Dental-practice accounting guide
Dental Practice Accounting Guide & Readiness Checklist
A dental practice combines clinical care with payroll, equipment, insurance reimbursements, patient collections, vendor costs, and owner tax obligations. An accountant can help organize the financial side, but the right scope depends on the practice, legal structure, locations, workforce, plans, and records involved. This guide is educational—not individualized tax, legal, investment, valuation, privacy, security, or clinical advice.
Practical preparation tool
Dental practice accounting readiness checklist
Use this list to organize a first conversation. Marking an item means only that you have prepared the question or record—not that a tax position, accounting treatment, credential, or engagement has been approved.
Do not place tax returns, bank data, payroll files, patient information, credentials, or other sensitive records into a general website or ordinary email. Continue with the questions to ask before hiring a professional.
Start with complete, reconciled records
Useful decisions begin with a consistent chart of accounts, bank and credit-card reconciliations, separation of owner and practice transactions, documented fixed assets and loans, and timely financial statements. Dental categories such as clinical supplies, laboratory fees, equipment, payroll, insurance adjustments, and provider activity should match the actual practice rather than a generic template.
IRS recordkeeping guidance says a business should maintain records that support income, deductions, credits, and other return items. Ask which accounting method is used for the books and tax returns, whether they differ, and what approval or filing would be needed before a method changes.
Connect accounting to practice operations
Financial statements are more useful when they can be reconciled to practice-management information without exposing unnecessary patient data. Production, collections, adjustments, accounts receivable, payroll, laboratory and supply costs, debt service, and location-level performance need shared definitions and traceable source records.
Multi-location practices and dental support organizations may need consistent mappings and location-level reporting. Acquisitions add tax returns, financial statements, debt, assets, payroll, production reports, collection patterns, contracts, and transition assumptions. Accountants can analyze financial information, while legal terms, clinical autonomy, regulatory structure, and purchase documents belong with the appropriate advisers.
Define compensation, transaction, and valuation scope
An associate-compensation model should distinguish production, collections, adjustments, refunds, laboratory charges, benefits, payroll taxes, and timing. For a purchase, buy-in, valuation, or exit, identify whether the engagement covers bookkeeping analysis, tax modeling, transaction support, or a formal valuation; those are not interchangeable deliverables.
Plan taxes, equipment, and payroll before deadlines
Entity choice, owner compensation, equipment purchases, retirement plans, estimated taxes, state elections, and acquisition structure can produce different results depending on current law and complete facts. A responsible analysis names the source date, assumptions, benefits, and tradeoffs instead of promising savings before review.
IRS Publication 946 explains the general depreciation framework for property, including placed-in-service timing, business use, property type, annual limits, and recapture. IRS Publication 15 explains federal employer responsibilities for withholding, depositing, reporting, and paying employment taxes. The engagement should identify who prepares payroll, monitors notices, coordinates providers, and corrects filing problems.
Protect patient and financial information
Many reporting tasks can use aggregated financial data without patient names or treatment details. When a service requires protected health information, the practice and provider must determine whether business-associate obligations apply and put the appropriate written agreement in place before disclosure.
Ask where files are uploaded, who can access them, whether subcontractors are used, how access is logged, how long data is retained, how it is deleted, and how an incident is handled. Ordinary email and open website forms should not be the default destination for tax returns, bank statements, payroll files, patient data, credentials, or other sensitive records.
Evaluate the exact professional and engagement
Verify the individual's current license directly with the issuing state, identify the exact contracting firm, and request a written scope, fee structure, responsible team, jurisdiction, professional-liability coverage, data terms, and conflicts. Dental-market experience should be supported by specific permissioned evidence rather than assumed from a slogan.
Source-separated pilot example
This guide keeps educational preparation separate from the evaluation of any named professional. A pilot profile must keep direct records, attributed firm statements, historical sources, and unresolved evidence distinct.
Review the source-separated Spiro Leunes pilot profile for its dated source record and unresolved evidence. The profile does not assign an LA Trusted Professionals status or endorsement.
Questions to ask before acting.
Do I need an accountant who works only with dentists?
Not necessarily. Ask whether the professional can demonstrate relevant experience, maintain accurate records, explain the work, understand the service scope, coordinate with other advisers, and protect the data involved.
What should I provide during an initial conversation?
Begin with a high-level description of the practice, ownership, locations, systems, concerns, and help needed. Wait to send sensitive records until the exact firm, secure transfer method, access controls, retention terms, and engagement purpose are confirmed.
Should an accountant receive patient-level information?
Only when necessary for the defined service. Many reports can use aggregated or de-identified data. Determine any business-associate obligation before protected health information is disclosed.
Can an accountant tell me what my practice is worth?
Some professionals provide valuation or transaction support, but the credential, standard, method, scope, conflicts, and intended use matter. Define the deliverable in writing.
How often should I review financial reports?
The useful cadence depends on the practice and engagement. The important controls are complete data, consistent definitions, explained variances, and named action owners.
Does a pilot profile mean LA Trusted Professionals endorses the accountant?
No. A pilot profile separates direct records, attributed firm statements, historical sources, and unresolved evidence. It does not award a label, badge, seal, ranking, or recommendation.
Original and attributed sources
Return to the record behind each claim.
A link shows where a fact came from; it does not turn every statement on that source into an independently verified claim.
- IRS — Publication 583, Starting a Business and Keeping RecordsPrimary federal recordkeeping and accounting-method guidance.
- IRS — Publication 538, Accounting Periods and MethodsPrimary federal accounting-period and method guidance.
- IRS — Publication 15, Employer's Tax GuideCurrent federal employer-tax guidance.
- IRS — Publication 946, How To Depreciate PropertyCurrent federal depreciation framework.
- HHS — Covered Entities and Business AssociatesPrimary federal guidance on when business-associate obligations may apply.
- New York State Education Department — professional license verificationPrimary source for New York professional license and registration records.
- MRL Advisory Group — AboutFirm-authored source for Spiro Leunes's current role, location, and described service focus.
- BDO — Understanding the Taxation of Telehealth (June 2020)Historical official publication naming Spiro Leunes, CPA, MS as a BDO healthcare tax partner at that time.