Accounting and bookkeeping for optometry practices
An optometry practice earns money from eye exams, from vision plans, from medical eye care billed to insurance, and from selling frames, lenses and contacts. Each comes in differently and costs differently. Sorso keeps the books for optometry practices doing $0.5M to $10M a year, closes each month within 15 business days and reports on each part separately.
- For practices
- $0.5M–$10M
- Price
- From $2,000/mo
- Books closed
- 15 business days
- Guarantee
- 45-day money back
What should an optometrist's accountant do every month?
Reconcile every account, match vision plan, medical insurance and patient payments to what the practice management system says was collected, and keep optical sales and their cost apart from exam fees. That is what lets the owner see the margin on the optical, what each doctor's schedule brings in, and which plans are worth keeping.
What is different about these books
Exams and optical are two different businesses
Exam and medical fees are professional income. The optical is retail: it has a cost for every sale, from frames and lenses to lab bills and contact lens orders. Booked on one revenue line, there is no way to tell whether the optical makes money or just keeps patients in the building. We keep them apart, each with its own costs.
Vision plans and medical insurance pay differently
Vision plans pay exam and materials allowances under their own rules; medical claims for eye disease go to medical insurers and Medicare. Payments arrive in batched deposits from each, plus patient payments by card. Each deposit is matched to what it pays for, so write-offs and short payments show up by plan.
Frame and contact lens inventory
Frames on the board, contact lens stock and open lab orders are money sitting on shelves. We record purchases at cost, tie lab invoices to the jobs they belong to and adjust the books to your periodic counts, so cost of goods matches what was actually sold.
Associate doctors and more than one location
Associate optometrists are often paid partly on production. We book their pay by doctor and every sale and bill by location, so each office and each doctor's schedule has its own P&L.
What we do every month
- Every bank, card and loan account reconciled
- Vision plan, medical insurance and patient payments matched to the practice management system
- Optical sales and cost of goods kept apart from exam and medical fees
- Frame, lens and lab costs booked to the right period and location
- Books closed within 15 business days of month end
- A monthly P&L, balance sheet and a short note on what changed and why
Who it is for
- Independent optometry practices doing $0.5M to $10M a year
- Practices with an optical, where frames, lenses and contacts are a large part of sales
- Practices billing medical insurance as well as vision plans
- Owners with associate optometrists or more than one location
If you are a single-doctor practice below about half a million dollars a year, a bookkeeper who serves small practices will cost less than we do.
Questions owners ask
How much does accounting for an optometry practice cost?+
Sorso's healthcare accounting, which includes the monthly bookkeeping, starts at $2,000 a month, plus a one-time onboarding fee that depends on how much cleanup your books need. After onboarding it runs month to month, and the first 45 days carry a money-back guarantee on the monthly fee.
Is Sorso an optometry CPA?+
No. Sorso is not a CPA firm and does not file tax returns. We keep the books, close each month and report on it, and hand your CPA tax-ready books at year end. Most owners keep the CPA they already have; the CPA's work gets faster because the books arrive clean.
Can you show whether our optical makes money?+
Yes. With optical sales and their costs booked apart from exam fees, the monthly P&L shows the optical's gross margin on its own, and how it moves when you change suppliers, pricing or staffing.
Do you work with practices that do medical eye care?+
Yes. Medical claims are matched to insurer remittances the same way vision plan payments are, and kept separate in the reports so you can see what medical visits add.
Do I have to sign a long contract?+
No. After onboarding the service runs month to month, and the first 45 days carry a money-back guarantee on the monthly fee.
Related
Ophthalmology practice accounting →
For eye care practices with surgery, an ASC or employed optometrists.
Fractional CFO for clinics →
Forecasts, location-level P&L and exit prep, from $4,000/mo.
Medical practice accountant →
What a practice accountant handles, and what stays with your CPA.
Healthcare CPA vs healthcare accountant →
Who files the taxes, who keeps the books, and when you need both.
Talk it through
Want Stan to look at this for your clinic?
Stan Sukhinin, CFA, founded Sorso in 2020: a fractional CFO and accounting firm for outpatient clinics across the US, with accounting from $2,000 a month and fractional CFO from $4,000. Book a free 30-minute call, bring the question and, if you have it, last month's P&L, and he will tell you what he would check first.
Founder of Sorso and a CFA charterholder. Before Sorso, Stan spent 19 years in corporate finance at institutions including UniCredit and Société Générale — managing a $450M loan portfolio and making senior partner at a major mezzanine lender by 29 — then built a fractional CFO firm exclusively for outpatient healthcare clinics.