Cost of Getting Paid Tracker Spreadsheet | Card Fees, Cash Handling and Bank Charge Excel Google Sheets Template | Takings Log

💳 COST OF GETTING PAID TRACKER — EXCEL & GOOGLE SHEETS

The fee is not the price.

Every comparison table you have ever been shown about payment methods lists one
number: the percentage.

In the worked year inside this file, that number was 57% of what being paid
actually cost. The other 43% was the fixed fee on every transaction, the minutes
somebody spent counting and banking and reconciling and chasing, the days the
money sat in somebody else's account, and the share of it that never arrived at
all.

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EIGHT LINKED TABS

· Start Here — what each tab expects and where to type.
· Setup — three numbers and two lists, all named by you.
· Takings — 800 rows. Four things a row.
· By Method — every way you are paid, priced properly.
· By Counter — the same money, cut by where it came in.
· By Size Of Sale — the argument about small card payments, settled.
· What Waiting Costs — the days, the chasing, and the money that never arrives.
· Overview — the year on one screen.

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FROM THE WORKED YEAR INSIDE THE FILE

Money taken $1,485,803
Transactions 48,446
Average sale $30.67

Fees, the part everybody compares $21,068
Time on it — 425 hours $10,192
Waiting $3,407
Never arrived $2,166
COST OF BEING PAID $36,834
As a share of the takings 2.5%
Each transaction $0.76

ONLY 57% OF THAT WAS A FEE

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A METHOD WITH NO FEE IS NOT A METHOD WITH NO COST

Two of the six methods in the worked file have no percentage and no fixed fee at
all. Between them they took a third of the year's money.

Cash cost 2.2%. All of it was minutes — counting it, floating it, banking it,
and the till differences.

Bank transfer cost 1.9%. Forty-one days of waiting, the chasing, and the ones
that never came.

Meanwhile the card machine, the thing everybody complains about, cost 2.1% —
less than the cash.

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THE DEAREST THING YOU DO

In the worked file it is paying by instalments: 1.8% of the money and 10.5% to
take.

That is the thing you offer to help people buy, and it is the single most
expensive way you are paid.

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IS A $4 SALE WORTH TAKING ON A CARD?

Every counter in the country argues about this and almost nobody has the number.

By Size Of Sale sorts every line by its average sale and prices each band both
ways — per dollar taken and per transaction.

In the worked year the smallest sales cost 1.7 times as much per dollar as the
largest, and 22 cents each against $4.85 each.

Both are true, and they lead to opposite decisions. What matters is that the
fixed fee and the minute, not the percentage, are what does it.

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$40,086 OF YOUR MONEY IS SOMEWHERE ELSE RIGHT NOW

One day for cash, two for the card machine, forty-one for a trade account.

Multiply every sum by the days it waits and you get the balance that is
permanently in transit. Priced at what money costs you, that is a real number and
it belongs next to the fee.

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1.6% AT THE TRADE DESK. 3.6% ONLINE.

Same business, same year, same money. Where it comes in decides what it costs,
because where it comes in decides how people pay and how big the sale is.

The café takes 13% of the money and 14% of the cost of taking it.

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WHAT YOU GET

Two workbooks and a guide. One workbook has a whole worked year already filled
in, so you can see what every column expects before you touch anything. The
second is the same file completely blank — same tabs, same formulas — ready for
your own takings from the first row. Eight hundred rows, ten payment methods,
eight tills. The guide is a plain-English PDF.

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EXCEL AND GOOGLE SHEETS

Built as .xlsx. Excel 2016 or newer on Windows or Mac, and Google Sheets through
File → Import → Upload. LibreOffice too. No macros, no add-ons, no account to
create, nothing to install, no subscription. You download a file and it is yours.

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QUESTIONS PEOPLE ACTUALLY ASK

Do I have to enter every transaction?
No, and you should not. One line a week per till per method is enough — the
count and the total — and it is what your till already tells you.

One till, not four?
Put one name in the Where column. Everything else works exactly the same.

We invoice rather than take payments over a counter.
Then bank transfer is most of your file, and the days-and-chasing columns are the
whole point of it.

I do not know what an hour of somebody's time costs.
Wages plus what you pay on top of them, divided by the hours you get. Being
roughly right beats leaving it out, which is what every comparison table does.

I do not know what money costs me.
Use your overdraft or loan rate. If you have neither, use what you would earn on
it. It only affects the waiting column.

Does it name any particular provider?
No. Ten empty slots you name yourself, with six numbers each.

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WHAT THIS IS NOT

Not a till system, a payment gateway or a reconciliation tool. Not accounting,
bookkeeping or tax software. Not connected to anything — nothing syncs, nothing
logs in. Not financial or tax advice.

It will not lower anybody's rate. It will tell you what each way of being paid
actually costs you, so that the conversation about the rate is worth having.

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Sold through my Etsy shop, ThePlainLedger, so the download, the payment and the
buyer protection are all handled by Etsy. I never ask for access to anything —
no password, no bank login, no card account. You download a file; that is the
whole transaction.

The example business is invented. The arithmetic behind every figure is not.