The Dental Business Guide
Preparing Your Dental Practice for a Successful Sale: Strategies and Insights
Is your dental practice ready for sale? Many dentists find themselves unprepared for the complex process of selling their practice, especially in today’s volatile market. Aaron and Dan are here to guide you through every critical step. Starting with an analysis of current market trends, we unpack the growing preference for private squat practices amid high-interest rates and a slowdown in corporate acquisitions. Discover why it's crucial to adapt your business model now and how to navigate the economic uncertainties that might otherwise delay your plans.
Planning to sell your practice involves more than just a decision—it's a strategic, multi-year endeavor. With Aaron and Dan’s expertise, you'll learn why planning at least two years ahead is essential for maximizing your practice's value. We discuss whether to sell outright or retain elements like the freehold, and the implications of staying on post-sale. Plus, uncover the importance of accurate financial data, specialist advisory teams, and a strong network to attract serious buyers. Don't miss this episode loaded with valuable insights for any dentist contemplating the sale of their practice.
Is your dental practice ready for sale? Many dentists find themselves unprepared for the complex process of selling their practice, especially in today’s volatile market. Aaron and Dan are here to guide you through every critical step. Starting with an analysis of current market trends, we unpack the growing preference for private squat practices amid high-interest rates and a slowdown in corporate acquisitions. Discover why it's crucial to adapt your business model now and how to navigate the economic uncertainties that might otherwise delay your plans.
Planning to sell your practice involves more than just a decision—it's a strategic, multi-year endeavor. With Aaron and Dan’s expertise, you'll learn why planning at least two years ahead is essential for maximizing your practice's value. We discuss whether to sell outright or retain elements like the freehold, and the implications of staying on post-sale. Plus, uncover the importance of accurate financial data, specialist advisory teams, and a strong network to attract serious buyers. Don't miss this episode loaded with valuable insights for any dentist contemplating the sale of their practice.
Good evening everybody. Good evening, hello and welcome to this webinar that we're doing this evening, and it's all about preparing your dental practice or sale. My name is Aaron and I'm based here in Surrey. Tonight I'm actually a lovely, quite sunny evening, so I'm quite lucky, and I'm lucky to be joined by my colleague, dan. Hi Dan, how are you doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm very good, aaron, how are you doing?
Speaker 1:Yeah, all good, all good. So the intention tonight is not to take up your evening certainly isn't. It's just to share with you some salient points and information from our kind of greyhead experience of dealing with the sale of dental practices and we've got plenty of greyhead experience around that. Okay, so, without, without further ado, I'll launch some slides. Hopefully this will work. Can you see them, dan? Yeah.
Speaker 1:I can see the slides? Perfect right, so we'll crack these on. So, preparing your dental practice for sale. Now a little bit of background if you don't know who I am. My name is Arun and I'm the owner and CEO of Samara Business Advisors. I've been doing this for about 20 odd years, working with dentists of all shapes and sizes all practice sales for the last 20 odd years. I'm a trained chartered accountant with PwC many years back, and I used to work in banking king, um, and I also wear another hat. I also own the neem tree dental group, a small group down here based in surrey and london, um, where I kind of, I suppose, get a lot of my ideas and thoughts to share to other clients, um. So experience in the dental sector is significant. And then we have, dan, have it yourself. Do you want to give a bit of background about yourself?
Speaker 2:just one quick. I really hate that picture, erin, by the way. I think we need to update that. But, um, yeah, just me. So, um, I worked for rbs for 20 years. Um, in the last 10 years of that I was in the healthcare department, so just dealing with, you know, doctors, uh, dentists, etc. And I've been working at samira now for five years, mainly on the finance side, but also looking at practice sales.
Speaker 1:So a lot of experience, like like you said, really in terms of dental sure, and I think, yeah, and I think, dan dan's, as he said, he's worked in health care from donkeys years, I think, from 16, by the sounds of it, isn't it?
Speaker 2:no, it's all starting to catch up with me now and I'm looking older and older as it goes by and where we all are.
