Deposits booked as revenue
The Mindbody lump sum lands and gets coded to sales. Fees vanish, ClassPass economics stay invisible, and no one can say what a channel really earns.
Payouts reconciled to gross, fees booked
Optimize25 Bookkeeping (formerly True Figure)
Pilates · yoga · spin · strength
Studio books that know billed from earned.
Mindbody and Stripe deposit net of fees, ClassPass pays its own negotiated rate, and a class pack sold today is only revenue once the classes are taught. We keep billed, earned and deposited as three separate numbers, so income, HST and the story you tell a lender all line up.
MindbodyClassPassWellnessLivingGlofoxMariana TekStripeSquare
A reformer pilates class in a bright studio
Where studio books go wrong
Two habits that overstate your studio.
Both feel harmless month to month. Both catch up with you at HST time, at tax time, or the day you try to sell or raise money on those numbers.
Billed treated as earned
An annual membership or 20-pack sold in June is booked as June revenue. Income and HST are overstated now, and future months carry classes you deliver for "free."
Deferred revenue tracked properly
Instructors in a grey zone
Everyone's "a contractor" until a CRA payroll review looks at set schedules, studio equipment and no substitution. Reclassification means back CPP and EI, plus penalties.
Clear, documented instructor pay
Revenue lands in the month you teach it.
Memberships and class packs earned class by class, not the day they're sold.
Billed is not earned
A membership month, tied out.
Packages and memberships are billed up front, but the revenue belongs to the months when classes are actually delivered. The gap is deferred revenue: a liability, not income. Getting this right changes your reported income, your HST timing and how believable your numbers are to a buyer or lender.
We track it automatically from your booking platform's usage data, so earned revenue is a real number, not a guess.
Read the studio revenue guide →June · billed vs earned
Billed to members · packs, memberships, drop-ins$22,140
Earned in June · classes actually delivered$19,480
Deferred to future months · a liability$2,660
Mindbody & Stripe fees · real expense-$1,246
What June truly earned$18,234
Book billings as revenue and June is overstated by $2,660, HST is recognized early, and every future month quietly subsidizes this one.
What we handle
The full studio back office.
One flat monthly price, sized to your volume and platforms.
Payout reconciliation
Mindbody, ClassPass, WellnessLiving, Stripe and Square payouts bridged back to gross sales and visits, with every fee booked where you can see it.
Deferred membership revenue
Packages and memberships recognized as classes are delivered, so income, HST and the liability for unused classes are all right, every month.
Instructor & staff pay
Per-class rates, revenue splits or salary, computed and documented. Payroll with CPP, EI and T4s where they're employees; clean contractor records where they're not.
HST done right
Memberships and class packs are taxable; we track the 13% on what's earned, capture input tax credits on rent and fees, and file on time from verified numbers.
Numbers that run the studio
Revenue by program, channel economics (your rate vs ClassPass's), payroll as a share of revenue, and month-over-month drift, delivered days after month-end.
Catch-up & cleanup
Behind since opening? We rebuild from bank, processor and booking-platform records, quoted flat in writing, then keep you current.
How pricing works
Pricing is one flat monthly fee, quoted after a free review of your books, including QuickBooks, platform reconciliation, HST filing and monthly reporting. Payroll can be added, handled end to end.
Studio FAQ
The questions that come up first.
Yes. Booking platforms pay in lump sums net of fees, and ClassPass pays a negotiated per-visit rate far below your walk-in price. We reconcile each payout back to underlying sales and visits, book the fees as real expenses, and keep channels separated so you can see what each one actually earns you.
Generally yes: memberships, class packs and drop-ins are taxable supplies in Ontario, so 13% applies once you're registered (registration is required once taxable sales pass $30,000 over four quarters). Because packages are billed before classes are delivered, we also make sure the HST lands in the right period. See our HST filing service.
It depends on control, tools, substitution rights and financial risk, not on what the contract says. Many studios carry real reclassification risk here. We keep instructor pay clearly documented either way, and flag arrangements that look offside so you can fix them before a CRA payroll review does.
Pricing is one flat monthly fee, quoted after a free review of your books depending on volume, platforms and payroll. QuickBooks Online, reconciliation, HST filing and monthly reporting are all included, no hourly billing.
Keep reading
Related reading & services.
Three months of your books, reviewed.
Real findings, free.
We'll check how payouts, packages and instructor pay are booked today, and hand you a written summary of what to fix. Yours either way.
On a call or in person · no passwords · findings are yours either way