Latest / The Millionaire Dentist™ / Keep Things Simple: Avoiding Common Accounting Pitfalls
Transcript
- 0:03Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, Welcome to the Millionaire Dentist Podcast, brought to
- 0:07Speaker 1: you by four Quadness Advisory. On this podcast, we break
- 0:11Speaker 1: down the world of dentistry, finances and business practices to
- 0:14Speaker 1: help you become the millionaire dentists you deserve to be.
- 0:17Speaker 1: Please be advised we do speak with an honest tongue
- 0:19Speaker 1: and may not be safe for work.
- 0:24Speaker 2: Hello and welcome. This is Casey Hiers back at the
- 0:26Speaker 2: Millionaire Dnist Podcast in studio with co host Jared Bridgeman.
- 0:30Speaker 3: Casey, I want to thank you for coming into my
- 0:32Speaker 3: office and helping me kind of get rejuvenated for this
- 0:35Speaker 3: Friday afternoon that we're recording this. I was getting a
- 0:38Speaker 3: little sleepy, I had a big lunch, and just your bright,
- 0:41Speaker 3: cheery faces really helping me out.
- 0:43Speaker 2: I accept all compliments. You are welcome.
- 0:46Speaker 3: Today we've got one of our favorite guests in here,
- 0:49Speaker 3: our special guest. His name is Keviy Warton. He is
- 0:51Speaker 3: a CPA, he's an.
- 0:52Speaker 2: MBA, he's doctor CPA, doctor CPA, the QB of QB's
- 0:57Speaker 2: the Quick Books quarterback, Kevin.
- 0:59Speaker 3: How are you? I'm doing great, spoke some park butt
- 1:02Speaker 3: this weekend. I am how about you? How about you doing?
- 1:06Speaker 4: Four of them.
- 1:07Speaker 3: Are you gonna bring some in for me on Monday?
- 1:09Speaker 5: Uh? No?
- 1:10Speaker 3: So okay, I really thought you're gonna.
- 1:12Speaker 4: Say yes, what's it for me?
- 1:14Speaker 3: Go bad? Now I don't want to talk about it anymore.
- 1:17Speaker 5: No, they're already spoken for. Sorry, they're not even for me.
- 1:21Speaker 3: So, Kevin, you're one of our onboarding specialists here. You
- 1:25Speaker 3: work every day with a lot of the newer people
- 1:28Speaker 3: that come to our company, so you really get to
- 1:30Speaker 3: see their their books, their QuickBooks and all that kind
- 1:32Speaker 3: of stuff. Is there a trend that you've noticed with
- 1:36Speaker 3: with the practice owners out there in their quick books?
- 1:39Speaker 5: Yeah, And a majority of the practice owners that come
- 1:44Speaker 5: to us do operate with quick books, whether it's QuickBooks, online, QuickBooks,
- 1:50Speaker 5: desk top version. There are other financial programs out there, but.
- 1:56Speaker 3: For just kind of a blanket general statement to say
- 1:58Speaker 3: like yeah books.
- 1:59Speaker 4: Yeah, QuickBooks, we'll definitely use that.
- 2:03Speaker 5: But it really applies to anyone that uses any type
- 2:06Speaker 5: of financial program. But a lot of times when we
- 2:10Speaker 5: take a look at their financials, they're usually on one
- 2:15Speaker 5: side or the other as far as how well they
- 2:19Speaker 5: keep their quick books files reconciled, keep information in there.
- 2:26Speaker 5: Sometimes they Kevin, did you play dominoes when you were
- 2:29Speaker 5: a kid, I did not. You did not play dominos.
- 2:32Speaker 5: Are you familiar with dominoes?
- 2:33Speaker 4: Barely?
- 2:34Speaker 2: Like if you set them up and you tip the
- 2:36Speaker 2: first one and they're lined up, all the dominoes fall, yes, right, yes, yes,
- 2:40Speaker 2: you're looking at quick books. You're looking at profit and
- 2:43Speaker 2: loss statements, balance sheets, taxes, both personal and business taxes.
