Monday morning spreadsheets from each site
A group of dental practices wants to know how each site is doing: gross fees, NHS activity, hygiene utilisation, failed appointments, new patients, plan acceptance. Every Monday each practice manager runs reports, copies numbers into a template and emails it. Someone at head office combines them.
The figures arrive at different times. One practice counts fees when invoiced, another when paid. One site's FTA figure includes short-notice cancellations and another's does not. When the owners compare sites, they are not comparing like with like.
Head office then spends its own time chasing late spreadsheets and questioning figures that look odd, which puts practice managers on the defensive and makes the weekly report feel like an audit rather than a tool.
Why group numbers never agree
- Each manager interprets the template differently.
- Practices may run different practice management systems after acquisitions.
- Reports are exported by hand, so errors creep in.
- The combined spreadsheet has no detail behind the numbers.
- Reporting takes managers away from running the practice.
What inconsistent reporting costs
Decisions based on figures that do not mean the same thing across sites. Hours of manager time every week. Arguments about whose numbers are right. And when a site is struggling, it can take weeks to see it, because the signal is lost in inconsistency.
Acquisitions make it worse. A newly acquired practice often keeps its old system for a while and its own habits for longer. Until its figures are mapped to the group's definitions, its numbers either sit outside the report or distort it.
The group reporting we build
- We connect to each practice's system through its API or scheduled exports, including different systems where the group has more than one.
- Data is loaded into a central store each night, in a common structure.
- The group agrees definitions for each figure, written down once, and they are applied the same way to every site.
- A weekly dashboard shows every practice side by side, with trends and the ability to drill into the appointments or invoices behind each number.
- Where a site's data did not load, the report says so, rather than showing a zero.
- Practice managers see their own site's view, and owners see the whole group.
| Figure | Agreed definition example | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Fees | Payments received in the week | Practice system |
| FTA rate | Failed appointments out of booked appointments | Diary |
| Hygiene utilisation | Booked hygiene time out of available time | Diary |
| Plan acceptance | Plans started out of plans proposed in the period | Treatment plans |
The group chooses its definitions. We help write them down clearly so they can be applied consistently.
A Monday with no spreadsheets
The report is ready when the owners arrive. Practice managers stop compiling and start using the figures. Sites are compared fairly because the definitions match. When something looks wrong, anyone with access can see the detail behind it instead of emailing a question.
Area managers who look after several sites can see their own practices side by side, and practice managers can compare their site with the group without anyone circulating spreadsheets. When a definition needs to change, it changes in one place and history can be recalculated so trends stay comparable.
Is this your group?
- Practice managers email weekly figures to head office.
- Different sites calculate the same figure differently.
- Some practices run different systems.
- You cannot drill into a number to see what is behind it.