Bookkeeping and financials for a chiropractic practice
Chiropractic books are harder than they look, and the reason is prepayment. A patient hands you $1,800 for twenty-four visits in March. That is not $1,800 of March income. It is a liability you earn down one visit at a time, and if they stop at visit eight you may owe part of it back. Practices that record prepayments as revenue on receipt spend money they have not earned yet and get an unpleasant surprise at tax time.
The second problem is blending. Insurance collections and cash collections land in one bucket, so nobody can see that the cash side is carrying the practice while the insurance side consumes most of the front desk's week.
For marketing decisions you need two figures and most owners have neither: collections per new patient by source, and ad spend as a percentage of collections. Five to nine percent is normal for a stable practice, ten to fifteen while you are actively growing.
Two weeks in, last month is closed, prepaid plans sit on the balance sheet where they belong, and marketing spend is broken out on the profit and loss.