ advisors that goodwill should be at least 80% of the total purchase price or worse, they suggest that anything lower than 80% will draw the attention of the IRS. This is just plain FALSE!

I hate to break the news to all the folks who believe that there are “standard” percentages that should be used, there aren’t! In fact, I often define goodwill for my buyers as “the difference”. That’s right; goodwill = the difference. Here’s what I mean by that.

Let’s assume you have two practices, each 4 Ops with nearly identical equipment and it’s valued at $150,000. Let’s also assume they’ll have the same allocation to the covenants of $5,000 and the only other remaining assets that need to be allocated are dental supplies and goodwill. Practice A has revenue of $1.5 mil and is selling for $1mil while practice B has revenue of $750k and is selling for $500k. Here’s the proper way to go about allocating the purchase price:

                                                            Practice A                      Practice B

Furniture and equipment                  $150,000 (15%)                  $150,000 (30%)

Dental Supplies                                     20,000                                  10,000

Covenants                                                5,000                                   5,000

Goodwill (the difference)                 825,000 (82.5%)                   335,000 (67%)

You’ll note that goodwill is listed last as it should be the last item that is assigned a value. That’s because every other asset above it should be relatively easy to value and after you’ve agreed upon the values of them, the difference goes to goodwill. Furniture and equipment can be appraised, and dental supplies can be estimated based on practice revenues. You might even see allocations for other items like net contract receivables, consulting agreements, leasehold improvements, patient charts, etc. in every case, a value should be assigned to those assets FIRST then the remainder of the purchase price is allocated to goodwill, LAST!

Technically you’ll see the definition of goodwill, an intangible asset, as the excess amount paid for a business over & above its tangible and other asset values. In my world that’s the same as saying “the difference,” it’s that simple. Statistically speaking I would agree that with the “typical” dental practice sale, 75-80% of the allocated purchase price is usually goodwill, but it’s just a statistic, that’s it.

So don’t get sucked into someone else’s world when they tell you “goodwill should be at least 80% of the purchase price of a dental practice” and any other allocation will draw the attention of the IRS. If you hear a seller’s advisor say that then you know they’re NOT being truthful with you and you have to begin to wonder what other statements they’ve made that aren’t truthful.

Written by Tim Lott, CPA, CVA. For more information on our services, please feel free to contact Tim or one of the members of the Dental CPA team by calling 844-DENT CPA or emailing info@dentalcpas.com.

Buyer of A/R Beware

About a year ago we were engaged to represent a buyer in their efforts to purchase a dental practice. The transaction went fairly smooth and it was one of those engagements where the client wanted to try & handle much of the transaction themselves…or at least as much as they felt comfortable with.

As the settlement day approached, the seller of the practice suggested that the buyer purchase the A/R (unbeknownst to us) and they even agreed on what seemed to be a generous allocation, 0-30, 90%, 30-60, 75%, 60-90, 60%, 0% older than 90 days. On the day of settlement the seller did what they normally do, generate a current A/R report, less patient credits so the parties could do the math and make that part of their settlement.

Things seemed to be going ok for the first 30 days or so, then the buyer started to notice a couple of things. EOBs were arriving with amounts MUCH lower than what the A/R balances were showing and in some cases the EOBs showed services dates much older than what was reported in the various aged buckets.

Here’s what the buyer learned over a period of time -  A) the seller was posting the charges WITHOUT posting the appropriate PPO/Insurance adjustments or at least an estimate of what the PPO/Insurance should have been and B) the software they were using retained any insurance A/R as a 0-30 balance even after 30 days.

So not only did the buyer pay 90% of inflated 0-30 balances because the PPO/insurance adjustments weren’t made, if there were any rejected claims that weren’t handled within 30 days those balances remained in the 0-30 bucket and the buyer overpaid for those balances as well. In the latter case they got hit twice as hard because not only would they have paid less than 90% on those older insurance balances, they also WAY overpaid on those balances because the adjustments weren’t made as well.

As a buyer if you’re going to purchase A/R, make sure you do your due diligence. Make sure all credits are removed, make sure the buckets are aged by date of service, make sure balances have been adjusted for actual or estimated PPO/insurance adjustments.

We’ve seen situations where a software will take a 6-month-old balance and included it in the 0-30 day bucket because the software starts the aging at 0 days whenever an invoice is issued, even when the date of service is 6 months old !

-The DentalCPAs Team

For additional information and/or questions specific to your practice,contact one of our Dental CPA team members at 844-DENT CPA or info@dentalcpas.com.

Should You Employ Your Children? What are the Tax Benefits?

Did you know? If you hire your children as employees to do legitimate work in your business, you may deduct their salaries from your business income as a business expense. This can be a substantial benefit for some as it allows you to shift part of your business income from your tax bracket to your child’s bracket. This can be a win-win situation for both you and your child. Not only does it allow your child to learn the value of work but it also provides them with insight on the family business. And, it’s a great tax deduction for you! You can pay your child under the age of 18 up to $6300 tax-free by taking the standard deduction. That’s money your child will have to spend on a car, college, clothes, gas, etc.

