“Everything rises and falls on leadership.”
--- John Maxwell

Leadership is so important that businesses with great leadership and an average product service equation will still be great businesses, while those with mediocre leadership and great product service equations will be just that in the end - mediocre. What is leadership and how can it impact the business so dramatically?

According to a recent Veterinary Economics study, 39% of practices plan on adding a new veterinarian in the next five years. Are you one of those practices? Match that projection up against the number of veterinarians graduating and you are going to see a continued hardship in finding a new associate. How can your practice stand out in the crowd and be successful in obtaining a new doctor? Well, I went to the source and asked junior and senior veterinary school students what they would be looking for in a new job and what their concerns are:

Do you have your Financial Monitoring Procedures in Order?

The AVMA-Pfizer Business Practices Study found that there was a high degree of correlation between those practices that reviewed and monitored their financial results and the income they generated. Surprise! Surprise!! The actual income difference that was measured from the study for those who did financial reviews was $42,570.

For your own practice, develop a list of the reports you will review on a daily, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis.

At the same time, consider preparing a practice budget to project the year’s results. Have you done yours for 2006? Budgets set the financial objectives and goals of the practice for the year. Make sure once you complete it to communicate the intended results to your associates and staff. Budgets should not only be prepared for the practice but for professional doctor production as well. Each doctor should know what is expected of him or her with regard to income, number of invoices and the average professional invoice to be generated.

Daily, each doctor should review the previous day’s daily production for invoices created, services provided and who received the credit for the invoice. Missed charges or corrections should be addressed each day. Calculate your practice’s daily break-even point in sales so each day you can determine if it was a profitable day or not. Also calculate what it costs to open the door each day. Need help with these calculations? Ask your accountant.

Develop a monthly statistical analysis (flash) report to look at sales, new clients, number of invoices generated, average invoice, and accounts receivable. Track this information for at least two to three years for a good trend analysis. Develop similar information for each of the doctors and if the doctors have a budget, give them a comparison for actual to budgeted results. Make sure you again share this information with the doctors.

Print a monthly financial statement internally and review your practice results. In Quickbooks: go to Reports; Company and Financial; then Balance Sheet Std; Profit and Loss Statement Std, and then Print. Always print in a comparative format with last year's month and year to date numbers. Also print with percentages to gross income for a complete comparative analysis. Make sure you have entered your budget into Quickbooks so you can determine if you are on track with budgeted expectations. Quickbooks has a great budgeting tool. Your books and records should always be complete by having your accountant provide you with all of their adjustments as well as a monthly depreciation entry so your results are close to actual when the accountant is finished.

As always, schedule regular meetings with your accountant who can guide you with financial and tax planning and make sure you achieve your expected result.