Running a Dental Practice P&L: A Guide for Non-Financial Owners

A P&L (profit and loss statement) tells you how much your practice earned, how much it spent, and what's left over. It's the financial heartbeat of your business. But most practice owners either don't look at it often enough or don't know what they're looking at.

The basic structure

Revenue. what you collected. This should match (roughly) what your PMS reports as collections.

Cost of goods / direct costs. dental supplies, lab fees. The stuff that scales with how much dentistry you do.

Operating expenses. staff salaries, rent, utilities, software, insurance, marketing. The stuff you pay whether you see patients or not.

Net income. what's left after everything. This is what the practice actually made.

What to look for

Don't just look at the bottom line. Look at the ratios. What percentage of revenue goes to staff? To facility? To supplies? Compare those percentages month over month. If staff costs jumped from 28% to 34%, something changed. a new hire, overtime, or a drop in production that made the same payroll cost a bigger percentage.

Common red flags

• Staff costs above 30% of collections
• Total overhead above 65%
• Lab fees above 10%
• Revenue declining while expenses stay flat

How to track it

Your accountant should produce this monthly. But waiting for your accountant means you're always looking at last month. Denta connects to QuickBooks and generates your P&L in real time, so you can catch problems when they start, not after they've been running for 60 days.