Dental License and CE Tracking Software: 6 Tools Compared for Multi-Chair Practices

In a practice with four or more chairs, the credentials that lapse are rarely the dentist's. They're the hygienist's licence renewal, an assistant's radiography certificate or the CPR card someone took two years ago. ExpiryEdge is the best fit for that job: one record per person for every licence, permit and card, and a text to whoever has to renew. For counting CE hours, pair it with CE Broker, especially where the dental board reads it directly.

The others fit narrower jobs. Certemy suits DSOs that want primary source verification at a per-user price. Expiration Reminder is a close general-purpose rival to ExpiryEdge. Agilio iLearn is the UK pick for GDC-ready CPD, and Dentrix Ascend stores State ID and DEA expiry dates for prescribers.

Full disclosure: We make ExpiryEdge, and we've put it first. The five other tools are described from their own websites and help pages as we read them on 7 November 2026, and each fact links to that page.

How we compared these tools

Our columns follow the office manager's real question: who on today's schedule is clear to work? So we asked whether each tool covers the whole team (not just the dentist), reminds the person who has to renew, lets staff upload the new card without an account, logs CE or CPD hours, and gives you an audit trail, and what it costs. Board verification is covered in each vendor's own section. We read each vendor's own product, pricing and help pages on 7 November 2026, and checked the DEA rule in eCFR and the CPD rules on the GDC's site. We didn't pay for a trial of every tool. We build ExpiryEdge, so test our ranking with your own staff list.

One practice, four job titles, a dozen renewal clocks

Picture a six-chair office: two dentists, three hygienists, four assistants. Each dentist holds a state licence, a DEA registration and maybe a sedation permit. Each hygienist holds her own state licence on the board's cycle. Each assistant may need a radiography certificate, or an expanded-function permit, depending on your state. Everyone needs a current CPR or BLS card. That's 25 to 30 dates on nine people.

The DEA cycle is the one federal clock. Under 21 CFR 1301.13, a practitioner's registration runs for 36 months after the first period, and you can apply to renew no more than 60 days before it expires. A lapsed DEA number stops controlled-substance prescribing on the day it ends.

Everything else comes from the state dental board, and boards don't agree. Some, including Florida, Georgia and Tennessee, use CE Broker to check CE compliance, per CE Broker's dental page. Others ask each licensee to report hours at renewal and then audit a sample. Assistant permits vary even more, so put each one in with the date printed on it.

In the UK, the GDC sets the rhythm. Dentists renew in the weeks before 31 December and dental care professionals before 31 July, and each renewal includes a declaration of indemnity, per the GDC's annual renewal page. The GDC CPD scheme asks for 100 verifiable hours over five years for dentists, 75 for hygienists, therapists and similar roles, and 50 for dental nurses and technicians, with at least 10 hours in any two-year period and a personal development plan.

The useful tracker holds all of this per person, nags the hygienist or assistant directly rather than you, collects the new card, and shows the owner who can see patients today.

1. ExpiryEdge: best for a practice manager tracking every chair

With ExpiryEdge, nobody on today's schedule is working on a lapsed licence, permit or CPR card, and you stop being the person who chases nine people for paperwork. The hygienist gets the reminder, sends the new card back from her phone, and you just approve it.

Each person has one record with every credential they hold: licence, DEA, sedation permit, CPR card, indemnity policy and anything else with a date, with custom fields for licence numbers, states and CE hours logged. You set the schedule, for example 90, 60, 30 and 7 days, and ExpiryEdge sends it by email, SMS or WhatsApp to the person who has to renew, with a copy to you in Slack or Teams. They open a no-login link, upload the new licence or card, and AI reads the expiry date; you approve or reject each field, and a rejected upload reopens the same link for just that item. If a date passes with nothing uploaded, it escalates to the owner, and a group can filter one dashboard by location and export the audit trail for a payer or board audit.

Try it with your own team's credentials in 15 minutes:

1. Import a CSV of your clinical team with custom fields for role, licence number, DEA number, radiography or expanded-function permit and CE hours logged.
2. Put a 90/60/30/7-day schedule on every licence and CPR card that texts the hygienist or assistant and copies you in Slack.
3. Send one assistant a no-login request link for her current CPR card and watch the expiry date fill in from the upload.

Pricing: four plans at $29, $49, $99 and $199 a month, scaled by users and dated records. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card. What each plan includes is set out on the pricing page.

Good to know: ExpiryEdge works beside CE Broker rather than replacing it, so each clinician keeps reporting CE where the board reads it, and you get the whole team's dates on one screen.

