There is one area that most schools are not able to adequately prepare most future Doctors and Healthcare practitioners for — that is the realities of opening and running their own practice. Setting up accounts, purchasing supplies, running a staff, money management and financial planning are just a few of the very real pitfalls that can sabotage a practice.

If a practitioner could just concentrate on helping their patients all day and not worry about the business end, many doctors would be more than happy. But in a healthcare office there are bills to pay and payrolls to meet, and with the current state of the economy, many practitioners are having a tough time of it financially.

“Over 20 years ago, I became a health care practitioner primarily to help people with their health. I went to classes, took the tests, and graduated from one of the largest chiropractic colleges in the United States as a Doctor of Chiropractic,” says Dr. Brian Dawson DC, author of the book Breaking the Profit Barrier –The Healthcare Practitioner’s Guide. Real pain and sorrow showed up early in my practice when I noticed there was not enough money to run the practice the way I wanted to and still help the most number of patients.”

Like many other healthcare practitioners having financial difficulty with their practices, Dr. Dawson attempted to seek the necessary help in order to salvage his practice and make it financially successful.

“I tried a few practice management consultants along the way which helped with other aspects of my practice, but this problem with the handling of money persisted. It really started to worry me,” he explains. “I didn’t seem to be going anywhere. I felt that I couldn’t reach the financial goals I had set for my practice or for my life. I had all these debts, but nothing to show for it.”

As with many health practitioners faced with seemingly never ending financial issues, the business end of running a healthcare practice began to be more than an annoyance or distraction. The bleak financial outlook began to seriously impinge on Dr. Dawson’s life.

“I have to admit that I was not happy during that time,” he says. “Because I was working just to pay bills, it took the fun out of practicing. I really liked treating my patients but I was usually worried or frustrated because I could not buy the things that I wanted for myself to enjoy life.”

The stressful financial situation also kept the practice from growing. Determined to succeed, however, Dr. Dawson continued to look for solutions that would help not only himself, but also other healthcare practitioners who were having similar business and financial difficulties.

After many years of investigation of various systems, Dr. Dawson realized the real root of the financial problems that many healthcare practitioners faced was one of proper money management. It was not so much an issue of how much money was coming into the practice; rather it was one of handling the cash flow of the practice in such a way that money was properly managed in order to make more money in the future.

“When people hear the words ‘money management’ they sometimes get the wrong idea,” notes Dr. Dawson. “Money management isn’t just accounting or keeping track of the money with billing and accounting software,” he says. “Money management has to do with what is basically a whole new way of thinking about money, cash flow, and finances. Done correctly, money management will put virtually any practice in control of their cash flow and on the road to growing profits stably.”

“The majority of us, even those who have gone to business school, are taught to manage money from a purely accounting point of view,” says financial and money management expert Sandra Simmons. “Accounting software is merely a look into the past and shows you where the money has been spent. True money management forces you to look into the future and invest in those things which are making you money. The correct money management point of view will get you to plan and predict how much income you expect for the week, and then set your budgets accordingly. It really is a forward looking point of view that puts the healthcare practitioner much more in charge of his or her financial future.”

Healthcare practitioners who use proper money management techniques have found that suddenly they feel much more in control of every aspect of their finances. Debt is rapidly reduced or eliminated, bills are paid in a very definite manner, and money is set aside to begin the process of building wealth for the practice.

Dr. Dawson actually combined forces with Sandra Simmons to form a company called Money Management Solutions. The company was specifically formed to help health practitioners, and business owners of every type to provide easy and workable financial solutions that they could use to resolve their financial situations.

Dr. Dawson and Ms. Simmons provide money management counseling services to those healthcare practitioners and business owners who would like individualized help. To that end, Money Management Solutions has an impressive track record of successfully turning businesses around so that they are well on the road to wealth and prosperity.

Knowing and learning how to run a business and performing the correct kind of money management practices can be a daunting task, Simmons and Dr. Dawson decided to automate the money management process to make it as easy as possible for businesses to get back on track.

“So after years of work, I helped launch our Money Management Business software,” he says. “As a Chiropractor, I knew that we had to have a software program that was going to be very easy to learn and use, so we’ve taken great care to make the information very user friendly and easy to understand. Most Doctors will find that they are up and running in a very short amount of time.”

Dr. Dawson is quick to point out that the money management software program is not meant to replace your current bookkeeping program, such as QuickBooks®. He emphasizes that it is definitely not billing software or an accounting program. It is a unique, one-of-a kind-money management program that works in conjunction with your bookkeeping program to put you on the road to financial wealth and success.

