Practice accounting
Practice accounting for NHS, private and plan-mix dentists
The point of practice accounting is not to satisfy HMRC. The point is to tell you, accurately and monthly, where the profit is coming from and where it is leaking. NHS UDA, private fee, capitation plan, lab recharges, associate splits and overhead allocation all need to be separated cleanly before any of it means anything.
Income streams reported separately, always
A dental practice does not have one revenue line. It has at least four, often more. Lumping them together hides the real picture.
- NHS UDA payments (gross of clawback risk and end-of-year reconciliation)
- Private fee income, split by treatment category where it matters (general, ortho, implant, cosmetic)
- Capitation and membership plan income (Denplan, Practice Plan, Whitecross, internal schemes)
- Patient-paid laboratory recharges (frequently mistreated as net income when they should be flagged separately)
- Domiciliary, sedation, referral and other one-off treatment income
- Sundry and non-clinical income (room rent to a hygienist on a self-employed contract, photo licensing for case studies, etc.)
Cost allocation that matches how a dental practice actually runs
Generalist accounting allocates costs by type — salaries, rates, light and heat. That tells you the total, not the relevant detail.
We allocate the costs that vary by income mix: associate fee splits against the income they generate, lab fees against the treatment that triggered them, materials against private vs NHS volume, surgery rent against surgery utilisation. The result is a real margin by income stream, not a notional average.
Monthly review, quarterly conversation
Management accounts you do not read are wasted. We package the monthly output as a one-page summary with three to five lines of analysis, plus the underlying detail if you want to drill in. Once a quarter we book a 60-minute call to walk through the trend.
The point of the call is decisions: are you over-staffing on the dental nurse side, is your private margin growing or stagnating, is your UDA volume trending toward year-end clawback risk, is associate utilisation high enough to justify the split.
Year-end without the year-end scramble
If management accounts run cleanly month by month, the statutory year-end is a tidy-up, not an event. We close limited company year-ends and file corporation tax returns inside the deadline, not in the last week. Same for partnership returns, partner self-assessments and sole-trader returns.
Frequently asked
- How often will I see management accounts?
- Monthly for practices on the Growth or Specialist tier. Quarterly for practices on the Essentials tier. We deliver the report within 15 working days of the month-end close. Quarterly review calls happen in the second week of the following month.
- Do you use specific software (Xero, FreeAgent, QuickBooks)?
- We work with whatever you currently use. Most of our practices run on Xero, but we also support FreeAgent and QuickBooks. If you are still on spreadsheets, we will recommend Xero and handle the migration. The software matters less than the chart of accounts; that is what makes the dental-specific reporting possible.
- Can you support multi-site dental groups?
- Yes. Consolidated group accounts plus per-site management accounts so each principal sees their own performance. Intra-group recharges (head-office costs, central marketing, shared lab arrangements) handled correctly so each site's margin is comparable.
- What about MTD for Income Tax?
- MTD for Income Tax becomes mandatory from 6 April 2026 for sole-trader and landlord income above £50,000. Many sole-trader dental practices are caught by this. We handle the digital record-keeping setup and quarterly submissions inside the standard fee, not as an add-on.
Free scoping call
See your practice in proper detail
Book a 30-minute call. We will look at your last set of accounts and tell you what the structure is hiding.
Book your free call
We will be in touch within 24 hours.