I'd recommend Four Quadrants, because we end up making more money and saving a lot more money than we would have doing it our old way with our old accountant or with what we thought were the right ways to do it.
I'd recommend Four Quadrants, because we end up making more money and saving a lot more money than we would have doing it our old way with our old accountant or with what we thought were the right ways to do it.
I'd recommend Four Quadrants because it's made my life a lot more secure. It's nice to know that I'm comfortably putting away money for retirement. If I've got any real difficult business questions, I have a group of people that I can contact anytime, and they can answer my questions for me.
Drs. Barry Jacobs and Michael Auvinen come to the Four Quadrants headquarters for their annual meeting and sit with us to discuss how their practice has been since hiring the firm.
Dr. Auvinen grew up in Freeport, Illinois. He graduated from Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio) with a Biology Major, 1981. He graduated with High Honors from the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry in 1986 and completed his General Practice Residency at the University of Minnesota Hospitals and Clinics in 1987. Dr. Auvinen was in private practice in the Twin Cities from 1987-2004. He joined Lakeview Dental in 2004. Dr. Auvinen has been very involved in continuing dental education, and belongs to numerous dental organizations. He was awarded the prestigious Mastership Award by the Academy of General Dentistry in 2006. His clinical interests are complex restorative and cosmetic oriented dentistry, TMJ management, and sedation dentistry.
Dr. Jacobs was born and raised in Ironwood, MI. He graduated from Gogebic Community College with a Biology Major, 1983. He graduated from the Henry Ford Hospital School of Nuclear Medicine Technology, Detroit, MI in 1985 as a Registered/Certified Nuclear Medicine Technician. Dr. Jacobs also attended Northern Michigan University with a Biology Major and Chemistry Minor. He was the Captain of NCSA national qualifying NMU Alpine Ski Team. He graduated from the University of Minnesota School of Dentistry in 1991. He was the recipient of the Academy of Operative Dentistry Award for outstanding clinical restorative dentistry. Current affliations include: American Dental Association, Wisconsin Dental Association and the Northern Wisconsin Dental Association (President 1996-1997). His clinical interests include restorative, cosmetic, endodontics, removable prosthesis (partials and dentures) and bridges, and sedation dentistry.
I would say that our call to Four Quadrants was probably like, "Well, we either call Four Quadrants or we get divorced."
We were having a lot of surprises from our accountant, and we wanted things a little more steady, automated. We really didn't have a plan for retirement, other than we were maxing out our plan that we had in the office, but it was insufficient. Doing the dentistry is the easy part, and running the business is the difficult part.
Before we came on with Four Quadrants, I would wonder, "Is there going to be a bonus? When will the bonus be paid?" And I'd feel a little uneasy about that, because I didn't really know. Then, I'd go home, and I would get the same thing from Cheri, and I felt so bad. I felt like I'm dumb, number one. Number two, it's like, I should be smart enough to finance, but I don't really want it. I don't really want to ask for the answer. I just want it to happen. You know? And then, she'd get upset, and be like, "Well, you should know this. Don't you own the practice? You should know this." And I'm like, "Yeah, you're right, honey. You're right." It's like, I know I should. I don't. I'll try to find out what I can.
I just felt like we never knew, and not knowing, having an answer to all that was really, really hard for me. I think that was really, really difficult on a marriage, and it's got to be difficult in a practice
When we left here last year, he said, "Well, you could probably expect to put away this much this year for retirement." And I'm thinking, "Wow, that would be awesome if I could do that." And then, they showed me the figure today, and it exceeded that amount by over 50%. And I'm like, "Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?" I couldn't believe it. It's was just like, this is phenomenal.
This is probably going to be the best thing that we have ever done or could do for our families and for our practice. We didn't feel any pinch at all at home. It was like it was effortless. We know now if there's something that we want to look at buying or a move to make, it's not just between the two of us. We've got some people that we trust that are experts that will be able to tell us, "This should be a go, or this should be a no go," and why. It makes it a lot easier for us to look at each other and say, "Yeah, we're going to do this, and it's going to work."
I'd recommend Four Quadrants, because we end up making more money and saving a lot more money than we would have doing it our old way with our old accountant or with what we thought were the right ways to do it. So, we didn't have to change anything as far as what was going on in the practice, because there was some fear early on that might be an issue. We're going to have to practice differently. It has nothing to do with practicing differently. It's just what's all going on financially with the practice, and that was really easy. It really didn't take much work from me or from Barry in doing any of that.
I'd recommend Four Quadrants because it's made my life a lot more secure. It's nice to know that I'm comfortably putting away money for retirement. If I've got any real difficult business questions, I have a group of people that I can contact anytime, and they can answer my questions for me.
It makes it easier for us to not have the stress or the worry. We can just kind of forget about that and know that it's handled, and it's handled very well. We can just be dentists.
Nice to have a team behind us.
It's been better than expected, better than anticipated, so it's been a great partnership for Barry and I.