“You can learn to use the software program in less than 1 hour by watching video tutorials built into the program,” he says. “It is very easy to implement? You just fill in the blanks. You don’t have to think about it. The software does it for you. There is a simple interactive flowchart in the program to guide you all the way through each step. We’ve really tried to make it very user-friendly.”

In conclusion, Dr. Dawson promises that healthcare practitioners will see how easy it is to have more than enough money to meet your financial obligations and put the fun back into your practice. The software was specifically designed so that healthcare practitioners and business owners would not have to think about what to do with their money because the computer program does the money management and financial planning for you.

So, if you are a healthcare practitioner who is looking for ways to improve your practice, build wealth, achieve financial freedom, and devote more time to treating your patients, you owe it to yourself to find out more about money management solutions.

“I know about the challenges in the health care field,” states Dr. Dawson with great sincerity. “This Money Management software is my contribution to the Chiropractic profession to make these challenges become smaller, and make your purpose as a successful health care practitioner to grow larger each day so you can have more fun and help more patients!”

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For more information about money management or help with your healthcare practice, contact Dr. Brian Dawson, DC at 727.448.1011 or e-mail him at Brian@MoneyMgmtSolutions.com. To learn more about Dr. Brian’s Book for healthcare practitioners visit http://www.briandawsonbooks.com/

Small businesses that have money management and debt problems are anxiously waiting for the new credit card rules to go into effect in July 2010. But the majority of business owners need immediate debt relief. While the new rules will help, for some it will be too little, too late.

The main problem with using credit to finance your business is that it is a big risk. That risk, of course, is you are promising your future production to pay back that financial obligation in full and in a timely manner. There is really nothing wrong with using credit as long as there is virtually no risk involved in paying the money back. There is a lot wrong with being over your head in debt and being handcuffed to the credit cards. This is risky in the extreme, because with just one or two bad months, the house built on using credit lines can fall very quickly.

I am glad to see the new credit rules passed. What I am not happy about, however, is the length of time until credit issuers must comply. The current credit system has driven some individuals and businesses into bankruptcy and the rest of the nation to the very edge of financial disaster. The credit rules could have been mandated to be effective in 2 or 3 months rather than 18 months and it would help the economy now when it desperately needs it.

Living in a condition based on credit and debt is very, very risky. Done on a national scale, and helped along by exorbitant interest rates, over-limit fees, late charges, and a 22-day billing cycle, the nation’s consumers are $850 plus billion in credit debt and it is evident they are sinking fast. The new rules are a long overdue step in the right direction.

What are some of these new rules that everyone is talking about? Simply stated, the new rules prohibit:

- Placing unfair time constraints on payments. A payment could not be deemed late unless the borrower is given a reasonable period of time to pay. This would eliminate many of those exorbitant “late payment fees.”

- Placing too-high fees for exceeding the credit limit solely because of a hold placed on the account.

- Unfairly computing balances in a computing tactic known as double-cycle billing. This two-cycle method enables billing offices to charge interest on balances that were part of the previous month’s balance, even if the balance was paid in full.

- Unfairly adding security deposits and fees for issuing credit or making it available.

- Making deceptive offers of credit.

Two excellent provisions of the new rules are: 1) that customers will be given 45 days of notice before any changes are made to the terms of any account, including jacking their rate for missing a payment or paying a bill late, and 2) banks must apply payments (beyond the minimum) either to the balance with the highest rate or proportionally across all balances. The second one eliminates beyond the minimum payments to be applied to only to the lowest (or 0%) interest rate principals first.

When someone balance transfers to a zero interest rate card and then uses the card for purchases, the purchases are typically billed at a very high interest rate. What consumers fail to realize is that the bank will apply payments only to the zero interest balance while the higher rate purchase racks up interest charges until the entire zero balance principal is paid off. That sabotages the whole debt reduction strategy of the zero balance transfer.

While the Associated Press is calling the new rules the most sweeping clamp-down on the credit card industry in decades, I’m wondering why the clamp-down on the abuse took so long to be addressed, and why the banks are being given 18 months before the new laws go into effect. With modern technology we can move and make changes almost at the speed of light, so 18 months is like moving at the speed of a glacier.

As I have been doing for the past decade, I still advise business owners and consumers to use the 5 old-school money management tips on reducing debt that they can employ right now to start digging themselves out of debt and get their own personal economics healthy.

