Our Veterinary Client Was Overwhelmed and Ready to Hire. We Wanted to Know Whether the Practice Could Actually Support Another Employee.
By ProfitWise - a Visa Business Plans company
One of our veterinary clients came into a monthly meeting with something that had very little to do with bookkeeping at first.
She was exhausted.
Her vet clinic’s appointment schedule was packed, the phones rang constantly, and her team struggled to keep up. She was spending too much of her own time doing things that didn’t necessarily require a veterinarian.
In her mind, the solution was obvious.
She needed another veterinary technician.
Her concern was whether the practice could afford one.
Because we handle the practice’s specialized bookkeeping, we already knew what had been happening financially. Revenue had been growing, but payroll and other operating expenses had grown as well.
Before adding another permanent expense, we wanted to understand whether the recent growth could realistically support it.
The Hourly Wage Was Only the Beginning
If the practice hired a technician at $25 an hour, it would be easy to multiply that amount by 40 hours and look at the weekly payroll.
But that wouldn’t tell the owner what the employee would actually cost the business.
We also needed to consider payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, benefits if applicable, training, and the other costs associated with adding someone to the team.
Once we estimated the full cost of the position, the owner had a much more useful number to work with.
But we still weren’t finished.
Knowing what an employee costs doesn’t tell you whether hiring that employee makes financial sense.
For that, we needed to understand what the new technician would make possible.
What Could the Practice Do With Another Technician That It Couldn’t Do Today?
This was where the operational conversation became important.
Was the veterinarian turning patients away because there wasn’t enough staff support?
Were procedures being scheduled farther out than they needed to be?
Was the veterinarian spending significant time on tasks a technician could handle, limiting how many patients she could see?
If another technician allowed the veterinarian to see additional appointments or schedule more procedures without compromising care, the hire could create additional capacity for the practice.
Now we had something we could analyze.
We could estimate how much additional revenue the practice would need to generate to cover the full cost of the employee and compare that with what the additional capacity could realistically produce.
That is a much more useful way to evaluate a hire than simply looking at the bank balance and deciding whether there is enough money for another paycheck.
We Also Wanted to Know Whether “Busy” Was Becoming the New Normal
The owner and her staff certainly felt overwhelmed.
But before committing to permanent payroll, we wanted to look at the trend.
Because we had the practice’s financial history, we could compare recent months with earlier periods. Was revenue consistently increasing? Were collections keeping pace? Was the practice seeing sustained growth, or did a few unusually busy months make it seem like another employee was urgently needed?
Those distinctions matter.
A practice shouldn’t necessarily add a permanent position to solve a temporary spike in workload.
On the other hand, if the numbers showed consistent growth and the existing team had been operating at capacity for months, waiting too long to hire could create its own problems.
The owner needed to know which situation she faced.
Hiring Someone Doesn’t Automatically Create More Revenue
This is another part of the conversation we wanted to make clear.
A new technician could create additional capacity, but that capacity only has financial value if the practice can use it.
If another employee allows the veterinarian to see more patients but there isn’t enough demand to fill those appointments, payroll increases without a corresponding increase in revenue.
The same thing can happen if the practice adds staff but doesn’t change how appointments, procedures, or responsibilities are organized.
So we could model different scenarios.
What happens if the new technician allows the practice to accommodate several additional appointments each day? What if patient volume increases more slowly? At approximately what level of additional activity does the position begin to cover its own cost?
Now the owner isn’t simply hoping the hire will work.
She understands what needs to happen for it to work.
The Numbers and the Operational Reality Have to Come Together
This is one of the reasons our monthly meetings are important.
Bookkeeping can tell us what happened financially, but the owner can tell us what is happening inside the practice.
When those two pieces come together, the numbers become much more useful.
For example, we can see that payroll has increased, while the veterinarian can explain that the existing team is staying late almost every day and patients are waiting longer for appointments.
That context helps us understand whether the financial trend reflects a problem, an opportunity, or both.
And when a larger decision comes up, such as adding another employee, our Fractional CFO work allows us to use that information to look ahead.
We can estimate the full cost of the hire, determine how much additional business would be needed to support it, and model what happens under different levels of growth.
“Can I Afford Another Employee?” Wasn’t Quite the Right Question
Our client initially wanted a yes-or-no answer.
Could the practice afford another technician?
But after looking at the numbers, the decision became more specific.
We wanted to know whether the demand was consistent enough to justify another permanent position, what the employee would truly cost and what additional capacity that person could create.
If the practice was already turning away business or limiting appointments because the existing team couldn’t handle more, hiring could make financial sense even though payroll would increase.
If the workload spike was temporary, or if another employee wouldn’t actually allow the practice to generate additional revenue, waiting might make more sense.
The bookkeeping gave us the history we needed to understand what had been happening.
The analysis helped our client determine what would need to happen next for the hire to
work financially.
She was still busy.
But now “we’re overwhelmed, so we need another person” became a decision she could evaluate with real numbers.