Here are some things you need to know

1. Your child must be a qualified dependent.
2. Pay real wages for real work, paying in pizza and still taking the deduction won’t fly with the IRS.
3. The job must be age appropriate and salary should reasonable match job responsibility.
   Contact us for a list of jobs kids can do in a dental office.
4. Document the job description and employee agreement. To avoid unnecessary scrutiny, maintain proper payroll documentations.
5. Keep a timesheet of hours and day worked. This will help substantiate the amount of money received for work. It is good practice if the child deposits the paycheck in a bank account rather than cashing them as it shows the IRS the child took possession of the funds.
6. Be aware of the tax requirements, payments for the services of a child under age 18 who works for his or her parent in a trade or business are not subject to social security and Medicare taxes if the business is a sole proprietorship or a partnership in which each partner is a parent of the child. However, children who employed by S Corporations or partnerships that include nonparent partners or corporations are not exempt. Also, payments are not subject to federal unemployment tax if the child is under 21.

If your child qualifies, you can avoid paying approximately 22 percent of their wages in tax. Before making the final decision of adding your child to payroll, consult with your CPA as the actual tax savings depends on your tax rate, your child’s rate, and the entity under which the business operates. For more questions on the benefits of employing your child contact us at 844-Dent CPA or visit our main blog page at  www.dentalcpas.com/news-events/.

How to Conquer Leadership Challenges

It’s always great to hear about young dentists starting their practice, establishing a new partnership, or purchasing an existing practice.  While some dentists are more comfortable with embracing the change and smoothly transition into their new roles, others have difficulties. Sometimes it’s hard being the new kid in town or one of the youngest members of your staff. Let’s face it; some people make the assumption that with youth comes lack of experience and regretfully, that can translate into a lack of respect. If you are a young dentist or new partner, it can take some time to establish your role of authority with another staff member who may have been around for 15+ years. Here are a few tips to consider for taking the lead:

• Promote A Respectful Work Environment
  
  
  1. Always handle yourself in a positive manner; set the standard and hold all members of staff to it.
  2. Ensure that you and your partner(s) are on the same page before taking action on employee relation issues. All partners need to be willing and committed to making changes if the current staff cannot handle their positions. Without a mutual understanding, your attempts at change will be tested.
  3. When dealing with contentious issues, prepare yourself before approaching, it will allow you to have a clear mind and better handle any backlash.
• Establish Yourself in a Position of Authority
  
  
  1. People will only treat you how you allow them to, so grab the bull by the horn and take ownership of your role. If you plan to grow with the practice and eventually become the owner, it’s never too early to start acting in the best interest of YOUR practice.
  2. Managing a staff of people who are older than you can be challenging, however, stand your ground is a respectful manner.
• Be specific when addressing employees
  1. Broad or general statements give the employee room to come up with an excuse.
  2. Ensure manuals are updated and all staff members are aware of their role and responsibilities in the practice.
• Hold Employees Accountable
  1. Review the portions of his or her job duties that are crucial steps in office operations.
  2. For example, if an employee is consistently failing to update health charts, have a direct conversation with that individual. Address that you have observed the job was not being done, stress the importance of the task to the patient’s safety and express that the problem will not be tolerated is no corrected. After all, patient’s safety is a top priority.

These tips are to get you started. We also recommend you doing some research on management styles and tackling leadership roles. For more information and articles on practice management, visit our blog page at /http://www.dentalcpas.com/news-events/

Six Mistakes to Avoid When Filing Taxes

1. Filing out tax forms with incorrect SSC numberThe IRS computers will automatically reject your deductions and credits if your Social Security number is wrong. This mistake seems careless and trivial, but it is paramount to have the right Social Security number when filing your taxes.  Your social security number is your tax ID number, which is linked to numerous transactions such as income statements, savings account interest, and retirement plan contributions. It is also vital to claiming tax credits. Since the majority of returns are now being filed electronically, a correct social security number is crucial. An incorrect social security number will result in the reject of an e-filed return. Double check all the numbers before submitting your return to ensure they are not transposed or missing digits.
   
   
2. Incorrect Federal ID number used on 1099 MISC.Although your accountant can easily fix this, the less the IRS has to contact you, the better it is. The IRS matches 1099MISC and the Social Security number or Federal Identification number used. If you provide services, and the client you did the work for issues a 1099MISC, be sure they know to use the federal identification number of your business and not your social security number.  If they use the wrong number, the IRS will send you a notice that you did not report income on your personal return, when in fact it was reported correctly on your business return. Also, watch out for spelling your business name incorrectly. Simple spelling errors can lead to rejected returns.
   
   

3. Not reporting non-deductible IRA contributions.Any contribution to an IRA, whether it is deductible or non-deductible, should be reported, so when you withdraw it, you are not taxed on it.  Plain and simple, all contributions to an IRA must be reported.
   
   

4. Incorrectly reported estimated tax payments.If your accountant instructed you to make quarterly estimated tax payments, be sure to let him or her know the details of the payment for each installment.  Provide the check numbers, dates of payment, and the amount of each payment.  What often happens is people claim they made the payments as their accountant told them, but did not keep any records and inadvertently forgot a payment or two.  If the accountant includes all of the estimated payments on the return when they all were not really made, the IRS or state government will send a notice of tax due with penalties and interest.
   
   

5. Incorrect bank account information entered for refunds.If you are having your accountant file your returns electronically and want your refunds directly deposited (or payments automatically) withdrawn from your checking or savings account, provide the correct account information including name of bank, bank routing number, and account number. This will avoid delays in processing your refunds and/or payments.
   
   

6. Forgetting your signature on your return!You must sign your taxes for the IRS to process your taxes.  Filing your taxes electronically is a foolproof way to ensure your taxes will not go unsigned.  These software packages do not allow documents to be sent unless every step is completed.