Money Management Strategy #1 – Stop Using Credit

The place to start is by locking away the credit cards and figuring out how to cut expenses back to function within your income. Unsurprisingly, this first step can take quite a bit of discipline. Paying operating expenses with credit cards can easily become a habit, and as a result, can rapidly build up debt for the small business.

Figure out ways to increase your income and instead use only cash. This is the single most effective action you can take to begin the process of debt reduction.

Money Management Strategy #2 – Never Spend More Money Than Your Company Makes

Paying for items with credit because you don’t have the cash is the recipe for economic slavery. Using credit in that manner commits your business’ future income to pay the credit company.

Business owners must get creative and find ways to increase the company’s income, and then use it to pay both current expenses and to pay off past credit debt. Additionally, a business owner must take a ruthless look at what expenses are absolutely necessary. Business expenditures should be expected to bring in more money, business, and income. If they don’t do this—don’t directly lead to the creation of more income in some way—then determine if the company can do without certain items in the short term.

Money Management Strategy #3 – Always Pay More Than the Minimum Payment

Set a goal to pay at least 3 to 5 times the minimum required payment on each credit card and line of credit. Paying the minimum amount due on credit payments is a financial trap that keeps you perpetually in debt.

An effective way to reduce the debt is to take 10% to 15% every week off the top of the company’s income and use it to pay down the debt. Don’t wait until the statement says the payment is due. Pay some on-line every week as soon as you earmark it for paying the debt. The added bonus is that you stop the daily interest compounding on the payment amount you made. That alone can save you thousands in interest over the long haul.

Money Management Strategy #4 – Never Spend Over Your Limit or Pay Late

Use old fashioned money management discipline and never sabotage your debt reduction program by getting hit with $25 to $39 over-the-limit or late fees. Banks, credit card companies, and other financial institutions make millions through financial penalties for being late or going over your credit limit. Worst of all, the money paid in penalties creates more debt.

Money Management Strategy #5 – Find Ways to Cut Expenses

While a fundamental requirement of any debt reduction program is more cash as fast as possible to pay the debt off, there is one important area that should not be considered an unnecessary expense. That area is marketing and promotion. Correct money management includes the continuous promotion of your company’s products and services. Marketing and advertising are areas you don’t want to stop spending on. Marketing is going to make you money and is a correct financial investment when properly done.

There is an old advertising saying that still holds true today: “When the economy is good you need to promote, and when the economy is bad you need to promote MORE!”

Whether an economy is in an economic depression, a recession, or is thriving, the above money management principals still apply. Money management for small business takes financial planning and discipline. Reducing debt is just one step in an overall program to ensure that a business will survive and make the maximum amount of money for the business owner. There are other steps in a successful money management program that can be taken to achieve your financial goals, and this will be addressed in future articles. For now, reduce that debt and improve the financial health of your own economy.

For more information about steps you can take to reduce your debt, sign up to receive the FREE Debt Reduction Solutions Guide. If you need further help with a debt management program, send an email to Sandra Simmons, President of Money Management Solutions, Inc. at info@MoneyMgmtSolutions.com  or call (727)448-1011

I find I cannot withhold my comments any longer on this topic of budgeting software. I see too many articles that pretend to be about budgeting software when the author knows nothing about what the word budget actually means. I don’t like it when incorrect information is served up to the public.

Here are some examples of what I find offensive:

A recent article posted on the internet states that “Budgeting software is a computer program that creates a profit or loss plan from data entered into the software. Some of the data to be entered may include earnings and expenditures.” Sorry, but that is NOT budgeting software, that is accounting software.

The correct definition of the word BUDGET is: the amount of money it takes for the organization or household to function, and to attain its goals.

Here’s the good news: living on a budget does not mean you have to cut back on the quality of the things you buy or deny yourself anything fun. What it does mean, is that you have to figure out how to make enough money to afford the things you want, now and in the future, and to keep your spending within the limits of your income.

Therefore, a correct budget is partially a computation of what you have spent in the past and partially a calculation of how much money you will need for specific items in the future to achieve your financial goals. Budgeting is a useless activity unless you use it to do income planning and spending planning. Accounting software does not do that for you. It only records what happened in the past and cannot help you predict the future or plan future actions.

That same article states, “There are many different types of budgeting software…” I challenge the author of that article to name three or four budgeting software products on the market that are not, in fact, accounting software. I can name one; Money Management Solutions, and it is NOT accounting software, it is what its name implies, money management software.

