Closing the Year in Dentrix

As year-end approaches, dental offices begin the process of closing their fiscal year in Dentrix. The Dentrix Customer Support team wants to help make that process as easy as possible by providing some helpful advice and tips. This article provides information we have found to be helpful in addressing three common questions that frequently arise at this time of the year.

1. How do I close out the year? Are there special utilities or processes that I should run?

Dentrix does not require a special process for closing the year. All you have to do to close the year is to close the last month of the fiscal year using the Month End Wizard. After you have closed the last month of the fiscal year, Dentrix calculates the yearly totals.

You can see which month you have designated as the beginning of your fiscal year in the Office Manager by clicking Maintenance > Practice Setup > Practice Resource Setup.

Keep the following information in mind as you close the month:

• You should create an up-to-the-minute backup of your practice data before you close the month.
• You can select the Appointment Purge option in the Close Out Month dialog box to delete old appointments in the Appointment Book and reduce the size of your practice database.
• Select the Reset Insurance Benefits option in the Close Out Month dialog box to automatically reset and renew patient insurance benefits and deductibles.

2. What do I do with outstanding insurance claims from the previous year?

After you close the fiscal year, Dentrix detects all pending claims that were created during the previous year. When you post payments or adjustments to claims from the previous year, you have the option to apply them to the previous year or the current year. This option appears in the Total Insurance Payment dialog box, and it defaults to the previous year.

3. Which reports should I run to analyze the previous year?

The reports that we recommend you run at the end of the fiscal year are the same reports we recommend that you run after you close each month. When you close the last month of the year, run the reports for that month, and then run them again for the entire year.

• Practice Advisor Report: This report assesses the overall financial health of your practice with month-to-date and year-to-date statistics for collections, continuing care, new patients, production and schedule management. It shows you where you have reached or exceeded goals and where improvements need to be made. (Office Manager > Analysis > Practice Advisor)
• Analysis Summary Report: This report lists charges, payments, and adjustments for a specified date range, and you can include monthly and yearly totals for each provider. (Office Manager > Reports > Management > Analysis Summary)
• Practice Analysis Report: This report shows statistical data for production, receivables, patients, payment agreements, and future due payment plans for the current day, month, year, and past three months. (Office Manager > Analysis > Practice)
• Production Summary Report: This report generates a detailed list showing the total number of times you completed each procedure in the date range you specify and the average charge for each procedure. (Office Manager > Analysis > Practice > Reports)
• Adjustment Summary Report: This report lists the number of times each adjustment type was used and the total amount adjusted off during the date range you specify. (Office Manager > Analysis > Practice > Reports)
• Payment Summary Report: This report provides a detailed summary of the payments received in each payment type. (Office Manager > Analysis > Practice > Reports)
• Aging Report: This report shows your outstanding patient accounts receivable broken into aging brackets. (Office Manager > Reports > Ledger)
• Insurance Aging Report: This report shows you your outstanding insurance claim totals broken into aging brackets. (Office Manager > Reports > Ledger)