- 2:47Speaker 2: You look at an incredible amount of data. And we
- 2:50Speaker 2: were talking earlier. QuickBooks is almost that first domino sometimes right,
- 2:54Speaker 2: it is bad information out. So when you when you
- 2:59Speaker 2: start to analyze a practice and all their are their
- 3:03Speaker 2: data end documents, what's the first thing you look at?
- 3:05Speaker 2: Is it QuickBooks or is it taxes or kind of
- 3:07Speaker 2: what what's that process look like for you?
- 3:09Speaker 5: Yeah, you're exactly right. The first thing we start looking
- 3:13Speaker 5: at is is QuickBooks because that is the foundation how
- 3:19Speaker 5: how the accounts are reconciled, how the transactions are recorded.
- 3:24Speaker 5: That builds the financial statements, and then the financial statements
- 3:28Speaker 5: build the tax returns.
- 3:30Speaker 2: So yeah, definitely, most some people have a bookkeeper. Some
- 3:33Speaker 2: people they air CPA firm does it for them. Others
- 3:37Speaker 2: the dentist or specialist will babble and do it themselves.
- 3:42Speaker 2: Is it like third, third, third or what? What do
- 3:44Speaker 2: you see the most?
- 3:46Speaker 5: I see the most of them trying to do it themselves,
- 3:50Speaker 5: and you know.
- 3:51Speaker 2: After hours, I know from my end, i'll hear frustration
- 3:54Speaker 2: with you know, my Sunday afternoons or dedicated you know,
- 3:57Speaker 2: once a month doing QuickBooks and I hate it, or
- 4:00Speaker 2: you know, after hours, a fair amount of time doing
- 4:03Speaker 2: quick books. Typically first two to five years as an owner,
- 4:06Speaker 2: it's kind of fun. Then you throw in a spouse
- 4:09Speaker 2: and kids and your life gets more complicated. People don't
- 4:13Speaker 2: love doing those. But whether they do or they don't,
- 4:16Speaker 2: or who completes them, when you look at them, is
- 4:19Speaker 2: it rare that they're they're accurate, very rare.
- 4:22Speaker 5: Most of the time when we see a practice owner
- 4:25Speaker 5: use an outside service, they do look a little bit better.
- 4:30Speaker 5: But most of the time, yeah, when the practice owners
- 4:34Speaker 5: that do come to us, when they're doing it on
- 4:37Speaker 5: their own, it's just and no fault to them. They're
- 4:41Speaker 5: you know, they study to be dentists or in the
- 4:45Speaker 5: dental industry. They didn't study to know debits and credits
- 4:49Speaker 5: and how to reconcile financial statements. So and that's okay,
- 4:54Speaker 5: But they're trying to do it, and nothing's reconciling, nothing's
- 4:59Speaker 5: tying out. Doesn't give them good information at all to
- 5:03Speaker 5: make any financial decisions.
- 5:05Speaker 3: It's one of these things where they feel like they're
- 5:08Speaker 3: saving money by not paying an outside firm or source,
- 5:13Speaker 3: but that could cost them more than tenfold in the
- 5:16Speaker 3: long run.
- 5:17Speaker 2: Yeah, beyond just time consumption that it takes or if
- 5:20Speaker 2: they pay for it. My goodness. So when you look
- 5:22Speaker 2: at quick books and they like what are like, they
- 5:25Speaker 2: don't does it affect taxes?
- 5:28Speaker 4: Yeah?
- 5:28Speaker 5: So some of the things that I see when practice
- 5:32Speaker 5: owners come in and ask us to take a look
- 5:35Speaker 5: at the take a look under the hood, so to speak.
- 5:38Speaker 5: You know, we'll see on both sides of it. Sometimes
- 5:42Speaker 5: like I was saying, they don't do the basic needed
- 5:47Speaker 5: steps in keeping accurate financials.
- 5:51Speaker 4: And then on the other side.