Speaker 1:So, so right, let's crack on um. So what's happening in the market? So I'll the way we'll run this today. I'll probably talk a little bit about the slides, and dan will kind of add his value to the slides as well and his thoughts, um, and then we'll kind of move through this. So, in my thought process, is that, up until kind of liz trust kind of made a disaster of the economy a few years back there, it seems to be quite a buoyant market in dentistry post that things have literally dropped significantly. Um. What we've seen, though, though, is a real shift to buyers not actually buying practices, but actually opening up squat practices. Private squat practices all shapes and sizes all across the UK, and they're all private, tend to be private unless they've got a lucky to get an NHS contract if they want it. And with the interest rates remaining high, we've seen people not resisting but holding back on purchasing. Um, now the the indication. There's no guarantee the indication to interest rates may fall over the next few months, um, but with an election coming up, who knows?
Speaker 1:okay, um prediction on another, uh webinar that it'll be going down by september, so I'm hoping that it will go down soon, yeah, fair enough, but but I think, if I I don't know what you, your thought is on this, dan, but people have held back, but there's only a certain point that you can hold back to ultimately, you want to move in with your lives. If you want to buy a practice or set up a practice, you can wait a year, we wait 18 months or two years, but ultimately, life is flying by and if you have this aspiration to do it, it's it's. It's not necessarily the wisest thing just to keep waiting. You've got to adapt your business model, but you need to do that. I don't know what do you think?
Speaker 2:yeah, I agree, I think we have had that sort of wait and see model, I suppose because people have got used to that lower base rate in the past and when the base rate started moving up people had that time. So let's hopefully would start going down. But you know, in the past base rate has always been sitting around sort of four, five percent. So it the unusual bit was the low base rate. Obviously, what, what we've got now is probably more like that we've we've had in the past.
Speaker 1:So I agree, I think people now are accepting what, what the price of funds are and and moving forward and say, if you want to go to that next step of becoming a practice owner, they're coming back into the market now yeah, okay, and I think the other, the other side of the coin is that corporate acquisition has certainly slowed down, um, we're starting to see signs of this restarting, and they all present an argument, say, oh, we never stopped buying, okay, but the reality is that they they're they stop buying by just slowing down effectively, or being much more picky, or their terms are much more onerous, that sellers wouldn't sell to them, ok. So I think they're exposed to the debt markets as well. And they've got high, they're highly leveraged. A lot of these groups are so backed by certain private equity groups, backed by certain private equity groups. So if they're borrowing and their interest rates have gone up, the the desire to acquire um suddenly slows down.
Speaker 1:So we've really seen a real? Um change in the market behavior. But, but and I do say but, having been in this industry a long time, having dealt with businesses for a long time um, I think we're going to start turning a corner. Assuming kind of there's no major kind of economic shocks that come our way in the next 12 months, I think we'll start seeing buying happening again. Um, and that's that's kind of my thought process anyway.
Speaker 2:So and I think I think also dental always seems to ride out the waves. You know I worked for ibs like 2008 when everything was falling apart but dental still done well there and even the bank that wasn't doing too great was still lending that market. So I still think it's quite a robust sector. That sort of continues really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, cool, and then. So now in terms of valuation. So historically, the models or valuations would be based on turnover as a percentage, but what we see now is everything's based on EBITDA, that's ultimately a measure of profitability, and what that stands for is earnings before interest, tax depreciation and amortization, and ultimately that's the number that one party can think what EBITDA is and another party could think it's different. Ok, so it's important to have accurate accounts but then, at the same time, determine an EBITDA that is realistic. Now, the way then the practices are then valued is based on the multiples of the EBITDA, and that depends on location, the size of practices or private, and also whether it's a owner operator kind of practice or it's associate led. So, dan, do you want to run through these figures here? Just to give an idea?
Speaker 2:yeah, so we just gave us sort of a broad sort of outline, just based on a couple of regions that we've we've picked based on, like, if they're owner-occupiers, really, and what we're seeing, what the possible EBITDA calculations could be. So obviously London is slightly higher. That's probably got a number of factors because certain areas in London that people want to be in and also, I suppose in terms of staffing as well, because people want to move to London, so it is higher where you know, maybe possibly the southwest could be slightly lower in terms of that because, you know, not as many people live there and obviously getting associates to move to that area could be slightly harder. So it does give.
