Dentist, get your right financial plan for 2021

What are your goals for 2021? Be aware that every successful dentist has documented goals that will guide all efforts in the coming months and avoid losing focus.

Most goals of a dental office or clinic, however, are only possible with financial investment. Be it a makeover, a disclosure strategy, a new course, the acquisition of new equipment? You can only get there with finance planning so that the accounts are not compromised.

Therefore, at the beginning of the year, it is essential to set these goals realistically and to know the financial reality of the office or clinic. This way you can know which goals can be met each month and what will need to change in finances for them to be met.

- Know your finances and lose the fear of numbers

Making your to-do list without knowing how financially healthy your office is is frustrating for sure. First you need to get in the habit of seeing cash flow and tracking these numbers through dental software. So you know the expected revenues from the longest treatments and see all their fixed costs, with energy bills, employee salaries, taxes, and so on.

Similarly, look at your bank statements, make sure you're not paying abusive fees, and so on. So when you need to cut some cost to accomplish a goal, you'll know exactly where you can cut to make your new purchases. Losing fear of numbers is the number 1 step in the financial planning of any successful dentist.

- Establish an action plan for your goals

Now that you know what goals you can set in the short and long term, it's time to plan each step you need to go through. Knowing how much to invest each month, what research you need to do, whether it will increase the price of your services, cut costs inside the office, etc.

It is important to document your goals so that each month you can keep track of developments, write how much money you have saved, what information you have obtained? This keeps you motivated by visually viewing your performance against what you want to achieve.

- Calculate the return you will get with each investment.

Before setting your goals for 2021, it is critical to know the return you will have with each one. As we are talking about professional goals, you can't get into new projects without knowing if there will be a financial return, either fast or slow.

Talk to people who have already purchased the equipment you want to buy, who have already refurbished or moved, who have taken the course you want to do. So you are better prepared for the results you can have and decide which priority goals will bring you the most growth.

Source: Dentista Organizado. Available at: https://www.dentistaorganizado.com.br/noticia.html?id=295&Dentista-acerte-no-seu-planejamento-financeiro-para-2020.htm. Access on: 12/01/2020.