🌱 Spring Clean Your Therapy Practice Finances

A quick spring check-in for therapists who want to feel more in control of their money

Now that tax season is behind you, spring is a good time to step back and take a fresh look at your practice. 

It’s easy to stay in client mode and not think much about the business side – but we’re already a third of the way through the year, and it’s worth checking in to see if things are working the way you want them to.

Before summer picks up and time gets away from you, here are a few simple ways to clean your therapy practice finances that can help you get organized, stay on track, and make sure your practice is supporting your goals for the year.

1. Separate Business from Personal

If your business and personal money still live in the same bank account, the first thing to do is open a separate checking account for your practice. Use it only for client payments, business expenses, and anything tied directly to your therapy work. This makes taxes easier, helps you see how your business is actually doing, and keeps your records clean.

Now, if you’ve already run personal expenses through your business account, which is incredibly common, don’t panic. Start by going back through the last few months and flag anything that wasn’t a business purchase. Keep a list, or use whatever system your accounting software allows (like marking them as personal or misc). If you’re not sure what’s what, that’s the time to talk to an accountant.

Try to get this sorted before mid-May so you can start tracking cleanly going into summer. It’s a fresh break in the calendar and gives you plenty of runway before year-end.

2. Make Your Software Work for You

Most therapists already use a practice management platform — something like SimplePractice, TherapyNotes, or Jane. That’s a great start. But many aren’t using these tools to their full potential.

Take some time this spring to dig into the settings and reports. Look at how your payments are being tracked, whether your client invoices are being sent automatically, and whether your software connects with your accounting tool like QuickBooks or Xero. If you’re still manually entering client payments into a spreadsheet or checking off receipts by hand, there’s probably an easier way — and you might already be paying for it.

This is also a good moment to check if you’ve accidentally collected too many overlapping tools. If you’re paying for three different systems that each do scheduling or notes, see if you can consolidate and simplify. Less software means fewer logins, fewer bills, and fewer things that can fall through the cracks.

3. Review Your Rates

It’s easy to set your session fee once and never touch it again. But things change — your experience increases, your costs rise, and your time becomes more valuable. 

Reviewing your rates at least once a year is part of keeping your practice healthy.

Start by figuring out what you’re actually charging on average. Look at the mix of your private pay, insurance reimbursements, and sliding scale clients. Add it all up and divide by the number of sessions. That gives you your real average per session, not just your posted rate.

Now think about what you want to be earning each month. Be realistic: include your rent, software, taxes, time off, savings, and take-home pay. Divide that number by how many sessions you want to work — not the maximum number you could squeeze in, but a workload that feels sustainable. That’s your target average session fee.

If there’s a big gap between your current average and where you need to be, you may need to raise your rates, reduce your sliding scale spots, or reconsider which clients and services you focus on. 

If this feels overwhelming, our blog on Profit First for Therapists walks through a method that makes these decisions much easier to manage.

4. Clean Up Subscriptions and Software

Over time, it’s easy to collect a bunch of paid tools and subscriptions that sounded helpful at the time — therapy directories, CE platforms, storage services, even extra Zoom accounts. 

But if you’re not using them regularly, they’re just quietly draining your money in the background.

Go through your last couple of bank or credit card statements and make a list of every subscription related to your practice. 

Ask yourself: Am I using this? Is it actually helping?

If not, cancel it. You don’t need to be ruthless — just honest.

Getting rid of a few unused services can save you hundreds a year, and more importantly, it reduces mental clutter. Fewer tools mean fewer distractions and fewer things to worry about.

5. Start Putting Something Toward Retirement

If you’re self-employed, no one’s setting up a retirement plan for you — and it’s easy to let this slide. But saving for retirement doesn’t have to be complicated, and it’s not too late to start.

If you haven’t put anything aside yet this year, aim to start now — even if it’s just a few hundred dollars a month. Consistency matters more than perfection. 

A good baseline for solo practice therapists is to try saving around 15% of your monthly income toward retirement. If that feels like too much right now, start smaller and build up over time. What matters is that you’re creating the habit and making it part of your business routine.

There are also different types of retirement accounts available to business owners – like SEP IRAs, Solo 401(k)s, or SIMPLE IRA – and each has different rules and benefits. 

An accountant can walk you through which one is the best fit based on how much you want to contribute and whether you plan to hire in the future.

The earlier in the year you start saving, the more flexibility you have. Waiting until December often leads to scrambling — or skipping it altogether.

6. Build a Tax Cushion — and Don’t Wait Until April to Get Help

If taxes feel like a surprise every year, it’s probably because you’re trying to deal with them all at once. A little bit of planning now can make a huge difference later.

From this point forward, try to set aside around 20 to 30% of every client payment into a separate savings account for taxes. Just move it over each week, or set up automatic transfers if your bank allows it. That way, when estimated taxes are due, the money is already sitting there, not coming out of your grocery budget.

This is also the perfect time to connect with an accountant, if you don’t have one already. Tax savings don’t just happen when you file next April — they happen throughout the year, with planning. 

Things like retirement contributions, business deductions, and even the type of business entity you use all affect what you owe. The sooner you talk to someone, the more options you have.

Final Thought

Spring is a good time to reset. You don’t need to fix everything at once — just take one step, then the next. 

Whether it’s separating your accounts, reviewing your rates, or starting a tax cushion, you’re creating more space and structure in your business. That kind of clarity makes everything easier.

If you want help making sense of your numbers or building systems that actually work for you, Traktion specializes in accounting for therapists. We’d be happy to help.

Simply head over to our Getting Started page to book a quick call with our team. 

We look forward to chatting with you!

Until next time.