Speaker 1:Obviously these are not set in stone, like you said, because the practice that we're looking at will have a factor in that, but it's just given a flavor of what we're seeing in the market really, sure, and I think we haven't put it on here, but if you, if you is a, if it's an associate, an associate led practice where the practice owner isn't working within the practice, then we might see a higher EBITDA multiple yeah, you could be say london, it could be seven, possibly eight, you know, depending on the practice yeah, correct, yeah, right.
Speaker 1:So I think we've got a real range of. But just to give you an idea, so if you're looking to work out your EBITDA, then you can potentially apply multiple and then you'll kind of get a kind of very back of the MRI idea, yeah, of how much your practice may be worth. Um, so when you're getting to um, if you're, if you're thinking about selling, okay, you need to do some planning, okay, um, and it's not kind of thing you wake up one morning and say, oh, I want to sell my practice. If you're going to do it that way, you really won't get the best value for your practice. Um, so, dan, you're not gonna run through these points here.
Speaker 2:Actually, yeah, so in terms of the, the planning side of things, I suppose you know, like you said, really is not just thinking one day I'm gonna, you know, sell my practice.
Speaker 2:It's probably maybe two years in that you start thinking about that and planning, going forward, um and I suppose you need to decide what you want to do once you sell as well, because you know you may want to retire, which is fine, but then you may also have the option that you want to sell the practice and then maybe stay on at that site. So the things that you probably need to consider is you know the person you're selling to do you like them? Can you work with them? Because that's quite important, because you could sell the practice to them. And if you don't like them, so you could have that issue where you actually, when you meet the person, take an option of maybe selling the practice slightly at a cheaper rate because you like the person. You think, actually, going forward, you can work with them.
Speaker 2:And then, in terms of the goodwill side of things is you need to decide what you're selling, what you're selling. So if you own the freehold and the goodwill, you know, do you want to retain the freehold or do you just want to sell the goodwill element of the practice sort of going forward? So you sort of need to have a plan in mind when you're sort of going forward in terms of the, the sale yeah, valid point.
Speaker 1:And I think if you're potentially, if you're perhaps a larger practice, okay and you're looking to sell to a group, I think you've got to be realistic. And if you're potentially, if you're perhaps a larger practice, okay and you're looking to sell to a group, I think you've got to be realistic. And if you're working in that practice as a clinician, even if it's a couple of days a week, okay, they're going to want you to stay in that practice for a prolonged period of time and tie you in for maybe anything between three and five years time. So you've got to be realistic. If you're selling that particularly to a group now, if you're selling that's particularly to a group now, if you're selling it to an individual and it's still a big practice, they may still want to retain you as well. So you've got to factor all of this into, kind of your, your game plan for life.
Speaker 2:Um, if that makes sense and again, I suppose in in terms of the selling, the practice, to say if you could choose not to sell to a group, if you wanted to exit quicker, you may again take a slightly lower offer if they're giving you the option to sort of exit maybe in six months, like you're saying, instead of being tied in for two, three years where the payment for the practice could be staged. You know they pay you a certain percentage up front and then another after performance of the practice. So you know you've got a way in a number of factors in terms of who you're selling to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, all right. So then, moving on to premises, as Dan mentioned, is freehold, leasehold, repairs, all this stuff. So, dan, do you want to kind of give us a heads up on this?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So just what we're talking about in terms of the freehold is that you know, do you want to sell the freehold or do you want to retain that? Um, possibly something that you might need to think about if there's maybe debt on the freehold that would be outstanding post-sale, you may need to sort of speak to the lender on that, that they're happy for you to keep that freehold because obviously the the terms on that, because at the freehold you'd be, you know, opco, propco, operator, you know there. So it may be that slightly changed. So you may need to speak to the lender in terms of that. If it's a lease that you're looking to sort of, you know you could be looking to lease the freehold to someone. So you've got the freehold that you're going to keep and you might need to create a lease for the new person coming in. So normally for the finance they'll need like a 15 year lease, so you would need to get that put in place beforehand for them. And then, on the other side, if it's just a leasehold property that you own, if the lease is running down, the same scenario would be that you'd need to create a longer lease.
