How Much Do I Spend On Expenses

Hi, this is David Kats with Therapist Consultants, and I have a tip for you.

If there's one thing I see that therapists do that's unusual, is they almost always underestimate their overhead. I asked them how much their overhead is, and they say, "About 1,500 a month." I say, "How much do you make and how much you collect each month?" They say, "$10,000." I say, "Okay, that means that you have $8,500 that you take home every month. That's $100,000 a year." They say, "No, no, I only take home $60,000 a year." The problem is they have underestimated their overhead.
What you have to do is you have to look on your taxes and say, "Here's what I did for total collections. Here's what I took home. Divide those out, and you'll find what your true overhead is." Now, one of the ways you can find your overhead that I try to bring therapists around to understanding their overhead a little better is by using forms, and there are lots of templates online. One of my like is called fiveminuteclasses.com; and five is spelled out, F-I-V-E, fiveminuteclasses.com. You can go there and find a monthly overhead sheet for the small business.
If you put down everything on there plus maybe modified a little bit because you're a therapy office, you'll see exactly how much you're really spending in overhead. By the way, I should tell you one other thing. We suggest that you add about 15% as miscellaneous because no matter what you think you're going to spend, there's that 15% you haven't thought about. When you look at your overhead, add everything up, your rent, your utilities, whatever you spend, your office supplies. Then take that, add 15% to it. That's probably your true overhead.
Why don't you go to Five Minute Classes, find that overhead for small businesses? It's a monthly chart you can work on, then let you fill it out. You can download it. You can do anything you want with it. You can manipulate it any way you want to. I think you'll find that you'll do a better job with your overhead if you at least you know where you stand with your overhead.

This is David Kats. Thanks for listening.