Through a partnership led by the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA), Veterinary Management Groups (VMG), VetPartners and the Veterinary Hospital Managers Association (VHMA), veterinarians now have access to the AAHA/VMG Chart of Accounts for free. “By using an apple-to-apples comparison of productivity, costs and profitability, veterinarians can better assess the financial health of individual hospitals and the industry as a whole,” said AAHA Chief Executive Officer, Michael Cavanaugh, DVM, Dipl. ABVP (C/F) Emeritus. “Standardization of the veterinary chart of accounts is crucial in gathering data essential to strengthening practice profitability, individual financial well-being and enhancing the veterinary workforce as a whole,” said Link Welborn, DVM, Dipl. ABVP, CCRT, the former chair of the AVMA’s Veterinary Economic Strategy Committee (VESC), past president of AAHA and president of VMG. The AVMA tasked its VESC with collaborating with the profession to improve business knowledge, acumen and financial success, which resulted in the Economic Advisory Research Council (EARC) that works toward organizing and efficiently using the veterinary profession’s scarce resources. As its first task, the EARC initiated a standardized chart of accounts, which would be free to all veterinarians. “As a trusted partner, the AVMA is committed to working in partnership with colleagues to develop programs that will help every veterinarian meet their professional and personal goals, whether they are just graduating from veterinary school or looking toward retirement,” said Dr. Tom Meyer, AVMA president. The AAHA/VMG Chart of Accounts is the first of many new resources to come from this collaboration. The AVMA, VetPartners and the VHMA have endorsed the AAHA/VMG Chart of Accounts as the industry standard for classifying revenue, expense and balance sheet accounts in small animal veterinary practices. It will allow practitioners to better organize practice finances in line with generally accepted accounting principles. Additionally, AAHA recommends all accounting firms working with veterinary practices adopt the standardized codes.
