A payout that matches nothing
Your bank statement shows a payout from your direct debit provider. It is not the total of this month's collections, because some failed, a few were refunded, one indemnity claim was deducted and the provider's fees were taken off. It also includes some late collections from last month's retries.
Your bookkeeper posts it as 'membership income' and moves on, or downloads the provider's payout report and spends an afternoon matching it. Either way, the accounts cannot tell you income by plan, by site, or how much you are paying in fees and losing to failures.
Payouts are netted, accounts need detail
Payment providers pay out in batches, which is efficient for them and for your bank. Accounts need the detail inside those batches.
- Each payout combines many collections, retries and adjustments.
- Fees are deducted before the money reaches you, so income appears lower than it was.
- Refunds and indemnity claims reduce payouts without clear links to members.
- Multi-site gyms often collect through one provider account, so site income is mixed.
- Membership plans are not reflected in the accounts' income categories.
Card payments add a second stream. Day passes, PT packages and shop sales often go through Stripe or a card terminal, which pays out on its own schedule with its own fees. Two netted streams arriving on different days make the bank feed even harder to read.
Retries blur the months as well. A collection that failed on the first and succeeded on the eighth belongs to one month's membership but lands in a later payout, so a simple monthly comparison never quite adds up.
Accounts that do not tell you much
When income is posted as one lump, your accounts cannot show what each plan, site or product line earns. Fees and failures, which are real costs, are hidden. VAT treatment of different income types may need care, which is harder when everything is one figure.
Month-end takes longer than it should, and your accountant's year-end work costs more because of the untangling. Questions like 'how much did PT packages bring in last quarter?' need a manual project to answer.
Disputes are harder too. When a member says they were charged twice, finding the collection inside a netted payout can take longer than the conversation itself.
Each payout split into its parts
- We connect your direct debit provider, such as GoCardless, and card provider, such as Stripe, through their APIs.
- For each payout, we fetch its list of collections, failures, refunds, chargebacks or indemnity claims and fees.
- Each collection is linked to the member and plan in your gym management system, and to the site where relevant.
- A payout entry is posted to Xero or QuickBooks with lines for each income category and site, fees as an expense and refunds and claims recorded separately, using the account codes your accountant agrees.
- The posted entry equals the bank payout, so reconciliation in your accounts is a single match.
- Anything that cannot be matched to a member or plan is listed for a person to review.
- Monthly reports show income by plan and site, fees and failure losses.
| Payout part | Posted as | Detail kept |
|---|---|---|
| Membership collections | Income by plan and site | Member and plan |
| PT and class packs | Income by product | Member and product |
| Provider fees | Bank and payment fees | Per payout |
| Refunds and claims | Separate lines | Member and reason |
The account codes, VAT treatment and categories come from your accountant. We post what they specify.
Month-end without the afternoon of matching
Every payout arrives in your accounts already split, and reconciles with a single click. Your bookkeeper reviews the few unmatched items. Your accounts show income by plan and site, and the real cost of fees and failures.
Year-end becomes simpler for your accountant, and questions about income by product can be answered from the reports rather than a spreadsheet project.
When a member queries a charge, staff can find the exact collection, the payout it was part of and whether it was refunded, in a moment rather than an afternoon.
Does this sound like your books?
- Payouts are posted as one figure.
- Your bookkeeper spends hours matching payout reports.
- You do not know income by plan or site from your accounts.
- Fees and failure losses are hidden inside net payouts.