And yet another useless statement pretending to be good information is this one from that article, “Any sort of budgeting software can be used to keep track of a personal budget…” Well, it is a useless activity to keep track of a budget, unless you add the useful steps of using the information to plan your financial future and manage your money in a way that guarantees you will achieve your financial goals. Just keeping track of what you spent is a waste of time, unless you use it as part of the whole money management equation of planning the steps to take to reach those goals.

And finally this statement which has nothing to do with budgeting software, and everything to do with accounting software, and so becomes a misrepresentation of the facts to the reader, “Money management software is some of the most comprehensive software on the market today. Products such as Quicken and Microsoft Money will keep track of individual account information with various types of accounts such as checking, savings, and investments. These programs can also track credit card spending and alert you when you have overspent on your monthly budget.”

In fact, Money Management Software is PLANNING software which is used to plan and execute the actions you can take to reach your financial goals. Therefore, you won’t need an alert that you overspent your budget; you’ll know BEFORE you are going to overspend and make the necessary adjustments so that doesn’t happen. Accounting software, like Quicken and Microsoft Money, is RECORDING software and can only tell you what happened in the past.

Making financial decisions for the future based only on what happened with your money in the past is a dangerous activity. For example, if you read an article in Money Magazine that is raving about some stock that had double digit increases over the past 5 years, and you bought that investment based only on the record of past performance, you could lose your money the next day.

What should you do BEFORE you make that investment decision? You should do your own research into the stock and make an investment decision based on YOUR belief that the future plans of that company will continue to deliver double digit increases.

Bottom line, don’t believe everything you read about budgeting software that is really accounting software. Accounting software serves its purpose to record what happened so we can file our tax returns. I use it myself. If we ever get the FairTax passed and we don’t have to file tax returns any more, I’ll still use my Money Management Software because it is my planning tool to make sure I stay on the road to achieving Financial Freedom.

If your business isn’t doing as well as it used to; isn’t making enough income to meet your financial goals; the money management solution activity called Income Planning says it boils down to ONE THING…

The one thing you need to investigate is WHAT CHANGED. I’m not talking about looking outside your business at the economy, or the fact a competitor opened up down the street. That is something the practice owner can’t control. I’m talking about what changed inside the practice. Something did. It may be hard to spot, but investigating what changed can reverse the falling statistics immediately.

Here’s one example. I started working one-on-one with an optometrist who bought the Money Management Solutions software program. As part of the weekly money management process, we spent a great deal of time on income planning, and focused on promoting the business.

An investigation into what promotional activities had worked well in the past revealed that some of the most successful had been dropped out over time. Those were immediately put back into action, and the new patient and income statistics started going back up. We brainstormed creative new promotional ideas focused on new, innovative products and tested those.

In just a few weeks the new patient statistic increased even more. So far so good, but we weren’t satisfied yet.

Correct money management says it’s smart to have several sources of income so if one dries up, your cash flow is still okay. I noticed the optometrist most enjoyed talking about her work designing a line of signature sunglasses. Hmmm. Here we were trying to increase her current practice and she had much of her attention focused on a manufacturing-for-retail venture.

So what else had changed? She finally realized she was BORED with her current practice.  While she loves her work, the one practice was no longer a big enough game for her. She was trying to develop a bigger game to play by going into the sunglass design business, which is great, but, even that wasn’t enough. The discovery that she was bored, that opened the floodgates of opportunity!

What did she do to relieve her boredom? Last month she partnered up with another optometrist and they bought 6 failing optometry practices that had tons of potential all at once. That’s right, SIX! Needless to say, she is no longer bored.

By using the money management software  on a weekly basis for each of the new clinics, they turned a profit the very first month. Her financial statistics are on the rise, she is enthusiastic about her business again, and, to top it off, her first sunglass design just got delivered from the manufacturer, and they are gorgeous!

If your business was doing well in the past, but income and patient counts have been going down, then correct money management, and finding out what changed, can quickly lead to renewed growth. A great tool to help you find out what changed is Dr. Brian Dawson’s new book Breaking the Profit Barrier – The Healthcare Practitioners Guide so check out this book!

If you would like a money management consultation regarding your practice or business, contact Sandra Simmons at 727-448-1011 or email her at info@MoneyMgmtSolutions.com . Or visit her website at  http://www.moneymgmtsolutions.com/.

© 2008 Sandra S. Simmons. All Rights Reserved.