2. CE Broker: best for counting hygienists' and dentists' CE where the board uses it

If your board is a CE Broker partner, each dentist's and hygienist's hours already have to land there. The dental page says CE Broker follows each state's dental CE rules and shows progress as courses are logged. With a partner board, the completed CE goes to the board for the clinician. Licensees can also keep licence and credential details in their account, with renewal reminders for things like sedation permits and CPR cards.

There's an employer version. CE Broker Learning helps staff track CE for renewal, and EverCheck, a sister service, verifies and monitors licences daily. That page is aimed at hospitals and health systems and sends teams of 150 or more to tailored options.

Pricing: the Basic account is $0. On the plans page, Professional, Pro+ and Concierge show a price only once you choose a state and profession. Employer pricing needs a call.

Watch out for: each account belongs to one clinician. The office manager still needs a view of all nine people's DEA dates, CPR cards, assistant permits and indemnity renewals.

3. Certemy: best for DSOs that need primary source verification

A DSO adding offices every quarter has a different worry: is this new hygienist's licence actually active? Certemy answers that with automated primary source verification, and puts employee and facility licences, certifications and permits on one dashboard. Its page for Florida dentists describes real-time licence status and configurable workflows for licence applications. HRIS integrations, SSO and employee onboarding are listed as add-ons.

Pricing: Certemy's pricing page lists Standard Track at $3 per user a month, Enterprise Track and Manage at $6, and $1 per verification. Lower figures of $2.40, $4.80 and $0.80 also appear, which look like the yearly rate.

Watch out for: we didn't see CE hour tracking, or a way for staff to upload their own CPR card, on the pages we read. Ask about both if hygienist CE is what worries you.

4. Expiration Reminder: best general-purpose alternative

Expiration Reminder isn't built for dentistry, but it handles the same dated items. Every plan includes unlimited SMS reminders and unlimited admin users, and there's a self-service portal for employees. If your front office runs on BambooHR, the BambooHR integration syncs staff records and sends renewal reminders for training, credentials and licences.

Pricing: Starter is $49 a month for 150 items, Professional $99 for 600, Business $179 for 1,500 and Enterprise $399 for 2,500, with a lower yearly rate. Each plan opens with a 14-day free trial and no credit card.

Watch out for: e-signatures are an add-on, from $29 a month. The pricing page doesn't say whether an assistant can upload her renewed certificate through the self-service portal.

5. Agilio iLearn: best for UK CPD

Agilio iLearn is a dental CPD library. Every course awards GDC-ready, verifiable CPD, hours and certificates are logged automatically, and managers can see who has completed what across one or more sites. It's part of Agilio One with iComply and iTeam.

Pricing: published on the iLearn pricing page. Essentials is £42 a year and Pro is £142 a year per person, including VAT. Pro adds a personal CPD tracker, PDP features and GDC reports. Team subscriptions start at £2.92 per user a month plus VAT.

Watch out for: iLearn tracks CPD done through its own courses. GDC renewal dates, indemnity and hepatitis B records sit elsewhere, such as iComply or a separate tracker.

6. Dentrix Ascend: best as a record of prescriber dates

If you run Dentrix Ascend, the January 2024 release notes added State ID and DEA expiry date fields to each provider's account. They're required for providers who ePrescribe, and you can load them in bulk by CSV.

Pricing: not covered here; Ascend is a full practice management system.

Watch out for: the release note doesn't mention alerts before those dates, and the fields cover prescribing providers, not hygienists' or assistants' credentials.

ExpiryEdge as an alternative to CE Broker

Keep CE Broker for the hours. If your board reads it, every dentist and hygienist needs an account there regardless. What CE Broker doesn't give the office is a single team view: the assistant whose radiography certificate ran out last month, the hygienist whose CPR card expires before her licence does, the associate whose DEA window opens next week.

That's the gap ExpiryEdge fills. One dashboard covers every chair, reminders reach each person by SMS or WhatsApp, and a no-login link brings the new card back. You can log CE hours as a custom field and set a reminder well before each board deadline, so nobody reports in the last week.

If you need CE sent to the board for you, or licence status pulled from the source, pair ExpiryEdge with CE Broker or Certemy for that job.

Start with nine names on a spreadsheet

List every clinical team member, then every credential beside their name with its expiry date. Most multi-chair offices land at 25 to 30 dates.

Then decide what you need on top of dates. If your board uses CE Broker, each clinician keeps an account anyway. If you're a DSO onboarding clinicians every month and want board verification, trial Certemy. If you just want every date chased with proof on file, run ExpiryEdge and Expiration Reminder side by side on a trial with your real list.

Our dental credentialing checklist lists what to collect, and the guide to how long a DEA licence lasts covers the DEA cycle. For the full picture, see software for dental compliance, our comparison of dental compliance software, and how ExpiryEdge is set up for dental practices.