As Perfect Dental Management grew to 17 practices across Massachusetts and New Hampshire, managing dental office accounting with QuickBooks quickly became unsustainable. With multiple entities and no consolidated chart of accounts, their accounting team spent hours toggling between files, downloading data into spreadsheets, and entering journal entries manually.
Closing the books could take more than 15 business days, and real-time insights into financial performance were nearly impossible. The limitations of traditional dental office accounting software held the business back from scaling effectively.
That all changed when they implemented Sage Intacct for dental office accounting management. Sage’s own dental accounting solutions page documents the multi-entity capabilities built for growing dental groups like Perfect Dental.
A Smarter Approach to Dental Office Accounting
Perfect Dental went live with Sage Intacct in just one month. The results? A dramatic shift in how they manage accounting for dentists across multiple entities:
- Close time cut by 3x — from 15 days to just 5
- Multi-entity consolidation reduced from 3 days to 4 hours
- Payroll entry process simplified — from 8 hours to just 1
- New entities set up in minutes, not hours
Using ERP for dental practices like Sage Intacct allowed their lean accounting team to eliminate unnecessary manual work, save over $20,000 annually in outside CPA support, and reduce stress across the board. Sage documents these same results in its own Perfect Dental Management success story.
Real-Time Reporting Powers Better Decisions
Today, Perfect Dental runs monthly reports instead of quarterly, with financial data segmented by location, specialty, and operational metrics like marketing or labor costs. This helps leadership make fast, data-backed decisions whether that’s growing into new locations or letting go of underperforming ones.
Final Word
Switching to dental accounting software built for multi-entity growth transformed how Perfect Dental operates. “We’re working smarter, not harder,” says controller Allison Burks. “Now we can focus on analysis—not just entries.”
Looking to upgrade your dental office accounting? Contact Lucentive to get started or schedule a free demo.
Table of Contents
Key Takeaways
- Perfect Dental Management, a 17-practice dental group across Massachusetts and New Hampshire, replaced QuickBooks with Sage Intacct to solve unsustainable, manual dental office accounting across multiple entities.
- After going live with Sage Intacct in one month, Perfect Dental cut close time by 3x — from 15 business days down to 5.
- Multi-entity consolidation dropped from 3 days to 4 hours, and payroll entry time fell from 8 hours to just 1.
- New entities can now be set up in minutes instead of hours, supporting Perfect Dental’s continued growth.
- The switch saved Perfect Dental over $20,000 annually in outside CPA support while reducing stress on the accounting team.
- Real-time reporting now lets leadership review monthly, not quarterly, financials segmented by location, specialty, and cost drivers like marketing and labor.
Summary
For multi-location dental groups still relying on QuickBooks, the pain usually shows up first at month-end: entries done by hand, files toggled between locations, and a close that stretches well past two weeks. Perfect Dental Management hit exactly that wall as it grew to 17 practices, and its move to Sage Intacct shows what changes when dental office accounting is built for multi-entity consolidation instead of retrofitted onto single-entity software.
The result wasn’t just a faster close — it was a lean accounting team freed up to analyze the numbers instead of just entering them, with monthly, location-level reporting that leadership can actually act on. For growing dental groups facing the same bottlenecks, that shift from manual entry to real-time visibility is often the clearest sign it’s time to move beyond QuickBooks.
FAQ
How long does it take to close the books at a dental practice?
For growing dental groups juggling multiple entities and locations, the close can stretch far past two weeks when it’s done manually — before switching to Sage Intacct, Perfect Dental Management’s close took more than 15 business days. Multi-entity dental accounting platforms that automate consolidation and reduce manual journal entries can cut that close time significantly, as Perfect Dental’s results show.
What accounting software works best for multi-location dental practices?
Dental groups managing several practices need software built for multi-entity consolidation rather than software designed for a single location. Perfect Dental Management, which operates 17 practices across Massachusetts and New Hampshire, moved from QuickBooks to Sage Intacct specifically because QuickBooks required manually toggling between files and consolidating data in spreadsheets, while Sage Intacct consolidates automatically across all its entities.
How long did Perfect Dental’s Sage Intacct implementation take?
Perfect Dental Management went live with Sage Intacct in just one month. That relatively fast implementation let the dental group’s accounting team quickly move away from manual QuickBooks workarounds and start benefiting from automated multi-entity consolidation, faster monthly closes, and simplified payroll entry across its 17 practices.
How much did Perfect Dental save by switching to Sage Intacct?
After implementing Sage Intacct, Perfect Dental Management saved over $20,000 annually in outside CPA support by eliminating manual, redundant accounting work. The switch also freed up the internal accounting team’s time, since close time dropped by 3x, multi-entity consolidation fell from 3 days to 4 hours, and payroll entry time fell from 8 hours to 1.
Why does multi-entity consolidation matter for dental groups?
As dental groups add locations, consolidating financials across entities by hand becomes slower and more error-prone, since it usually means downloading data into spreadsheets and reconciling it manually. Automated multi-entity consolidation, like the kind Sage Intacct provides, lets a dental group see consolidated and location-level results without that manual work, which is what allowed Perfect Dental to cut its consolidation time from 3 days to 4 hours.
What changed for Perfect Dental’s accounting team after switching from QuickBooks?
Perfect Dental’s accounting team moved from spending hours on manual data entry, file-toggling, and spreadsheet consolidation to running real-time, location-level reports monthly instead of quarterly. Controller Allison Burks summed up the shift by saying the team is now working smarter, not harder, and can focus on analysis instead of just entering data.