Have You Done Your Mid-Year Financial Checkup?

July 25, 2017
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If you’re like many medical practitioners, you’re running from morning until night just trying to keep up with your practice. As long as you’re paying the bills, and patients are paying theirs reasonably quickly, it’s easy to keep financial planning on the back burner.

 

We’ve hit the halfway mark for 2017, though, and there’s a task that should be high on your priority list: your mid-year budget review. Taking the time now to identify any trouble with revenue and/or spending should make your year-end financial responsibilities less stressful. You could spot problems that could become much bigger problems without intervention now.

 

Frequent Tune-Ups Advisable

 

If you’re a small practice, you may be comparing your budget or prior year results to actual data more frequently than twice a year. You probably have less of a cushion than a larger company might, and unexpected expenses can suddenly become a crisis. But at minimum, you need this mid-year review.

 

There are some standard steps that companies take during this critical exercise. Obviously, you want to compare budgeted and prior year income and expenses to real figures. You want to zero in on the line items where too much was spent and/or not enough came in. Those are the basics of any mid-year financial checkup.

 

Finding Solutions
 
Recognizing the problems is easier than determining how you can change course so any negative trends don’t continue through the rest of the year. Here are some questions you can ask yourselves while you’re looking at the numbers:
  • How difficult is it to pull together the financials you need for a mid-year financial checkup? Can you easily run reports in an accounting application, or at least look at a smartly-designed spreadsheet?
  • Is staffing getting in your way? Are any of the budget or prior year shortfalls due to too few-or too many-employees?
  • What options do you have in the event of a serious financial shortfall? What do you do when expenses are running ahead of revenue? Do you need a better emergency plan?
  • How is your accounting operation running? Evaluate the performance of the individual or team.
  • Did you hit your mark? How realistic were your goals?
A mid-year financial review involves more than just numbers. There are additional issues to consider as you plan for the second half of the year. We’d be happy to evaluate your existing financial performance and explore routes that could improve it.

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