Speaker 2:The problem that we sometimes find in in terms of sales is they've got to the point they want to sell sell the practice but they haven't done anything about the lease. And if you've got a third party involved, they don't actually care in terms of how quickly the paperwork needs to get sorted out and what needs to be done. And also it opens up the opportunity that if you're a bit desperate to get a new lease in place, that they could take advantage of that. So if you give yourself a long run up in terms of that, you could get all those items sort of squared off before you sort of bring it to market. Then you've got that lease in place and you haven't got those delays in terms of the creating the new lease, repairs and decorations on.
Speaker 2:In terms of that it's. It's not about spending hundreds of thousand pounds on new equipment at the practice because that won't be cost effective for you. It's more about is there some sort of bits that need a little bit of tidying up? A bit like when you're selling your house. You know there'll be a couple of rooms that maybe need a bit of decoration, so to make sure it's it's looking okay. What you're trying to do is get away from people chipping away at your price. Because if they say, oh, if I have to come in here I'm gonna have to do this, I may need to do this. If, if you can sort of clear that stuff off, then hopefully when they're looking around the practice, it's more in their, their mind. They're sort of, yeah, that all looks fine. That all looks fine. So it's just getting everything nice up on its toes ready to go.
Speaker 2:And the due diligence side of things. These are stuff that the the solicitor will need from you at some point in terms of the practice. So you know your cqc, you know fire risk assessments and stuff like that. You need to start getting that paperwork together because again, you don't want the sale to delay because you haven't got all your paperwork up straight and the solicitors chasing you for paperwork. So there's a lot of stuff that you you'll need to look at. You know asbestos checks, you know, know maybe some of the oldest sort of properties, but again it's something that you'll need to go through to make sure it's all there ready for the solicitor, because what you want is a nice smooth sale and you don't want you holding up the items really Sure Cool.
Speaker 1:And then on the other side of the coin which we haven't mentioned that, but this is kind of something that we are really kind of focusing on okay is the accounting and finance side, and I think we we see buyers getting information from practice or from sales agents, um, with accounts that might be two years or even three years old sometimes, I think I have one today.
Speaker 2:Someone sent me 2002 accounts for 20 22, not 2002, yeah, 2022 yeah, so yeah, they sent me those accounts and there's nothing you can do really with them. The dates are so out of date and all all that happens in that situation is you. You have to go back and ask for more. You know, I need the up-to-date accounts. You know 2023s I need some management information. I don't understand why you would bring it to market with such old figures. Really Correct correct.
Speaker 1:So I think, firstly, it's essential. So where are we now? We're in May, june, june. So if are we now, we're in June. So if you were thinking of selling, yeah, we're in June, okay, the year flies by already. If you were thinking of, kind of, I'm ready to go on to sell my practice honestly if your year end is at March 24, okay, I would strongly advise you have the March 24 annual accounts all done and dusted, okay, before you do that, in addition to that, really, what you want to have is the last 12 months, and it's known as usually LTM management accounts. Now, if you're looking at selling to a group or anyone kind of who's got kind of investors and private equity involved, they will always look at last 12 months trading. Okay to see, actually, does it corroborate with, say, the previous years? Because that will. That's what they'll base their valuation on, that data.
Speaker 1:Um, increasingly, individual buyers are requesting this information. Because the banks are requesting this information. They want to see up-to-date financial information before they say you know, we're going to lend you a million quid or whatever it may be. So this, this is, this is, I think, is where it's going to go in the marketplace. I think you won't be. It's hard to sell a dental practice at the moment. You make it a lot harder if you don't have this information to hand. Okay, um, and for a buyer, they'll say well, if that information is not there, you'll think you know what, forget it, I'm not gonna do it, I'm not interested, um, it's just, it's too many risks, too many unknowns. So you need to be transparent, you need to provide this information.
Speaker 1:So, as I said earlier, in this client climate, buyers and lenders want to see an up-to-date and accurate history and don't put your practice on the market, certainly if you don't have the annual accounts, and ideally you want the last 12 months management information. So when I say last 12 months managing accounts, everything should be on the thing. Now, if you're running a practice, you should be having your books done every month. Okay, on something like zeros, quick books. So the bookkeeping's done, okay. If you're not doing that, that's the first step before you even get to the point of thinking about selling in practice. Get yourself, get yourself an order and again, we can help you there.
