Annual accounts are needed for two principal purposes - to assess the financial performance of the practice, and to see how much tax the partners have to pay. There are a lot of other peripheral reasons too - to provide income confirmation for mortgage and student grant purposes, to quantify a partner's capital entitlement on leaving the partnership, and so on.

To satisfy all of these different uses, the accounts must first of all be accurate, and we go to great lengths to ensure that they are. To serve as a tool for management, they must be clearly presented and easily understood. We have developed a format for these over the years which we believe achieves this - or so our existing GP clients assure us!

The process starts before we even receive the practice records, by discussing the accounting system (manual or computerised) with the practice manager or financial partner. This will identify any obvious shortcomings in the records, and allow these to be put right and improve the information flow from them. When the records come in, they are immediately checked for completeness, and any missing bits notified to the practice straight away to avoid hold ups when the accounts preparation is commenced. If the practice uses a computerised accounting package, we can accept the 'books' in floppy disk format, or even by e-mail, saving the practice loads of printing out. We support McLean McNicoll (both DOS and Windows versions), Quickbooks and Sage.

The analysis of income and expenditure, and the preparation of draft accounts is carried by one of our team of dedicated specialists. They are constantly on the look out for missed claims or reimbursements of key expenses as they meticulously analyse income and expenditure. Draft accounts are sent out to the practice as soon as they have been completed - usually within four working weeks of us receiving the records - along with various statistical comparisons. These include an Inter-Practice Comparison comparing all key elements of income and expenditure on a 'Per patient' and 'Per partner' basis with all other practices for whom we act (completely anonymously of course).

A meeting is then arranged for an experienced partner or client adviser to go over the accounts with the partners in detail, and ensure that they have a clear understanding of these and any underlying trends that may be evident. The meeting is usually at the practice premises at a time which is convenient to the partners - lunchtimes or evenings are popular.

Prior to that meeting, the partner/client adviser will undertake a very detailed review of the figures, carrying out 'benchmark' comparisons of all key elements of income, expenditure and reimbursement of costs. He will bring to the meeting any further analyses required to provide the fullest possible understanding of the accounts.

The purpose of all of this is to ensure that the partners -

		when asked to sign the accounts, believe that they are an accurate depiction of the profit of the practice, and of its financial standing at the date of the accounts
		understand what steps they can take to improve practice profitability
		and of course to have the annual discussion about what the partners' capital accounts mean, and why they are important!

For some practices, we also prepare Management Accounts. Go to this section to find out why, and to see if your practice might benefit from these.