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Fiducial business advisor Jim Crisafulli, left, provides his client David Ward with regular fiscal checkups to ensure that his dental practice avoids any unpleasant surprises.

November 15, 2004—Patients visit David Ward in his Woonsocket, RI, practice for their regular dental checkups but he was the one who needed a thorough examination of the fiscal variety by his business advisor, Jim Crisafulli of Fiducial.

Crisafulli began taking care of Ward's practice about six years ago, keeping track of the daily business overhead, where the money went going and how much was coming in. Foremost, his long-time friend was there to see how Ward's business could improve. This represented a sea of change for Ward compared to the type of service he got from his former accountants.

"I spent thousands of dollars with accountants before but they never were specific about my business," said Ward, who has been operating his general dental practice for 15 years. "I paid for monthly statements and was getting an annual tax return when they told me 'you had a good year but we're sorry to tell you that you owe $26,000.' That happened a few times before I realized there's got to be a better way."

Though his business had generated a profit Ward saw everything he had saved for capital improvements eaten up by taxes. Nowadays, there aren't any last minute bombs to be dropped by those handling his financial matters.

With Crisafulli on the case, "there are no surprises any more and for business people it doesn't get any better than that," Ward said. "I always had a big bill with my old accountant for collating numbers I sent him. I would spend money on people on my staff to put the data together, print them out and send them to him."

And what he received in return from his one-time accountant was not worth the high cost.

"It was very vanilla—I could have done it myself," Ward said. "But Jim came in and upgraded my system and now we know who's making what and where it's being spent."

Initially, Crisafulli just did the business management functions such as overseeing what was happening in the practice. Then he began doing their taxes.

"What was amazing was that once he started doing taxes, he literally went back a couple of years and found some basic filing mistakes," Ward said. "The first year I paid him a $1,200 fee but he got me a refund for $1,500. It paid his fee and more with one simple thing he did."

Ward says that whatever Crisafulli's fee is he's glad to pay it because "he saves me multiples of that. It's a no-brainer."

Making the right moves

With his practice growing every year, Ward knew he had to expand his surroundings. Crisafulli counseled him on his move to buy a 100-year-old Victorian with plenty of office space. Ward's practice takes up the first floor and he's renting out a suite on the second floor with the third soon to be available for rental tenants as well.

Hesitant at first to go from a small condominium to a larger working environment, Ward admits he was scared to make the move. But Crisafulli analyzed all the vital data and told him reassuringly how everything was going to work. The Fiducial representative impressed the fact that the practice would be making money as opposed to staying in his old location.

"The thing about Jim is he shows you realistic numbers, not fantasy stuff," Ward said. "He looks at the numbers, income and all of the factors of where the practice is."

To the owner it was very clear that Crisafulli knows his client's business and knows the data he's analyzing. Making the move was the right decision.

Would Ward have been able to take his business to the next level without Crisafulli's help?

"No way," he said. "There would not have been constant encouragement to try different things. I would have to be satisfied with the status quo."

Ward credits Crisafulli's strategic counsel for helping the practice grow from generating $600,000 per year to almost $1.2 million per year in gross production.

"He pushed us ahead," Ward said. "He's helped up pay down some debt and has streamlined it. Every time I need a loan he makes the phone calls to the banker, he makes the connection. He takes the initiative."

Ward only wishes that more of those in his profession would utilize Crisafulli's expertise instead of relying on expensive consultants who spend a week with the dentist to see how things work and then charge an "exorbitant fee" of $15,000 to $20,000 for time and motion studies that are of little use.

"They're missing the boat," he said.