Understanding Your Unit’s Accounting

This guide breaks down your unit accounting to help you understand your invoice, commission, and payout available or balance due.

How It Works

When your unit orders products from your Council, you are invoiced for the retail value of these products, minus your commission.

As your unit begins to sell, you collect payments through:

1. Credit card payments
2. Cash to Credit payments
3. Online commission

Each of these is credited toward your Council invoice to reduce the amount owed.

Common Confusion: Commission vs. Payout

A payout is not the same as commission

• Commission: This is a percentage of total sales that serves as your unit's profit for the fundraiser. Your Council sets this percentage, which you can find in the top right of your Account Summary page.
• Payout: If the total credits (from online commission, credit card sales, and cash to credit payments) exceed the amount due to Council, your unit will have a payout available from Trail’s End.

Viewing Your Accounting Details

To see a detailed breakdown of your unit’s finances:

1. Go to Account Summary
2. Click the 'How are these calculated?' button

'How are these calculated?' View

This page is divided into two sections:

LEFT: Your Council Invoice (amount owed)

RIGHT: Credits Applied (payout available)

• If the right side (credits) is higher than the left (invoice), your unit will have an available payout.
• If the left side (invoice) is higher than the right (credits), you will have a balance due to your Council.

Breakdown of Each Section

LEFT (Council Invoice)

Red Box: Retail value of Storefront/Wagon sales (traditional sales)
Blue Box: Commission earned (percentage of Retail Value set by your Council)
Yellow Box: Bill to Council (amount due after commission is subtracted from the Retail value)

Black Box: Payments already made by the unit (reducing the balance)

RIGHT (Credits Applied)

Green Box: Online commission credited toward your bill
Orange Box: Credit card sales collected
Purple Box: Cash to Credit payments collected

You can view details for each of these credits by clicking the arrows to the right of the item

Final Calculation: Amount Due vs. Payout 

• If your unit’s credits are less than the invoice, you will see a Current Due to Council (red box at the bottom left).
• If your credits exceed your invoice, you will see a Current Available Payout (green box at the bottom right).