Speaker 1:Now, how can you get the best valuation? Um, again, before you put it on the market, you need to think about how you can do, what you can do to improve your valuation. Now, if you've got the managing information, you'll be able to see trends, okay, and you need to think okay, are there things that I can increase turnover, could I change pricing, can I increase the profits? But similarly, you might think, well, actually are there areas that I can reduce costs, such as materials or utilities and that type of thing? And so, again, we can help. We help clients join our buying group where we help people save money on the materials, utility costs, all those types of things.
Speaker 1:In addition, you want to have staff contracts in place.
Speaker 1:You need to make sure everyone has a contract.
Speaker 1:It needs to be very clear that what they're getting paid, what are they being paid for, okay, um.
Speaker 1:So I think that's really important and increasingly now what we're doing is, when we do a valuation of a practice, we're using last 12 months data, we're hooking up, we're gaining access to um zero for the client or quickbooks for the client, and then actually, from those last 12 months data are able to provide an up-to-date valuation of the practice based on the 12 month data, um.
Speaker 1:So we'll get an ebitda for the client and then, actually, from those last 12 months data are able to provide an up-to-date evaluation of the practice based on the 12-month data, um. So we'll get an ebitda for the last 12 months based on the information sitting in quickbooks or zero, and that means that information needs to have been done properly, accurately and up to date. If it's garbage in, then the result will be garbage out. So that's an essential aspect, um, but that will then give you an accurate valuation based on the current marketplace. Um. And I think and the last point you've kind of pushed here, dan it's not just a sales brochure. You want to talk about that from a bank's perspective yeah.
Speaker 2:So we, when we look at the figures because sometimes I see we, you know, work on the finance side we we get sales figures in from from other agents and you know we look at that and we try and look at how a bank would look at the financials and the EBITDA figures and the add-backs that they've done. And sometimes what is being added back probably is not right and it doesn't get to the right figures, how a bank would look at those figures really. So it's really sort of looking a bank would look at those figures really. So it's it's really sort of looking at. When we look at the these figures, we're looking at how a bank would present it and how those figures will be again relied on by the lenders.
Speaker 2:Because, like your point, really in terms of the EBITDA stuff, if, if the EBITDA is wrong and the figures are wrong, it gives the buyer the opportunity to chip away at your price again because they can come back and say, well, that's not actually right, you've added back in that figure. I don't think that's correct because that figure is going to be there going forward. So we try and look at very much how a lender would look at the EBITDA figures and we try and get to that right figure. So again, it can be relied on by the buyers. They, they, will pay the price that you want for your practice yeah, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So, as I mentioned earlier, I think, if you want to get the best valuation, provide access to zero or QuickBooks. Firstly, make sure you have zero and QuickBooks set up and you're doing the bookkeeping, okay, and then provide access to that data. Becausebooks Firstly, make sure you have zero and QuickBooks set up when you're doing the bookkeeping, okay, and then provide access to that data, because then we can review the accounts, we can assess the quality of the bookkeeping first and then ultimately provide a valuation based on the most recent EBITDA, because if you're then using recent data, the buyers can't argue and it's going to be a lot harder for them to chip away at the price, as dan mentioned. Um, yeah, so I think that that's those. That's a really.
Speaker 2:These are really important points I think it's key getting the right sort of. You know you want that right ebitda figure because if that's driving the value of the practice, you know that needs to be correct and it needs to be with the right information. So Because if you're putting data in that's two years old, you know how do they know what they're buying. You know the lenders are not going to rely on it because they won't lend. So you're not going to be able to sell the practice and obviously it makes it opens up opportunities to say to chip away. And I think a few times. You know if all your accounts are not up to date, they'll chip away at your price. If there's items in the practice that need a bit of refurbishment, they'll chip away at your price. So what you're trying to do is create an area where you've covered every point that you can so that the price that you want for your practice you're going to receive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, agreed, agreed, okay. So then specialist advisors who do they need Dan? Yeah, so.
Speaker 2:I think yeah, an accountant.
