A dental bookkeeper matches each office's daily deposits to its day sheet, pays supply and lab bills, and ties out every practice's bank, card and merchant accounts. They also send patient and insurance refunds once billing confirms them, and help the CFO close each month on time.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
You'll keep the books for our dental practices and central office. You match each practice's daily deposits to its day sheet, pay supply and lab bills, reconcile bank and card accounts, process patient and insurance refunds, and help the CFO close each month on time.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Match each practice's cash, card and insurance deposits to its day sheet in [your practice management software].
Enter and pay bills from supply companies, dental labs and other vendors, coded to the right practice.
Reconcile bank, credit card and merchant accounts for every practice entity each month.
Issue patient and insurance refunds for credit balances after the billing team confirms them.
Prepare month-end entries and reports for the CFO.
Send hours and payroll changes to [your payroll provider], and check the payroll register before it runs.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Review the prior day's deposits from each practice and follow up on any that don't match.
Enter vendor invoices and match dental lab bills to completed cases.
Answer practice managers' questions about expenses and petty cash.
Code card transactions and attach receipts.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Deposits reconciled to day sheets: [your target].
Month-end close delivered on time: [your target].
Vendor bills paid on time: [your target].
Refunds processed on time: [your target].
Reconciliation errors: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[2+] years of bookkeeping for a multi-location business or multiple entities.
Strong with [your accounting software] and spreadsheets.
Knows bank reconciliations, accounts payable and month-end close.
Careful with details and with confidential financial information.
Associate degree in accounting or equal experience.
6. Preferred Experience
Bookkeeping experience in a dental or medical office.
Knows how day sheets, adjustments and insurance payments show up in dental practice management software.
QuickBooks ProAdvisor or AIPB Certified Bookkeeper credential.
7. Physical Requirements
Sit at a desk and computer for most of the day, with some filing.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Central office in [city][or remote].
Business hours [Monday through Friday], with longer days at month-end.
Handles confidential financial and payroll information.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new bookkeeper gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
Need help filling this role? HireBus posts the ad, Iris interviews every applicant by phone before you do, and you decide who to hire. Start hiring now
Any bookkeeper can pay bills and reconcile a bank account. In a dental group, money arrives through the practice software, dental plans and patient payments in ways a general bookkeeper may not have seen.
The day sheet is where every deposit starts
Each office closes its day in its own copy of the practice software, whether that's Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental or another system. The day sheet shows what was charged, adjusted and collected. The bookkeeper ties cash and checks to the deposit slip and card payments to the processor's batch, then flags anything that doesn't match. A gap found the next morning takes one phone call. Found at month-end, it can take days to trace.
Dental plans pay in batches, and some pay by card
One plan payment can cover claims for many patients, and the electronic remittance shows which ones. A trace number on the deposit matches the one on the remittance, if you ask your bank to pass it along. Some plans pay with single-use virtual cards, which carry card fees. CMS says a plan must switch to standard ACH payments when the provider asks, once the provider enrolls with that plan. Source: CMS Guidance Letter GL-2022-04: Virtual credit cards and HIPAA EFT and ERA standards.
Lab bills and production land in different weeks
A lab bills for a crown, bridge or denture when the case ships. Offices that post the fee at the seat visit record the production later, sometimes in the next month. Tie each lab invoice to its patient case and office, so the CFO can see cost and fee side by side. Ask about any remake under the lab's terms, and pass lab fees to payroll when an associate's contract deducts them.
Refunds wait for billing's okay
A credit balance can come from a high estimate, a plan that paid twice, or a second plan that paid after the patient did. The billing team confirms who overpaid, and the bookkeeper sends the money back to that patient or plan. Pass any Medicaid credit balance to the CFO the day it turns up. A federal statute gives a provider a fixed window to report and return a Medicaid overpayment once it is identified. Source: 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7k(d): Reporting and returning overpayments (Cornell LII).
Whoever takes payments shouldn't make the deposit
At a small office, a single front desk person may take payments, post them and drive the deposit to the bank. An ADA blog post on fraud advises splitting those jobs so no one person handles both patient payments and bank deposits, and reviewing every posted transaction on the day sheet. The bookkeeper's daily match, done by someone outside the office, is part of that check. Look hard at adjustments, too. Source: ADA New Dentist Blog: How to fight fraud in your dental office.
