Seeing income per branch from till sales
Why every branch's till sales land in one revenue account, which till reports give you income per branch, and when a journal split makes sense.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Fitness businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
You run two or three clubs. Each front desk sells day passes, shakes, towels and tubs of protein, and at month-end the owner asks a fair question: which branch is carrying the business? You open the income statement and find one line for till sales, with every club's takings poured into it.
That is not a fault in your set-up. It is how the till posts to the ledger, and it means income per branch comes from the till's own reports rather than from the chart of accounts. This article shows where the branch figures live, how to read them, and what to do if your accountant wants them in the ledger as well.
One revenue account for every till
Every till sale that reaches the server posts a balanced journal in the same step. The money side goes to an account for each payment method: cash to 1050, card and QR to 1060, EFT to 1000 and M-Pesa to 1070. The sale itself is credited to revenue at 4000, the VAT to output VAT at 2150, and the product's cost moves out of inventory into cost of sales.
Notice what that list leaves out: the branch. A shake sold at the north-side club and one sold in the city centre both credit 4000. Management accounts are added up from those journals, so your income statement shows a single till revenue figure for the whole business.
You can choose whether the till posts one journal per sale or one summary journal per till session per day. The summary keeps the general ledger shorter, and because each session belongs to one till, a day's summary is easy to trace to the desk that produced it. Neither choice adds a branch to the revenue line.
Where the branch figures live
Tills named and opened at a location
Several tills can run at once, and each one is opened at one of the business's stock locations. A cashier opens a till by giving it a name and entering the float they counted. That name is your simplest branch tag. If every till's name starts with its club, such as "Rosebank desk" or "Westlands desk", every report the till produces tells you where the money was taken.
X and Z reports
While a till is open, a live X report can be opened as a PDF to see the session so far. At cash-up a Z report is produced and frozen, and that PDF stays as it was at the moment of counting. For branch reporting, the Z report is the building block: one till, one session, fixed.
Add up a month of Z reports for each club's tills and you have that club's till income.
The closed business day
A branch's business day is closed by a supervisor or manager who was not a cashier that day. Closing freezes the day's Z reports, payments, VAT by rate and cash differences. That makes the closed day the figure to report from: it cannot drift after someone senior has signed it off, and the person who closed it did not handle the cash.
Two screens that are not branch reports
Some numbers on the commerce screens look like branch reporting. They are not.
- The branch picker. At the time of writing, the branch picker on the commerce screens lists three invented South African branches instead of your own locations, and the chosen name is sent with each sale. Do not report from it, and tell desk staff not to rely on it.
- The sales totals across the top of the commerce screens. These count only sales rung up in that browser since the page opened, and they always show in rand. They help the person at the desk; they are not a record.
Branch figures should come from Z reports and closed days, which the server keeps.
Sales by VAT rate as a cross-check
Posted till sales can be listed by VAT rate and tax code for any period, and the VAT return calculations read the same posted sales. This listing covers the whole business. It answers "how much did we sell at the standard rate this quarter?" rather than "how much did each club sell?"
It still earns its place in a branch review. The clubs' closed days for a month should add up to the business-wide till sales for that month. When they do not, look for a till session nobody cashed up or a day nobody closed.
Putting branch income into the ledger
Plenty of owners are happy with a monthly schedule of branch totals beside the management accounts. Others, or their accountants, want the income statement itself to show each club. The chart of accounts can take that: accounts can be added and renamed, so you can create a revenue account for each branch.
The till will keep posting to 4000. To move the income, your accountant posts a manual journal at month-end that takes each club's closed-day total out of 4000 and puts it into that club's revenue account. A manual journal must balance, and one dated in a closed month is refused, so it belongs before the month is closed. If a figure later proves wrong, the posted journal is corrected by a reversal rather than an edit.
A worked example in words: a business with a north club and a city club finishes the month. The north club's closed days add up to one total, the city club's to another. The accountant's journal debits 4000 with the combined amount and credits "Till revenue, North" and "Till revenue, City" with each club's share. After it, 4000 holds nothing for till sales that month, and the income statement shows the two clubs side by side.
Leave VAT out of the journal. Each sale already posted its output VAT correctly; only the revenue needs splitting.
A month-end routine for branch income
- Check that every till session at every club has been cashed up.
- Make sure each club's business days were closed by a supervisor or manager who did not work the till.
- Open the Z reports or closed-day figures per club and total them.
- Compare the club totals with the business-wide sales by VAT rate for the month.
- If you split income in the ledger, post the journal before the month is closed.
For the set-up behind this, see branches, tills and stock locations. Where one desk runs a morning and an evening shift, cashing up between reception shifts keeps each person's takings apart, which makes every club's figures cleaner. For the bigger picture of reports like these, AccountingTools describes management accounting as the internal reporting that tracks revenues, expenses and variances so managers can act on them.
Branch income is there to be found; it simply lives in the till's reports rather than the revenue line. Name every till by its club from the first day, close each day properly, and agree with your accountant whether a month-end journal is worth the extra step.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