Speaker 1:Got one here sitting here. We've been doing it 20-odd years. There's not much we haven't seen. We're very much a digital-first accountancy firm, so everything's on Xero or QuickBooks. We use all the latest technology and any client that we have we strongly encourage to be on those types of platforms, because that then can help you make sure that you have accurate accounts, because then, if you get accurate accounts, you can have an accurate valuation and therefore ultimately hopefully get the price that you deserve for your practice. Ok, so that's my hard sell. Who else?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the sales agent. So obviously it's Samira. We can undertake that work for you as well.
Speaker 2:We've got experience in the dental market and, like you say, we've got an accountancy firm. We've also got a finance brokerage as well. So you know we've got a lot of experience in terms of the sector. So obviously we can give you the information that you need. The solicitor's point is quite important as well, because there are solicitors out there that could be cheaper than dental solicitors. But what you'll find is the transaction will probably take longer because they won't understand what they're doing. So you may pay slightly more for a dental specialist solicitor, but they're certainly worth paying. And in terms of the finance brokerage side of things, again, what we you know we've we've got plenty of buyers out there that are looking. You know we speak to them every day in terms of what they're looking for, in terms of practices and and obviously we will do like a pre-assessment of them of what they can afford. So that helps in terms of sort of cutting down on time wasters where people are looking at the practice but probably can't afford it.
Speaker 1:Sure and yeah, right, and I think that's important. When we as a finance brokerage, we will always vet buyers okay to say, well, if they want to buy a million-pound practice, but they can only afford a half a million-pound practice, we won't even put that type of buyer forward. Okay, yeah. And in addition, I think we've got so much experience in that finance side of things, I think now it's important to realise that you need buyers who have got the funds to do it. Otherwise it's a waste of time. Now in our database we have a database of about four and a half thousand uk dentists, okay, who we email regularly, um, so we have a big reach. When we're sending out any particular details about a practice, um, we get a good response usually from from such things okay, so definitely, uh, uh, you need specialist advisors, um, so do you want to cover this?
Speaker 2:that slide down yeah, I think a lot of this stuff is is what we spoke about, isn't it really? In terms of the experience that we had within the sector. So, see, you know we've got practice, sales, finance and accountancy. So, you see, me was very much, you know, geared up to help dentists in the market, really, and so we've got many years experience. Like you said, you've got 20 years. I've got 20 odd years and then nigel's got slightly more.
Speaker 2:But, like I said, we've got a big reach in terms of, you know, the network that we have.
Speaker 2:You know we, we've got a lot on.
Speaker 2:You know, we reach out to a lot of people in terms of linkedin, um, you know the, the emails that we we send out.
Speaker 2:So we've got a lot of people that we we can reach out to, to to take any sale forward.
Speaker 2:And you, you know the information that we're preparing for clients is information that we want to receive in terms of for the finance, because working with the finance team is that you know, if I sent, say to Nigel, if I sent him, you know, 2022 accounts for a practice that I'm looking to sell, I'd imagine he would come back to me quite strongly and say that this has not been packaged in the right way. So what we're trying to do in terms of the packaging is everything that's going out is how we would want to see it coming through, and making sure that we're covering off all the points that we need. So, one, you can sell the packages quickly and, two, know the buyers are able to to raise the finance that they need, because you know, if they can't raise the finance unless you find those cash buyers which are great out there, but you know that they will need a bank support and they need all that information to take that forward.
Speaker 1:Sure, and I think, if I give you my own experience, as I said earlier, we own dental clinics ourselves, we've sold dental clinics ourselves, and the way we've always done it is by making sure we have up-to-date management information, making sure that we have everything aligned already and then, once we get to that point, we can sell. Okay, um, now you might have all that ready. And my view is if, in my personal opinion is, you should always be ready to sell your practice, okay, um, because you never know who might come knocking on door, on your door, with a, with a big check. Therefore, have these things ready, have the management accounts, have the cqc paperwork ready, have the leasing ready, all these type of things. Get. Get yourself organized, okay, because you just don't know who's going to knock on the door, what the opportunity, opportunity that can come around to you. Okay, so we have, we can certainly help in that respect. Um, what type of information do they need, dan?
Speaker 2:yeah, so this is, I suppose, going through everything that we we would need. So, obviously, the last three years practice accounts, um, and obviously having the, the pnl in there would would be great. Obviously, the, the access to the online, online bookkeeping this is something that we're really trying to push because we can then give real time sort of valuations on the practice. We're using the last sort of 12 months data, which would be useful. Obviously, that sort of feeds into the management information, management information.
