A dental practice is a high-equipment, partnership-prone small business with specific tax dynamics. The CPA who only sees one or two dental clients a year misses what matters most.
Chairs, panoramic imaging, intraoral scanners, CBCT, lasers, and build-out costs create significant § 179, bonus depreciation, and trade-in timing decisions that materially change after-tax cost.
Buying or selling a practice — to a DSO, between dentists, or as part of group consolidation — involves goodwill allocation, § 197 amortization, and seller financing decisions that change the math for both sides.
Multi-doctor practices accumulate complexity over time — buy-ins, buy-outs, capital accounts, profit-sharing tiers. Most agreements get written once and never revisited.
Most dental owners are S-corp by default but miss the owner-comp optimization and retirement plan structures (cash balance, cross-tested 401k) that can defer six figures annually.
We work with Bay Area dentists running their own practices on the financial side of running, growing, acquiring, or selling.
S-corp vs. C-corp analysis, owner compensation modeling, distribution strategy, and integration with personal tax planning.
Section 179 and bonus depreciation modeling for major equipment, build-out cost segregation, and financing-vs-cash analysis.
Acquisition financial diligence, allocation of purchase price between goodwill and assets, seller financing analysis, and acquisition tax modeling.
For dentists selling to DSOs or joining group structures — deal structure analysis, earnout taxation, and post-close tax planning.
Solo-401(k), cash balance, and defined benefit plan analysis for sole-dentist practices; cross-tested plans for multi-doctor groups.
Practice-specific bookkeeping, payroll oversight, monthly KPI reporting, and tax-ready year-end coordination.
A dental practice has financial dynamics no other small business shares — collections cycles tied to dental insurance, equipment-heavy capital structure, multi-doctor partnership economics, and the DSO consolidation pressure that has been transforming the industry. A CPA who only sees one or two dental practices a year does not develop the pattern recognition this work needs.
A complimentary 30-minute consultation. We review your situation and tell you honestly whether Milestone is the right firm.
