Associate wages calculated the way dental practices actually pay.
Sliding scale bands, lab share splits, recurring deductions, and a two-way lab-bill sign-off with your associates. Stop running associate pay across three spreadsheets and a paper folder. Configure it once per associate, lock the period when you’re ready, send the statement.
Why this is hard
Paying a dental associate is way more than “hours times rate.”
Every month, a UK dental practice manager has to combine: NHS UDAs at a contracted rate and split, private work on a sliding scale or flat percentage, lab share where the associate covers a percentage of lab costs, CC charge deductions for credit-card processing, statutory contributions like Superannuation, Statutory Levy, and Indemnity Insurance, plus recurring custom deductions like Denplan, kids plan, hygienist costs, boutique fees, and whitening gels.
On top of that, associates often dispute lab bills, want to see their YTD numbers, and expect a clean monthly statement. Off-the-shelf payroll tools handle the basic gross-to-net but miss the dental-specific layers. So most practices end up with a colour-coded spreadsheet that breaks every March.
Sliding scale bands, lab share %, and NHS / private split.
Build each associate’s pay profile once: NHS UDA rate and split, private work as a sliding scale (unlimited bands) or flat percentage, lab responsibility percentage, CC charge, plus statutory contributions. The system applies the right rules every month.
- Unlimited sliding-scale bands
- Fixed % as a private alternative
- NHS pay: % of UDA or fixed value
- Lab Responsibility per associate
- CC charge deduction
- Statutory: Super, Levy, Indemnity
- Practice column overrides per clinic
- Effective date range per profile
UDA rate
£25.00
NHS split
45%
Lab share
50%
CC charge
2.5%
Private · Sliding scale
Super
Enabled
Stat. Levy
Enabled
Indemnity
Enabled
Lab invoice
Heath Dental Lab · #4421
Decisions feed straight into the Lab Share line on your monthly statement.
Associates can accept or reject lab bill deductions before pay date.
When you upload a lab invoice and assign it to a dentist, they get a notification. They can review the line items, accept the deduction, or reject it with a note. The decision flows straight into the Lab Share section of their monthly statement, so disputes get handled before the period is locked, not after the bank transfer.
- Lab invoices assigned to a dentist via AI extraction
- Dentist accepts or rejects with optional rejection note
- Practice manager sees pending / accepted / rejected status
- Rejected items can be edited or reassigned
- Outcome flows into the Lab Share line on the statement
Denplan, hygienist, whitening gels. Set once, applied every month.
Configure the income lines and deduction lines your practice charges every month. Each row carries a default amount and a default percentage. Per associate, you can keep the defaults or override them. The lines appear automatically on every period.
Common recurring INCOME rows
Denplan share
Per-month patient plan income
Practice plan share
Boutique / kids plan revenue split
Finance share
Treatment finance commission
Custom income
Anything else recurring
Common recurring DEDUCTION rows
Hygienist costs
Hygienist time billed back to associate
Whitening gels
Materials used by associate
Boutique fees
Practice marketing / boutique levy
Custom deduction
Any practice-specific charge
Examples shown above. Practice managers configure their own labels - there are no fixed templates, every row is custom to your practice.
Everything you need to close out a pay period.
Variance detection
Compares the current period to the previous one and flags unusual swings in income or deduction lines with info, warning, or error severity. Catch mistakes before you lock.
Lock with audit trail
Lock a period when you are happy with it. Locked periods cannot be edited. Reopening one requires a written reason, captured in the audit log with timestamp and user.
Compare associates side-by-side
See multiple associates in one table for the same period: gross, net, deductions, lab share, variance. Spot drift across the team in one glance.
Trend dialogs per associate
Click any line on a statement and see it plotted over time. Useful for spotting an associate whose deductions are creeping up or whose UDA share is sliding.
Configurable Year-To-Date
Set your YTD year start to any month and day. UK partnerships often use 6 April for tax-year alignment, others use January 1. YTD totals in PDF and CSV use your chosen date.
PDF and CSV statements
Generate a clean PDF statement with letterhead and logo, or a tabular CSV your accountant can import into Sage, Xero, or QuickBooks.
Email straight to associates
Publish a period and the system emails the PDF to each associate with a customisable subject and message. Link drops them into their portal to view full history.
Multi-clinic ready
Run profiles per clinic with practice column percentage overrides. Cross-clinic associates get one consolidated profile and statement, not duplicates per site.
PIN-gated wages page
The Associate Wages page is protected by a PIN so casual viewers in reception cannot see other associates’ pay. Role-based access on top of that.
Quick honesty: this is not a full payroll bureau.
Dentistry Dashboard handles the dental-specific calculation: UDA share, sliding scale, lab share, deductions, statutory contributions, and produces the statement and CSV. Submitting PAYE and NI to HMRC, and running the actual bank payment, stays with your existing payroll bureau or accounting software (Sage, Xero, QuickBooks). We export to all of those in CSV.
Frequently asked questions
Practice Suite includes
Associate Wages is one module of many.
AI Dental Rota
Smart scheduling, TOIL, multi-clinic.
Invoice Manager
AI invoice extraction, dentist accept / reject.
Stock Control
Barcode, batch, expiry tracking.
Compliance helpers
AI COSHH, audit trail, inspection prep.
AI Dental Notes
Notes, letters, consent from one chat.
Practice ops hub
Boards, tasks, all-in-one ops.
Stop running associate pay across three spreadsheets.
Try Dentistry Dashboard Practice Suite free for 21 days. Sliding scale, lab share, recurring deductions, two-way associate sign-off, and Sage / Xero / CSV export, all included.