Toothpick is blazing a trail as the UK's first nationwide service for live, online dental appointment booking. Patients book straight into the dentist's calendar from their smartphone or tablet, in real-time. With online and mobile healthcare bookings on the rise, it's a simple idea that's making it easier than ever to find a dental appointment when you really need one.

When you're running such an ambitious, fast-moving business, you need accounting systems that give you all the financial information you need; anytime, anywhere. That's why Toothpick founders, Dr Sandeep Senghera BDS and Jozef Wallis, chose to use Xero, the leading cloud-accounting platform. Xero gives them instant access to their financial situation, so they have the right information to hand when making important decisions about the future of the company. 

Using Xero to push the business forward

One of the principal reasons for start-ups failing is a lack of understanding of the financial side of the business. That's why cloud-based accounting, like Xero, is such an invaluable tool for getting the most from your small business. Jozef explained that the move to Xero was predominantly managed by their accountants:

"As the company grew we wanted to bring some of the financial management in-house; the constant monitoring of budgets, financial forecasting and financial exercises meant we needed 360 degree visibility at all time. Through recommendation and support from our accountants, Davis Grant, and integration platform Bondable.com, we managed to get up and running with Xero in no time.

As big fans of SaaS (Software as a Service) and the cloud, we needed an accountancy system that could be integrated with some of our key apps. We'd had exposure to other accounting software, but we didn't find them as flexible for our needs. And one of the major pluses of Xero was that non-accountants were able to easily implement the software. Empowering the whole company with relevant detailed financial information has helped us enormously in managing every aspect of the company."

The future for Toothpick and Xero

Toothpick have great plans for expanding their service. They've already signed up 10% of the UK dental market, with around 500 dentists joining monthly. And Xero will be an integral part of the business process as they grow. As Jozef says:

"For a company like Toothpick, financial planning is part of determining the speed at which we can grow. Having a product that people love and find useful is great, but expanding needs careful and calculated planning. Flexibility and experience is key, and it's something we're glad that we can rely on both Xero and Davis Grant for. We're certainly looking forward to growing into new markets and sectors over the coming years, with Xero by our side.'

There's more about Toothpick on their website at www.toothpick.com [1]

You can also find out more about Xero at www.xero.com [2]