Speaker 2:Or see if you've got an nhs contract. You know people will want to see that you know the contract's performing. You know that you're up to date on your udas. Again, the, the one I looked at today, they had an nhs contract but they didn't send any nhs contract details, which is quite a key part to the application, really. So it's, it's these type of things.
Speaker 2:You know the patient plan. If you've got a patient plan in place, you know, yeah, who's using it, how many people using it, um, staff breakdowns, like you were saying in terms of that. Have they all got their contracts? What are they being paid? You know how much everyone that works in the practice. You know you need to understand who's getting paid and when. Obviously, cqc registration. Most of that should be up to date, and then any other relevant information. If there's certain things in terms of your practice that people need to know, so these questions don't come up later on, you know, let us know and obviously we'll build that into the report because, again, it's just trying to make sure that everything's covered off in that initial application.
Speaker 1:Really, okay, cool. So how do? How do people help? How do we help people dad?
Speaker 2:yeah, so they can just reach out to me. So if they want to have a chat um individually, um free of charge, in terms of their, their practice and what they want to do going forward, these are my contact details. They can either drop me an email, you know, give me a or if they want to book a call directly with me at a time that's convenient to them, then just use those links on there and then they can book a slot.
Speaker 1:And so we'll be happy to help and have a chat.
Speaker 1:Sure, if you go to the samaracouk website, you can see Dan's profile there. You can book a time, a call, with him. Alternatively, you want to book a call with me? I'm happy to have a chat as well.
Speaker 1:Um, and as I think, just to kind of wrap up today, I think it's all about planning and organizing yourself and having the conversation, um, with someone like ourselves to help you. Um, we're there to support you. We're there to support you to get the best kind of deal available that may be out there. Um, and it's also we're there to support you. We're there to support you to get the best kind of deal available that may be out there. And we're also there to advise you, to say, if we think it's not a good deal as well, okay, and to hold fire. Or maybe it might be a couple of years down the line and your practice isn't quite right. We'll tell you what you need to do to change. This is what you need to implement. Do X, y, z, and then we can help you. So, um, we're here to help contact dan or contact myself, and, uh, we'd be delighted to help you.
Speaker 2:Okay, so, and just sort of one other point, if everyone you know, we spoke about material costs and we mentioned the buying group. Um, if anyone wants to join the buying group, it's free of charge to join. Um, and we've got loads of companies on there. So we've got a company that helps with cqc, we've got a consumables company on there, um, we've also got a patient plan um company on there as well, and some that helps with utilities. So, um, if, if you want to look at your costs and to help increase your bottom line, like like you're saying, aaron, you know it's a bit of a running, so if you can start getting that done now, um, yeah, just again, reach out to me on that.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to drop the details through to you, sure, and I think just on the accounting side of things. Lastly, if you're not on a platform like zero, if you're not getting bookkeeping done every month, you don't have up-to-date information. Um, firstly, I would strongly suggest you did, okay. And then, secondly, if you need some help with it or anything, just reach out to me. Me and my accounting team can certainly help and put some structure and organisation into your finances, which will only help you, not just for selling, but just generally for your practice, for your taxes, for everything. Okay. So we're here to help and, on that note, we've been talking about 30 minutes, or just over 30 minutes. Um, I'd like to say thank you to everyone. If there's any questions, we'll hold fire a minute, because I know there's always a slight delay. There might be a question or two that may come through, any final thoughts from you, dan. Otherwise, if we wait for any questions, otherwise we'll end there.
Speaker 2:No, just to say if someone obviously sometimes on this forum people don't want, so yeah, if they just want to reach out to us directly, we're more than happy to have a conversation with them and say it's a pre-initial conversation, so just reach out to us, sure.
Speaker 1:And finally, I will be. This is all recorded. I will be sharing this video on YouTube and through our database as well, so you can always watch this again or share it with anyone you want to as well. Okay, so thanks very much. I don't have any questions this evening, which is fine, and have a lovely remainder of the evening. Thank you, good night. See you later, bye, bye.