> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://dso.getlemma.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Open bank accounts for your DSO and PCs
> Map dental payer receipts, account ownership, signer authority, management-fee payments, KYB evidence, and access controls across the practice and DSO.
Opening accounts for a dental support organization (DSO) and its professional entities is a compliance task disguised as an administrative one. Map each receipt to the account authorized for the enrolled billing provider, preserve entity-level books and records, and configure signers, approvals, and management-fee payments so actual control matches state law, payer terms, bank documents, and the agreement stack.
## Prerequisites
### At Lemma
Per entity, the PC and the DSO alike:
* Legal name, EIN, and state of incorporation
* The control person: name, title, date of birth, address, email, phone
* Every beneficial owner at or above 25%
* Government ID, only if the tax ID alone doesn't verify
About 5 minutes per entity to fill in, approved within hours. The executed management services agreement (MSA) is optional and worth sharing anyway, for the reason below.
### At a brick-and-mortar bank
Everything above, plus a document packet per entity: filed formation documents, bylaws or operating agreement, the consent authorizing accounts and naming signers, ownership documentation, the dentist's professional license, a certificate of good standing, a DBA certificate, and address verification. Budget one to three weeks.
Both lists in full: [KYB/KYC document checklist](/reference/banking/kyb-document-checklist).
## What accounts you need
| Entity | Account | Purpose | Needed at launch? |
| ------------------------- | --------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------- |
| **Each billing practice** | Operating | Payer and patient receipts authorized for that provider; permitted practice obligations and management-fee payments out | **Yes** |
| Each PC | Payroll | Segregates clinical payroll | Later |
| Each PC | Refund / disbursement | Controlled account for patient refunds | Later |
| **DSO** | Operating | Fee income; all non-clinical expenses | **Yes** |
| DSO | Payroll | Funded before each run | Soon |
| DSO | Tax reserve | So estimated taxes aren't spent | Soon |
| DSO | Reserve | Runway, and a cushion against events like a clearinghouse outage | Soon |
Start with two. Add the rest as they solve a specific problem. See [Account structures](/concepts/banking/account-structures).
## The controls to resolve before opening
**1. Follow the enrolled provider's authorized payment path.** The EFT instruction must match the payer or program's enrollment record and any permitted reassignment or agent arrangement. State corporate-practice law can make control of professional receipts relevant; the Fifth Circuit's OCA decisions, for example, evaluated account control as one part of the specific Louisiana and Texas arrangements before it. See [DSO case law](/reference/legal/dso-case-law).
**2. Preserve entity separateness.** Separate operating accounts are the conservative baseline for distinct legal entities. If a bank, payer, or cash-management product proposes a custodial, clearing, zero-balance, or other shared architecture, document legal ownership of funds, ledger segregation, access rights, offset risk, and authority before using it.
**3. Derive signer and approver authority from the governing documents and state rule.** Where professional authority must remain with a licensed owner or officer, bank permissions must preserve it; a job title alone is not the analysis.
**4. Do not give the DSO unilateral authority that defeats required practice control.** A management fee may be paid through an invoice, approved ACH, or another documented mechanism if the fee and authority are valid. Automation does not cure or create legality by itself; analyze who may change, pause, dispute, or reverse a transfer. See [Move money between PC and DSO](/guides/banking/move-money-dso-pc).
## Steps
**At Lemma:** a 5-minute form, approved within hours, repeated for each new PC at the same speed.
**At a brick-and-mortar bank:** the same form plus the document packet. Newly formed professional entities are a harder KYB case than a normal LLC, because the bank must verify both the entity and the license behind it. Expect manual review or a branch visit, and budget 1–3 weeks per entity.
Standard forms may not account for this structure. If the form asks who owns 25% or more of the PC, identify the dentist's actual legal ownership even though the MSA governs the management relationship and related economics.
Answer accurately and be prepared to explain. Guessing at what the bank wants to hear produces an inaccurate filing.
* **Signer on practice accounts:** the person authorized by the entity documents and governing professional-practice rule
* **Read-only:** bookkeeper, controller, and whoever reconciles
* **Initiator, where supported:** operations may prepare payments for the officer's approval
* **Do not grant:** support-company authority inconsistent with required practice control, the MSA, payer terms, or bank documents
Decide once: `[Brand] [State] PC, Operating`. Consistent naming is what makes a thirty-account list readable and reconciliation scriptable.
Routing and account number per PC, ready for [EDI/ERA/EFT enrollment](/guides/enrollment/set-up-edi-era-eft).
The health care EFT standard carries the **TRN reassociation trace number** in the ACH addenda record. You use that number to match a Delta Dental deposit to its 835. Many banks do not display addenda in standard reporting, which forces manual matching. Ask about this before choosing an account.
## What gets harder as the group grows
Many bank products administer permissions and reporting by legal entity. At one practice this may be manageable; at ten offices it can mean:
* **Eleven logins** with separate credentials, and eleven statement downloads a month
* **No cross-entity view**, answering "how much cash do we have?" means logging into everything and building a spreadsheet
* **Manual intercompany movement**, ten fee transfers a month, each invoiced and reconciled separately
* **Repeated KYB onboarding**, every new PC is a fresh packet at the same friction as the first
* **Per-entity check stock and signers** for patient refunds
Do not assume a general-purpose bank will validate dental ownership, payer routing, management-fee, or 835 reassociation rules. The operator remains responsible for configuring and documenting the approved structure.
It is the same asymmetry with the MSA. A generalist bank that asks for the agreement reads it once and files it; nothing about the account changes as a result. A platform built around the structure can act on it, turning the funds flow the agreement describes into how the accounts actually behave.
**Lemma** is a dental-first banking experience built for exactly this shape of problem, one interface across every PC and the DSO, designed around DSO-PC compliance patterns rather than adapted to them. Send Lemma your MSA and the accounts are configured to match it: patient revenue landing in the PC's account before any management fee moves, and any sweep set up so the dentist-owner can see it and stop it. Named here as the designated disclosure page under our [mention policy](/reference/appendix/about-lemma).
Everything else on this page applies regardless of where you bank, and the account structure, signer, and reconciliation discipline described here works at any institution.
## Verify it worked
* [ ] Account ownership and receipt routing mapped to each enrolled billing provider
* [ ] Separate ledgers and operating accounts established, or any alternative architecture specifically approved and documented
* [ ] Signer, initiator, approver, dispute, and stop-payment rights match governing authority
* [ ] Read-only access provisioned for bookkeeping
* [ ] Beneficial ownership answered accurately
* [ ] Naming convention applied
* [ ] Account details recorded for EFT enrollment
* [ ] ACH addenda availability confirmed
* [ ] Per-entity setup runbook written for the next entity
## Common failure modes
| Failure | Consequence |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| EFT routed to an account the payer or program did not authorize | Misrouted funds, enrollment breach, recoupment, and re-enrollment risk |
| Funds of distinct entities commingled without a legally supported architecture and separate ledgers | Ownership, accounting, tax, creditor, and professional-control risk |
| Support-company signer or sweep rights exceed the approved authority map | Evidence of impermissible actual control and an agreement-to-operations mismatch |
| Beneficial ownership guessed at | Inaccurate filing |
| No naming convention | An unreadable account list at scale |
| Bank doesn't surface ACH addenda | Manual TRN matching forever |