- 5:53Speaker 5: We see them spending way too much time, like putting
- 5:58Speaker 5: in all all the deposits, all the adjustments one by one,
- 6:05Speaker 5: singling out maybe maybe using the bill pay And sometimes
- 6:11Speaker 5: that's useful. I don't want to negate using that, but
- 6:16Speaker 5: a lot of times the practice owners will try to
- 6:19Speaker 5: start kind of like you were saying, Casey, try to
- 6:21Speaker 5: start using those those modules or those beneficial things with
- 6:28Speaker 5: quick books, but it's so hard to keep up with
- 6:31Speaker 5: it and making sure everything's reconciled. Then ap, you know,
- 6:34Speaker 5: if the bill pay feature isn't used correctly, then your
- 6:38Speaker 5: account accounts payable. Yeah, I think your accounts payable balance
- 6:42Speaker 5: gets out of whack and what's due and what's owed
- 6:46Speaker 5: and things like that, and then they just kind of
- 6:49Speaker 5: start sinking, start drawing, well, now I don't know what's what,
- 6:53Speaker 5: and they abandon ship on that. So so yeah, it's
- 6:58Speaker 5: there is a balance to it, and a lot of
- 7:01Speaker 5: times the practice owners just get frustrated, start drowning of
- 7:06Speaker 5: what do I need to.
- 7:07Speaker 4: Do in quick books? What am I doing? That's too much?
- 7:11Speaker 2: Sometimes I don't even know that they're as out of
- 7:14Speaker 2: whack as they are. Sometimes they do. But man, if
- 7:18Speaker 2: your quick books do not tie or align with your
- 7:21Speaker 2: tax returns for a period of time, it becomes more
- 7:25Speaker 2: than just a frustration on the time it takes. That
- 7:28Speaker 2: can be a red flag to the irs. That's a
- 7:30Speaker 2: huge problem. And then you've heard me say this many times,
- 7:32Speaker 2: but what's worse than incomplete or incorrect data making decisions
- 7:36Speaker 2: in your practice? With incorrect and incomplete data, and so
- 7:39Speaker 2: often we see that again QuickBooks are three four, five
- 7:43Speaker 2: months behind. They're not accurate. I mean, it really is
- 7:47Speaker 2: the kiss of death.
- 7:50Speaker 3: And Kevin, what is a telltale sign to look out
- 7:53Speaker 3: for to know that your books may not be accurate.
- 7:56Speaker 2: I'm going to give an example that I heard recently,
- 7:58Speaker 2: and then I'm sure this will spark. You know, somebody
- 8:01Speaker 2: has X amount of money in their practice account balances,
- 8:05Speaker 2: but their QuickBooks show that they're like minus two hundred thousand,
- 8:07Speaker 2: Like it's a clear like big time, all right, right right?
- 8:11Speaker 2: Or so is there overheads one hundred and thirty percent?
- 8:13Speaker 2: And we know we know that it's not. Those are
- 8:15Speaker 2: probably the egregious ones.
- 8:17Speaker 5: Yeah, it's when along that line when we see QuickBooks
- 8:23Speaker 5: files come in and doctors are like, I I've never
- 8:26Speaker 5: reconciled my checking account. Checking account's never been reconciled. Crazy amounts,
- 8:34Speaker 5: you know, just looking especially at the balance sheet, because
- 8:38Speaker 5: that will show you kind of a snowball effect of
- 8:42Speaker 5: years and years of not making correct adjustments to to
- 8:48Speaker 5: their financials. And sometimes you know, have have negative liabilities
- 8:55Speaker 5: where you know, a loan that they've already paid off
- 8:59Speaker 5: for shows the negative balance things like that. Something that
- 9:05Speaker 5: we do for our clients is we reconcile their checking
- 9:08Speaker 5: accounts to their bank statements. We reconcile their loan balances
- 9:12Speaker 5: to their loan statements, making sure principle and interest is
- 9:16Speaker 5: allocated correctly. A lot of times we'll see you again
- 9:20Speaker 5: when doctors are doing things on their own, they will
- 9:23Speaker 5: code a loan payment straight to loan payments on the
- 9:27Speaker 5: profit loss, whereas that needs to be allocated, you know,
- 9:32Speaker 5: between principal and interest. So we go through and reconcile,
- 9:36Speaker 5: making sure that the balances on the balance sheet match
- 9:41Speaker 5: the documents, whether it's loan statements, you know, checking account savings,
- 9:45Speaker 5: account balances, investment balances, things like that.
