Veterinary accounting for vet clinics and animal hospitals
A veterinary practice is paid mostly at checkout, carries a pharmacy and a retail shelf, and pays its doctors partly on what they produce. Sorso keeps the books for vet practices doing $0.5M to $10M a year, closes each month within 15 business days and reports on it, and offers fractional CFO work for bigger decisions. The questions are concrete: how much the pharmacy really earns once shrinkage is counted, what each doctor brings in after their pay, and whether each location pays its own way.
- For practices
- $0.5M–$10M
- Price
- From $2,000/mo
- Books closed
- 15 business days
- Guarantee
- 45-day money back
What does a veterinary accountant do?
A veterinary accountant keeps the practice's books, reconciles the bank and card processor each month, books drug, vaccine, food and lab costs against the services and sales they belong to, and calculates doctor pay from the production report. The result is a monthly P&L that shows which parts of the practice make money: exams, surgery, pharmacy, boarding or retail.
What is different about a vet practice's books
Paid at checkout, not by insurers
Clients pay by card or cash when they leave, and pet insurance usually reimburses the owner rather than the clinic. So the books are mostly about matching card payouts to the day's invoices, recording processor fees, and tracking deposits, payment plans and refunds. Wellness plans paid monthly are tracked against the visits they cover.
Pharmacy, food and retail
Drugs, vaccines, diets and retail products are bought in bulk and sold or used over months. We book purchases at cost and adjust to your inventory counts, so the P&L shows the margin on pharmacy and retail separately from exams and procedures.
Doctor pay tied to production
Associate veterinarians are often paid partly on production. We calculate it from the practice management system's production report before payroll and book it by doctor, so you can see what each doctor brings in after their pay.
One P&L per location
With two or more clinics, every deposit, invoice and payroll run is tagged to the location it belongs to. Each clinic gets its own P&L, so you can see whether the newer one is paying its way or living off the first, before you sign a lease for a third.
Cash for equipment and stock
Digital X-ray, ultrasound, dental units and anesthesia machines are large purchases, often financed, and bulk orders of drugs and diets tie up cash before they turn into sales. We record loans and leases properly and show cash, not just profit, so a good month on the P&L doesn't hide a thin bank balance.
Accounting, not insurance billing
A vet clinic is paid at checkout, so insurance billing work such as denial follow-up, payer contracts and our Revenue Cycle Leak Detector isn't part of what we offer vet practices. The monthly accounting and the fractional CFO work are.
What we do every month
- Every bank, card and loan account reconciled
- Card payouts matched to invoices, processor fees recorded
- Drug, vaccine, food and retail costs booked and adjusted to counts
- Doctor pay calculated from production and booked by doctor
- Books closed within 15 business days of month end
- A monthly P&L, balance sheet and a short note on what changed
Who it is for
- Companion animal clinics and animal hospitals doing $0.5M to $10M a year
- Practices with several doctors, or more than one location
- Owners who want pharmacy, retail and services on separate lines
- Owners planning a new location, a big equipment purchase or a sale, who may need CFO work as well
If you are a single-doctor clinic 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 veterinary accounting 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 a veterinary 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.
How do you track pharmacy and inventory margin?+
Drug, vaccine, diet and retail purchases are booked at cost, then adjusted to your inventory counts so the cost of what was actually sold or used lands in the month it happened. Pharmacy and retail get their own revenue and cost lines, which shows their margin apart from exams and procedures. Counts done monthly or quarterly also show expired, wasted or missing stock that would otherwise stay hidden in the purchases line.
Do you offer fractional CFO work for vet practices?+
Yes. Forecasts, the economics of a new location or doctor, equipment purchases and preparing for a sale apply to a vet practice as they do to any clinic. Fractional CFO work starts at $4,000 a month.
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
Accounting service →
The full monthly service: books, close, reporting and an action plan.
Fractional CFO →
Forecasts, location-level P&L and exit prep, from $4,000/mo.
CPA vs accountant →
Who files the taxes, who keeps the books, and when you need both.
Overhead ratio calculator →
See how your costs compare with revenue, line by line.
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.