Close the gap between production and collections
A full schedule doesn't guarantee a healthy month. Clockwork reads your practice transactions and shows you what's really behind collections, chair time, and provider pay, without building anything by hand.
Weekly cash flow forecasting
December is a use-it-or-lose-it benefits scramble, summer goes quiet, and insurance pays when insurance pays. See when collections, payroll, lab bills, and equipment notes actually land, weeks out.
Model growth and acquisitions
Add an operatory, bring on an associate, or buy another practice on paper first. Roll several locations into one view when you need it.
Associate and hygiene planning
"Can we afford another associate?" Model the hire, their pay, and the break-even before you commit — Clockwork pulls the numbers straight from payroll.
Mira, your AI analyst
Ask which location carries the most overhead and Mira answers from your own data, whether it's one office or twenty.
Real-time reporting
Most general practices aim to keep overhead below 60–65% of collections, and consistently above 70% starts to strain profitability. Collections ratio, overhead, and A/R aging update straight from your books, so the numbers you're looking at are today's.
The metrics dental teams track
Production per provider, revenue per chair, hygiene reappointments, and collections ratio, all in one place with forecasts alongside.
Nothing to set up
Connect QuickBooks or Xero and your first forecast is ready in about 5 minutes. No setup fee, no account mapping.
Questions practice owners actually ask
What should dental practice overhead be as a percentage of collections?
A healthy general practice runs 55-65% of collections, and that figure excludes the owner dentist's own compensation, which is a separate 35-40%. Past 65%, profit falls below a third of collections. The leverage is close to linear: every 1% rise in overhead costs roughly 1% of profit, so a 5% drift costs about $5,000 per $100,000 of production. The biggest single lever is lab fees, typically 8% of collections but 2-3% for practices milling in-house. Sources: Academy of Dental CPAs via Dental Economics (2021); Levin Group via DrBicuspid (2025).
Should I forecast on production or collections?
Collections. The ratio to watch is collections divided by net production, which should run 98% or better measured over a full twelve months. Net production means gross charges after insurance write-offs and patient discounts are already removed. This is where practices most often misdiagnose themselves: measured against gross production instead, a healthy practice looks like it collects 65-70% and concludes its billing is broken, when the real story is the PPO schedule. Those are two different problems with two different fixes. Source: Wisdom via DrBicuspid (2025).
What does an associate dentist have to produce to break even?
It depends on something most practices settle too late: what the percentage is a percentage of. On the same crown, a 30-35% associate agreement pays $227.50 at 35% of collections, $350 at 35% of adjusted production, or $450 at 30% of gross production. That is a 2x swing in cost from the definition alone. Set the base, add your overhead rate, and break-even production falls out. Clockwork models it against your actual collections rather than a rule of thumb. Source: American Dental Association.
