By Carol Hurst, LVT, CVPM, CVJ
Some people look forward to closing out the year and ringing in the new, while some people dread it. Regardless of what team you fall, having a solid to-do list of items that need to be completed before the end of the year can help you stay organized. It can also help ensure that you do not forget anything. Below is the list that I used in my practice for years. Feel free to take and add or delete items.
Human Resources
- Benefits and Compensation Summary – One thing that I liked to provide to my team was a summary of their current benefits and compensation. The information I included was: how much PTO they used and how much was available for carry-over, how much pet stipend money they used, how many dollars in discounts they received with their employee discounts, and whether or not they used their uniform or continuing education stipend. If I could provide this by December 1 and they were able to use some of those benefits that did not carry over into the next year, it gave them a whole month to use them. Providing this information will also ensure that all of your files are updated before the new year starts.
- Update manuals – Some like to use the end of the year to update any manuals, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), Injury and Illness Prevention Plan and even Patient Care Models. While this doesn’t have to be done at the end of the year, picking a consistent month will ensure it doesn’t fall off of your to-do list.
- Holiday Gifts for Team/Owner – Depending on your budget (or lack thereof), I start planning in mid-November for holiday gifts. If you are looking for something personalized, you may start a little earlier.
- Employee Balances – Depending on your policy, you may need to update/discuss or process these.
Inventory
- Finalize your inventory count – This may be easy or difficult depending upon how you’ve been keeping track of it during the year. For tax purposes, you will need to provide an “ending” inventory count of what you have on hand.
- Inventory Evaluation – This is a good time to take a step back and evaluate your inventory. Are there any medications you’ve noticed that need to go into the “Special Order” or “Online Pharmacy” category because you just aren’t using them anymore? Create a list of any expired drugs.
Computer System
- Prepping computer system for the next year – Typically this is performed on December 31st as the last action taken after the close of the business day. Your PMS company should be able to provide you a list (with detailed instructions) on what all needs to be done. Some of the typical actions that need to be performed are: performing a backup on your PMS data, finalizing accounting and inventory (this refers to updating any unfinished invoices and processing your A/R list), running end of year processing for the software, clear clients spent year to date, etc.
- Create computer folders for the next year – Depending on your usage, this may be just for your computer or for yours and other workstations. An example of other workstations would be radiology where an image needs to be downloaded to send to another clinic or with an owner. Typically, these images were saved into a folder for the year and were deleted at the year’s end and a new folder started. If your CSRs or other support team are taking pet pictures for social media, I would often file these by month/year.
Client Service
- Sending out Thank-You Cards and/or gifts – Around the holidays we would run the report that showed us our top spenders for the year. For the top 20 clients, we would send out a gift basket or an Edible Arrangement and a thank you card.
- “Spring Cleaning” – With everyone away for the holidays, December is often a great time to split the clinic into groups and deep clean some of those areas that don’t get a lot of attention. This way, you can go into the new year with a sparkling, fresh clinic.
- Order next year’s Rabies tags – Set a reminder for CSRs to change out.
Finance
- Strategic Planning – Our leadership team met toward the end of the year to finish up the goals set (and measure progress) for the year and then start to work on goal-setting for the next year. It is also a great idea to gain input from your team on what areas they feel are most important to focus on for the next year.
- Make a list of all equipment purchases for the year, including total cost of equipment – This will need to be turned into your book keeper or accountant.
- Prepare budget for next year – This is also part of your strategic planning meeting. Taking a look at some of the goals you’ve reach or are projected to reach, what do you want to be your focus for the next year?