Financial Reports and Bookkeeping

This article covers important context for facility owners and bookkeepers who use OpenCourt's financial reports for accounting and reconciliation purposes.

These Reports Are Operational, Not a General Ledger

OpenCourt's Revenue and Itemized reports are designed for day-to-day facility management — understanding what sold, reconciling payments, and identifying trends. They are not a substitute for formal accounting software.

For tax filing and official bookkeeping, we recommend cross-referencing with:

  • Your Stripe dashboard for card payment records and payout details

  • Your bank statements for cash deposit reconciliation

  • Your accounting software (QuickBooks, Xero, etc.) for the official books

The CSV export on both reports makes it easy to pull data into your accounting tools.


Understanding Club Credits and Gift Cards

How Club Credits Work in Reports

Club credits are store credit balances that customers can use to pay for orders. When a customer pays with club credits, the transaction appears in your sales figures but does not appear in Net Collected, because no new money entered the system.

This is why the report separates the sales story from the payments story:

  • Net Sales reflects the total value of goods and services sold, regardless of payment method.

  • Net Collected reflects the actual card and cash payments received.

Gift Cards and Double-Counting in Gross Sales

When a customer purchases a gift card, it appears as a sale in Gross Sales at the time of purchase. When the gift card is later redeemed and the resulting club credits are spent on another purchase, that second transaction also appears in Gross Sales.

This means the underlying dollar value can appear in Gross Sales twice — once for the gift card and once for the item purchased with credits. This is standard for operational reporting and is consistent with how platforms like Square and Mindbody handle gift card reporting.

Net Collected remains accurate. The gift card purchase adds to Net Collected (real money came in), but the subsequent credit-funded purchase does not (no new money came in). If you need to reconcile actual cash flow, Net Collected is the figure to use.

For formal accounting: Under standard accounting practices (GAAP), gift card revenue is typically treated as deferred revenue (a liability) at the time of sale, and recognized as income when the gift card is redeemed. Consult your accountant for how to handle this in your formal records.


Platform Fees

Platform Fees (OpenCourt service fees) are only charged on certain pricing plans (eg Core+). OpenCourt platform fees are pass-through costs added to the customer's price. They are not deducted from your revenue.

For example:

  • You set a lesson price of $50

  • The platform fee is $1

  • The customer pays $51

  • You receive $50, OpenCourt receives $1

In the reports, Net Sales already excludes platform fees and represents what your business earned. The fees are shown separately in the OpenCourt Fees section for transparency.


Refunds

Refunds appear as separate line items in the reports and reduce both Net Sales and Net Collected. OpenCourt supports partial refunds — only the refunded portion is subtracted from the totals.

In the financial summary:

  • Refunds shows the total sales value returned

  • Tax Refunded shows the tax portion returned

  • Card Refunds and Cash Refunds show the actual money returned by payment method

  • Club Credits Refunds shows credits restored to customer balances


Reconciling with Stripe

Every card transaction in the reports includes a Stripe link that takes you directly to the payment in your Stripe dashboard. This is useful for:

  • Verifying individual transactions

  • Checking the status of refunds

  • Matching report totals against Stripe's payout reports

Tip: Stripe's payout timing may differ from your report dates. OpenCourt reports show transactions by the date the order was placed, while Stripe payouts may arrive 2–7 business days later depending on your payout schedule.