- 9:48Speaker 2: Over the years, we've seen a lot of these and
- 9:52Speaker 2: it's rare that they're clean, I would say. But beyond
- 9:56Speaker 2: this is a time consumer and it can be really challenging.
- 9:59Speaker 2: It can put you on the radar with the I
- 10:01Speaker 2: R S, with all those things. We're an exclusive firm.
- 10:03Speaker 2: We can't help everybody, right, I mean, that's our business
- 10:06Speaker 2: model is is not a quantity shop. We're in the
- 10:10Speaker 2: results business. We want to drive results. So what would
- 10:12Speaker 2: you tell people if either they know that their QuickBooks
- 10:15Speaker 2: are incorrect or or behind. What what are some tips
- 10:20Speaker 2: or or things you would tell our listeners about QuickBooks
- 10:23Speaker 2: or how to better navigate those. My guess is the
- 10:26Speaker 2: first one is have a good accounting specialist do them.
- 10:31Speaker 2: But what are some other tips that that you could
- 10:34Speaker 2: give generally? I guess the first one is if if
- 10:36Speaker 2: they don't align, there's there's your there's your sign you need.
- 10:39Speaker 5: That you need to do something that shouldn't be acceptable
- 10:41Speaker 5: to them to have inaccurate, incomplete financials because as they are,
- 10:48Speaker 5: like you were saying, trying to make decisions, uh, financial decisions,
- 10:52Speaker 5: whether it's buying pieces of equipment or you know, we
- 10:57Speaker 5: talk about overhead. I know you guys talk about overhead
- 10:59Speaker 5: on a lot of the podcasts, you know, trying to
- 11:02Speaker 5: trim overhead. You know, percentage points here and there, and
- 11:07Speaker 5: the financials, if done correctly, can show you what's really
- 11:14Speaker 5: hurting you as far as the overhead percentages, looking at
- 11:19Speaker 5: and then looking at industry averages, looking at benchmarks, things
- 11:22Speaker 5: like that, and being able to say, okay, if I
- 11:25Speaker 5: can shave a couple of percentage points here, if you here,
- 11:30Speaker 5: it's just it's really important to at least start balancing
- 11:35Speaker 5: your checkbooks, so to speak. Balancing the checking account and
- 11:40Speaker 5: getting your balance sheet doesn't really all that complicated.
- 11:44Speaker 2: But if you make sure not to doctor CPA doesn't I.
- 11:48Speaker 5: Guess, but you know, make sure you you accurately reconcile
- 11:55Speaker 5: you're checking account.
- 11:57Speaker 4: That that's a big stre if.
- 11:59Speaker 3: It just seems like a wall posted notes keep tracking
- 12:02Speaker 3: my stuff. Well, when we start with the software some
- 12:06Speaker 3: type yeah, I.
- 12:07Speaker 5: Would not recommend that.
- 12:11Speaker 3: So I mean, I mean, really this is all this
- 12:14Speaker 3: stuff can be complicated. Different people have different mindsets in
- 12:17Speaker 3: terms of what they're able to handle on their own.
- 12:18Speaker 3: And they're good at numbers if they're not good at
- 12:21Speaker 3: numbers and stuff like that. But you know, really ideally,
- 12:24Speaker 3: what we're getting at is is this is a tough
- 12:27Speaker 3: thing to handle sometimes for a practice owner, especially when
- 12:30Speaker 3: you add you know you've got not only do you
- 12:32Speaker 3: have your patience, you've got your staff, you've got your family,
- 12:35Speaker 3: you've got your children, and you don't have time at
- 12:38Speaker 3: air practice to do this. Do you really want to
- 12:41Speaker 3: take the time away from seeing your your son's basketball game?
- 12:45Speaker 3: Do you want to take time away from any of
- 12:47Speaker 3: that kind of stuff? What's that worth? To you compared
- 12:50Speaker 3: to what you think you're saving or you know, and
- 12:53Speaker 3: not only you're not saving money, you're doing it wrong.
