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Key Figures and Metrics for Veterinary Practice Income Analysis

• Dividing overall practice turnover by the number of full-time equivalent veterinary surgeons allows for easy comparison between practices and comparison with previous data.
• Running costs per veterinary surgeon, including motor expenses, support staff salaries, and CPD, can provide another useful comparison.
• Dividing net profit by the number of partners can provide an easily comparable figure for practices with multiple owners.
• Understanding the breakdown of practice income into fees and product sales is essential for improving and identifying deficits.
• The Fort Dodge Index scheme provides detailed data on income and client activity for over 140 practices.
• It's important to identify how much income is derived from professional fees versus the sale of medicines and other products, especially with recent changes to medicines legislation.
• Categorizing income by service, such as consultations, surgery, diagnostics, medicines, and pet-care sales, can provide useful insights.
• The top 80% of income categories should be reported on, and some specific services may require further analysis.
• Income can be divided into small-animal, farm, and equine clients, or more specialized breakdowns based on client types or services provided.
• Average transaction fee, broken down by client category and fee versus drug components, can highlight differences between client sectors.
• The March 2006 Fort Dodge Index report showed that the average transaction value per dog visit is 22% higher than the spend per cat visit.
• Understanding these key figures and metrics can help track targeted marketing activity, assess the viability of certain sectors of the practice, and make informed business decisions.

Management and Financial Accounting for Veterinary Practices

• Management accounts track performance and provide feedback to managers beyond financial values.
• The ratio of support staff to veterinary surgeons varies between types of practice, with large-animal practices having relatively fewer support staff.
• Staff ratios can indicate excessive staff costs or that veterinary surgeons are wasting time on tasks better suited to nursing staff.
• Monitoring case volume by service category and client base is important to measure the effect of fee structure changes and make decisions about increasing staff levels.
• Figures for client retention and turnover help monitor the balance and plan marketing requirements.
• Management reports must be readily understandable and easily acted upon, with tailored reports to their purpose.
• Routine practice performance parameters include turnover per vet, caseload, fee income, drug income, gross profit percentage, veterinary surgeon income as a percentage of turnover, and debtor days.
• Reorganizing support staffing levels parameters include comparing figures with previous years and published veterinary standards for number of full-time equivalent veterinary surgeons, support staff to veterinary surgeon ratio, nurses' caseload, staff costs as a percentage of turnover, and staff costs per vet.
• Overheads economy drive parameters include comparing figures with previous periods or published standards for variable costs per veterinary surgeon, fixed costs per hour, individual costs as a percentage of turnover, and specific absolute comparative costs.
• Review of equine sector performance parameters include equine fees/drugs, equine income analysis, and equine caseload.
• Simple staff feedback parameters include monthly comparisons or MAT figures, such as a graph of dental numbers and income.
• External sources of comparative veterinary management accounting figures include pharmaceutical companies, practice management system suppliers, wholesalers, practice management consultants, and journals and reports from bodies such as SPVS.