If there’s anything I’ve learnt from business, it’s that in the absence of rules, people make up their own.
There is no statement truer than that when it comes to financial spending within a practice! Finances can quickly get out of hand.
When you break up your practice into two areas and link them to a sports analogy like ATTACK and DEFENCE, the attack would be marketing and sales, and defence would be operations, financial due diligence, planning, forecasting, etc.
Of the two areas, attack or defence, by far the one in which most practices are inept in is defence, i.e. financial literacy.
If you don’t have rules when it comes to spending in your practice, you absolutely need to create them immediately. Remember to repeat, “In the absence of rules, people make up their own.”
Here are three rules that might be helpful for you to implement your practice straight away:
Any and all recurring monthly payments must be authorised by YOU the business owner, no matter the amount.
Approvals for one-off purchases of goods or services need to be made for anything above for example $250, by the owner personally. Purchases below say $250 or another set amount can be approved by a certain member of the team that you have given that power to.
Approval for anything above or below the set amount needs to be documented in an email, and all relevant parties cc’d so there is always a paper trail.
Those are just three rules that can help you immediately change things in your business. Remember this one thing please: T. Harv Eker, famous wealth management and wealth creation expert, always says, “The single and fastest way for someone to create wealth in their life is to learn the skill of managing money correctly.” This principle pertains to your practice too. What financial rules and structure do you have in place to manage the money within your practice?
Yours in Service,
Dr. Ryan Rieder, D.C.