- 12:55Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, that's that's well put. It's one of
- 12:59Speaker 5: those things where, yeah, in your day to day whether
- 13:03Speaker 5: your QuickBooks is updated does not affect you necessarily day
- 13:10Speaker 5: to day. All you know, here it is Friday, I
- 13:13Speaker 5: didn't do anything QuickBooks. Well, I can still operate come Monday.
- 13:18Speaker 5: But then two three months down the line, when okay,
- 13:22Speaker 5: now it's time to redo my line of credit with
- 13:26Speaker 5: the bank, or I'm looking to purchase a Sarah Scanner.
- 13:32Speaker 5: Wonder should I take a loan out on that? Should
- 13:36Speaker 5: I do financing? Do I have enough cash on hand
- 13:40Speaker 5: to put that? Just those big decisions when they come up. Well,
- 13:46Speaker 5: now my QuickBooks is three months behind. I have no
- 13:49Speaker 5: idea really where I stand at a profit and loss standpoint.
- 13:53Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 13:53Speaker 2: I talked to a lot of practice owners. Their rationalization
- 13:56Speaker 2: for doing their own QuickBooks is because they like to
- 13:58Speaker 2: know everything that's going on in the practice, and if
- 14:00Speaker 2: it's incorrect, you're what you're learning is actually not good.
- 14:03Speaker 2: The best way to do it is to, you know,
- 14:05Speaker 2: have a very high level standard of care with accounting
- 14:11Speaker 2: where your CPA firm are doing your quick books for you.
- 14:15Speaker 2: But here's the thing, you can then be more of
- 14:17Speaker 2: a CEO. You can view the completeness and review it
- 14:20Speaker 2: with yourself. You don't have to be the worker be
- 14:23Speaker 2: you want it done well, and then you can look
- 14:25Speaker 2: at it and still be involved versus well. I like
- 14:27Speaker 2: doing it because I really feel like I'm in touch
- 14:29Speaker 2: with my practice. But then we go look at them
- 14:32Speaker 2: and they're a mess. Yeah, and it's also unfortunate. There's
- 14:36Speaker 2: times where accounting firms do them and they're better typically,
- 14:40Speaker 2: but half the time there they just still don't tie
- 14:43Speaker 2: to taxes and there's glaring there's glaring problems.
- 14:46Speaker 5: Yeah, because a lot of times they get all the
- 14:49Speaker 5: information the incorrect QuickBooks file at the end of the
- 14:52Speaker 5: year or you know, beginning of the next year getting
- 14:55Speaker 5: ready for tax returns, and they're trying to make heather
- 14:59Speaker 5: tails of a year years worth of inaccurate transactions, unreconciled balances.
- 15:05Speaker 5: We got to hurry and get these quote unquote cleaned
- 15:09Speaker 5: up to accept to their acceptable level and then try
- 15:14Speaker 5: to get try to glean some tax returns off of them.
- 15:18Speaker 5: We take care of financials month to month, making sure
- 15:20Speaker 5: they're reconciled to give practice owners those financial statements to
- 15:26Speaker 5: see Okay, here's what I did for this past month.
- 15:30Speaker 5: Here's what I'm looking at year to date, so they
- 15:34Speaker 5: can be in touch with the financial standing of their practice,
- 15:38Speaker 5: how their practice is doing.
- 15:39Speaker 2: Here's a question for you, what's worse doing the quick
- 15:43Speaker 2: books and they're behind and they're incomplete, and they don't
- 15:45Speaker 2: tie to your taxes but you've you've put work in
- 15:48Speaker 2: and you've got you've got something, or just not doing them,
- 15:52Speaker 2: but not just not having them? Is that even an option, mind, Pretzel.
- 15:58Speaker 4: It is.
- 16:00Speaker 5: They definitely have to have some sort of tracking, some
- 16:04Speaker 5: sort of tracking, especially you know, to do the tax returns.
