Practice profitability
What Does a Veterinary Accountant Do?
What a specialist veterinary accountant does beyond filing accounts, and how to judge whether the one you have is adding anything.
3 August 2026 5 minute read
Resource Library
Everything on this site in one place. Free, no email required, and each piece says when it was last reviewed and what it relies on.
Tools and Calculators
Four working tools that run in your browser.
Practice Profit Margin Calculator
Operating margin, staffing ratio, drug and consumable ratio and locum ratio, with plain commentary on what each figure suggests looking at.
Open the calculatorLocum Vet Expense Checker
Search a cost and see where it usually sits, with an explanation and a link to the official guidance where one exists.
Check an expensePractice Sale Readiness Score
Thirteen questions on what buyers actually examine, producing a readiness band, your weakest areas and a suggested order of work.
Score your practiceSole Trader vs Limited Company Explorer
Set out your situation and see which factors point which way, without a false precision the question does not support.
Explore the factorsPractice Ownership Guides
The financial side of each stage of owning a veterinary practice.
- Start a Veterinary PracticeWhat it takes financially to open your own practice, from first plan to the end of year one.
- Grow a Veterinary PracticeThe four routes to growth, what each costs, and how to tell which one your practice is ready for.
- Buy a Veterinary PracticeThe full sequence from first search to the first hundred days, with the points where deals go wrong.
- Sell a Veterinary PracticeWhat determines the price, who the buyers are, and the two years of work that happen before a sale.
- Value a Veterinary PracticeThe method, the adjustments and the factors that decide where in the range a practice sits.
- Veterinary Practice SuccessionThe routes out of a practice, what each takes, and why the choice needs making years before you leave.
Performance, Regulation and Systems
Reference material on how veterinary practices perform, what is changing and how the systems fit together.
- CMA Veterinary ReformsThe remedies, the timetable and the financial consequences for an independent practice, written for the person who has to implement them.
- Veterinary Practice ProfitabilityThe anatomy of veterinary practice profit, and the handful of places it usually disappears.
- Veterinary Practice KPIs and BenchmarksA working reference for the measures that matter, with definitions you can actually apply.
- Veterinary Practice SoftwareWhat the clinical system does, what the accounting system does, and how to make them agree.
- Veterinary Tax GuidesA signposted index of the tax topics that come up most often in veterinary practice, with the detail behind each.
Locum Vet Guides
Everything a self-employed locum veterinary surgeon needs, kept separate from the practice owner material.
- Locum Vet AccountantsThe hub, start here
- Sole Trader or Limited Company for a Locum VetThe honest comparison: what a company actually gains you, what it costs, and the locum situations where it is the wrong answer.
- Locum Vet Allowable ExpensesThe expenses locum vets can normally claim, the ones that depend on circumstances, and the ones that are personal however much they feel work related.
- IR35 for Locum VetsWhat IR35 is, when it applies to veterinary locum work, who decides, and what it means for your take-home pay.
- VAT for Locum VetsThe threshold, what registration does to your rate, and the practical points for a locum invoicing practices.
- Self Assessment and Making Tax DigitalThe filing and payment calendar, why the second year costs more than the first, and what Making Tax Digital changed.
- RCVS, VDS and Professional FeesThe professional costs of being a locum, what they are for, and how they are treated for tax.
- Mileage and TravelThe biggest expense category for most locums, and the one HMRC is most likely to question.
- Switching AccountantThe process takes about two emails from you. Here is exactly what happens and what to ask a new firm first.
Insights
Longer writing on specific questions.
Practice profitability
How Profitable Is a Veterinary Practice?
What profit a UK veterinary practice can realistically make, why reported figures vary so widely, and the right way to compare your own.
3 August 2026 6 minute read
Buying and selling
What Is Normalised EBITDA in a Veterinary Practice?
Normalised EBITDA explained for veterinary practice owners: what it is, which adjustments are legitimate, and why it decides what your practice is worth.
3 August 2026 6 minute read
Buying and selling
Buying a Veterinary Practice: Financial Due Diligence Checklist
A practical checklist of the financial information to request and the questions to ask when buying a UK veterinary practice.
3 August 2026 7 minute read
Practice profitability
How Much Working Capital Does a Veterinary Practice Need?
Working out the working capital a UK veterinary practice needs, why profitable practices run short of cash, and what to hold in reserve.
3 August 2026 5 minute read
Practice profitability
Veterinary Payroll Costs and Staffing Ratios
How to read staffing cost in a veterinary practice, which ratios matter, and why team shape matters more than headcount.
3 August 2026 6 minute read
Practice profitability
Reducing Locum Costs Without Damaging Patient Care
Practical ways for UK veterinary practices to reduce reliance on locum cover, and what persistent locum spend is really telling you.
3 August 2026 5 minute read
Practice profitability
Veterinary Stock Control and Missed Charges
Two of the largest and least visible profit leaks in a veterinary practice, how to measure them and how to close them.
3 August 2026 6 minute read
Tax and compliance
Pet Health Plans: The Accounting and VAT Questions
How UK veterinary practices should account for pet health plan income, the VAT questions plans raise, and how to tell whether a plan makes money.
3 August 2026 6 minute read
Tax and compliance
Partnership or Limited Company for a Veterinary Practice?
How UK veterinary practices should choose between partnership, limited liability partnership and limited company, and when it is worth changing.
3 August 2026 7 minute read
Practice profitability
Equipment Finance for Veterinary Practices: Lease or Buy?
How UK veterinary practices should approach buying diagnostic and surgical equipment: outright purchase, hire purchase, finance lease or operating lease.
3 August 2026 6 minute read
Tax and compliance
Employment Status and Long-term Locums: The Practice Side
What UK veterinary practices need to know about engaging locums as self-employed, where the risk sits and how to reduce it.
3 August 2026 6 minute read
Still Not Sure Where to Start?
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