The morning after a busy Sunday
On Monday morning, the finance officer opens the ticketing report for Sunday, the till Z-reports for the gate and shop, the card terminal settlement, the online payment provider's payout report and the cash count. Online tickets were sold through your website and a third-party ticket reseller. Some online tickets were refunded. Some gate sales were for tickets booked online and paid at the gate.
The figures do not agree. After a morning of work, most of the difference is timing: card payouts arrive a day or two later, online payouts are batched weekly, and fees come off. A small gap remains that she cannot explain. She notes it and moves on, because Tuesday's reconciliation is waiting.
Why reconciliation is so fiddly
Each sales channel records a sale differently and pays out on its own schedule. The ticketing system knows what was sold. The payment provider knows what was paid, minus fees, in batches. The bank sees the batches. The till knows gate sales but not online ones.
Refunds, part-payments, vouchers and complimentary tickets add more lines, each of which appears in some reports and not others.
When all of this is done by hand, small gaps are tolerated because finding them takes too long. Occasionally, a small gap is the sign of a bigger problem, such as a till not being closed properly or a reseller not paying.
What manual reconciliation costs
| Weak point | Consequence |
|---|---|
| Several reports each day | Hours of matching every morning |
| Different payout timings | Apparent gaps that are only timing |
| Fees netted off payouts | Income recorded at the wrong figure |
| Small gaps tolerated | Real problems found weeks later |
| Reseller sales separate | Unpaid or late reseller income missed |
The busiest days are the hardest to reconcile, because they have the most refunds, the most gate sales and the most cash. So the days that matter most to your income are the ones least likely to be checked properly, and a till that was not closed at the end of a bank holiday can go unnoticed for weeks.
An automatic daily match
We build a reconciliation service that runs each night.
- It pulls sales from your ticketing system, till data from your EPOS, payouts from your payment providers such as Stripe or your card acquirer, and statements from resellers.
- Bank transactions are read through your accounts software's bank feed, for example from Xero or QuickBooks.
- Sales are matched to payouts using references, dates and amounts, allowing for known timing and fee rules for each provider.
- Refunds, vouchers and complimentary tickets are accounted for in the right channel.
- A daily summary shows what is matched, what is in transit and what does not add up, with the unexplained items listed first.
- Journals for fees and sales are prepared for your accounts software, ready for the finance team to approve.
Cases we plan for
- Tickets booked online and paid at the gate, which appear in both systems.
- Chargebacks and disputed card payments, which arrive weeks later.
- Cash floats and banking days, which follow your cash handling rules.
- Resellers paying monthly on their own statements.
Monday morning afterwards
The finance officer opens a summary that shows Sunday's sales matched, with card and online payouts in transit and one small till difference flagged for the gate supervisor. The morning is spent on that one item, not on building the reconciliation.
- Every sales channel matched to payouts
- Timing and fees handled automatically
- Unexplained gaps listed first
- Journals ready for your accounts software
Is reconciliation a daily chore for you?
- You reconcile several sales reports by hand each day.
- Payout timings make figures hard to match.
- Small gaps are noted and left.
- Reseller income is checked only occasionally.
- Fees are not recorded separately from sales.