How much dental bookkeepers make
The closest BLS group for dental bookkeepers is bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks. Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks who work for dental offices earned a median of $24.79 an hour ($51,560 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about the same as the $50,670 median for bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks in all industries. About 10,020 of the 1,373,680 bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks in that survey work for dental offices.
Hourly in most groups, with overtime when the close runs long. A candidate with dental practice software experience who has kept books for several companies can ask for more, and needs less training.
Dental offices
$51,560$51,560 median Middle half $44,030–$62,500 10th–90th $37,440–$71,760
All industries
$50,670$50,670 median Middle half $43,520–$61,470 10th–90th $36,000–$74,550
$30k$40k$50k$60k$70k$80k
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
Dental offices
$37,440
$44,030
$51,560
$62,500
$71,760
All industries
$36,000
$43,520
$50,670
$61,470
$74,550
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Bank, card and merchant reconciliations for several entities
Accounts payable coded to the right office every time
The patience to trace a deposit back to one patient's payment
Works easily in spreadsheets and in QuickBooks or comparable accounting software
Treats a day sheet as private patient information, because it is
Teach these on the job
Reading payment and adjustment reports in Dentrix, Eaglesoft or Open Dental
Each dental plan's payment method and remittance layout
Your lab accounts and supply vendors
Your refund approval steps with the billing team
Production versus collections, and which one each dentist's contract pays on
Expect two systems that don't talk well: the practice software, which holds every patient charge and payment, and the accounting system, which needs one clean entry per office per day. Groups with several practice entities often use an accounting system built for that, such as Sage Intacct, or keep one QuickBooks file per entity.
Dental bookkeeper interview questions
They have their own page: 6 questions that test this job, what strong and weak answers sound like, and a work exercise to run with your finalists.
Offices close their day sheets in slightly different ways at first, so track a month of results before the template's targets become the bar.
Deposits reconciled to day sheets
Count the business days each office's deposits tied to its day sheet with nothing left open. Any deposit still unmatched by Friday goes on the CFO's list.
Month-end close delivered on time
Compare the date the CFO signs off on each entity's reports with the close calendar you agreed on. A late office often points to unclosed day sheets or missing lab bills.
Vendor bills paid on time
Check lab and supply statements each month for past-due balances and finance charges. A lab account on hold can delay cases that patients are already booked to receive.
Refunds processed on time
Days from billing's approval to the refund going out, by office. Keep a list of approved refunds still open at month-end.
Reconciliation errors
Entries the CFO or outside accountant had to reverse or fix after a reconciliation was signed off, listed by account and office.
It's the practice software's report of one office's day: procedures charged, adjustments and write-offs, and payments by type. The front desk runs it when they close the day. The bookkeeper uses it to match deposits, and the CFO uses the monthly totals to compare what the dentists produced with what was collected.
How much does a dental bookkeeper make?
Bookkeeping, accounting, and auditing clerks who work for dental offices earned a median of $24.79 an hour ($51,560 a year) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $44,030 and $62,500 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and overtime.
Does a dental bookkeeper need dental office experience?
Not to start, but it cuts the training time. The template prefers someone who knows how day sheets, adjustments and insurance payments show up in dental software. A bookkeeper from a medical office brings the insurance side. One from a business with several locations brings the multi-entity reconciliations. Either one needs a few closes to learn your software and your offices.
Can a dental bookkeeper see patient records?
Only what the job needs. HIPAA's minimum necessary rule has the practice decide which staff need patient information, and which kinds, then keep each person's access to just that. A bookkeeper needs payment and refund details, not charts or x-rays. Set up a finance role in the practice software with those limits, and include the bookkeeper in privacy training.
Who prepares associate dentist production numbers for payroll?
In this group the bookkeeper sends payroll changes and checks the register, so associate pay usually starts on their desk, with the CFO's sign-off. The numbers come from each dentist's production or collections report, adjusted the way the contract says, for example for refunds or lab fees. Check the report's dates and provider codes before payroll runs. A payment posted to the wrong dentist changes two paychecks.
How is a dental bookkeeper different from an insurance and billing coordinator?
The billing coordinator works the patient and insurance side: claims, posting plan payments, denials and patient statements. The bookkeeper works the bank side. They match deposits, pay bills, reconcile accounts and send the refunds billing approves. They're in touch daily, because an unmatched deposit often traces back to a payment posted to the wrong account.