- 16:08Speaker 5: I mean, you gotta, I get we don't see that
- 16:13Speaker 5: with the practice owners that come to us, they at
- 16:18Speaker 5: least have some sort of financial tracking. I mean, if
- 16:23Speaker 5: you don't by the time you get to time to
- 16:27Speaker 5: file your taxes after your first year of ownership and
- 16:31Speaker 5: they're like, okay, we need to know your income, your expenses, Okay,
- 16:36Speaker 5: here's my bank statements. Well you're going to get a
- 16:38Speaker 5: pretty hefty bill for an accountant to have to try
- 16:42Speaker 5: to swift through all that and a lot of headaches
- 16:45Speaker 5: and a lot of questions.
- 16:46Speaker 2: Well, what I've heard is if if they're not done
- 16:49Speaker 2: correctly or timely, don't settle for that, don't kick the
- 16:53Speaker 2: can down the road. You need to take some action
- 16:55Speaker 2: and do something about it. And in my opinion, you know,
- 16:58Speaker 2: spending three to five hours every month doing it, it's
- 17:01Speaker 2: probably the least attractive option out there.
- 17:04Speaker 3: Fair.
- 17:05Speaker 5: That's definitely fair. Thank you, doctor Cpa Man. You guys
- 17:10Speaker 5: are coming up with great points on your own.
- 17:12Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 17:13Speaker 3: I guess we listen and we learn from you.
- 17:16Speaker 5: Yeah, I guess I'm rubbing off funny guys.
- 17:18Speaker 3: Right, Kevin, I want to thank you so much for
- 17:21Speaker 3: being here. Is there anything else you wanted to say?
- 17:22Speaker 3: As we wrap up this episode?
- 17:24Speaker 2: Be better at quick Books?
- 17:25Speaker 3: Yeah, get your ship in order, Kevin, thank you so
- 17:31Speaker 3: much for being here.
- 17:33Speaker 4: Casey.
- 17:34Speaker 3: We got a couple events coming up over the next
- 17:36Speaker 3: couple of months. It's gonna be really exciting times. We're
- 17:38Speaker 3: going to be in the Washington, DC area right outside
- 17:41Speaker 3: of that with Tysons Virginia and then Chevy Chase Maryland.
- 17:44Speaker 3: After that, we're gonna be in Huntington Beach in Calabasas California.
- 17:48Speaker 3: We're gonna be in the San Francisco area. We're going
- 17:50Speaker 3: to be in some some hot new places and are
- 17:54Speaker 3: you excited to go?
- 17:55Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going. I'm going to some of them. Yeah,
- 17:58Speaker 2: other people are going to some of them. We've actually
- 18:00Speaker 2: some Seattle study clubs, some large study clubs. They've they've
- 18:04Speaker 2: reached out and said, hey, would you would you come
- 18:06Speaker 2: and present to our members, and so we try to
- 18:08Speaker 2: sort of plug those in around our schedule because we've got,
- 18:11Speaker 2: as you know, fifty sixty events a year. But yeah,
- 18:14Speaker 2: it's it's nice. As the subject matter is spreading, people
- 18:18Speaker 2: are reaching out more and more for us to come.
- 18:22Speaker 3: We're like a good virus. Now we'ally spreading people want
- 18:27Speaker 3: we want to spread ourselves.
- 18:28Speaker 4: Okay, so broadly you should have stopped.
- 18:32Speaker 3: I know I should have. Casey, thank you so much
- 18:35Speaker 3: for joining me as well today and being the light
- 18:37Speaker 3: of my the apple of my eye, you know. Yeah,
- 18:40Speaker 3: so sweet.
- 18:42Speaker 1: Thanks. Yes, that's all the time we have today. Thank
- 18:46Speaker 1: you to our guests for their insight and for sharing
- 18:48Speaker 1: some really great information, and thank you to you the
- 18:51Speaker 1: listener for tuning in. The Millionaire Dennis Podcast is brought
- 18:54Speaker 1: to you by for Quadn's Advisory to see if they
- 18:56Speaker 1: might be a good fit for you and your practice.
- 18:59Speaker 1: Going over to four Drants Advisory dot com and see
- 19:01Speaker 1: why year after year they retain over ninety five percent
- 19:04Speaker 1: of their clients. Thank you again for joining us, and
- 19:06Speaker 1: we'll see you next time.