5 min readReports, expenses and accounts
Gym expenses and profit tracking: know what your gym really earns
By Himanshu Thakur, Founder, Jimwala · Updated · 5 min read
A lot of gym owners know what they collected but not what they kept. Collections are not profit. Rent, salaries, electricity and equipment come out first, and if they are not written down anywhere, the gym can look healthy while it quietly loses money.
What to write down
Rent. Salaries and trainer payouts. Electricity and water. Equipment, bought and repaired. Marketing and offers. Cleaning and supplies. Software and internet. And refunds, which are not an expense in the usual sense but come out of what you kept. Put each in a category as you pay it. Doing it at month end from memory is where numbers go missing.
Working out profit
For a month: what you collected, minus refunds, minus expenses. Look at it month by month, and compare the same month a year apart, because gyms are seasonal. January is not July.
Reading for leaks
- Collections are steady but expenses keep climbing.
- Dues pile up in particular months.
- Refunds follow one plan or one trainer.
- Salaries are missing from expenses, so profit looks better than it is. Staff salaries are usually your biggest cost.
What your accountant will ask for
A list of payments with dates and methods. Invoices with the tax split, if you are GST-registered. Credit notes for refunds. Expenses by category. The meeting goes quickly when you hand over a few clean reports rather than a register and a pile of screenshots.
In Jimwala
Add expenses from your phone by category and Reports shows the monthly total and profit. Refund against an invoice and a numbered credit note is issued. Download spreadsheets of members, payments, invoices, credit notes, expenses and check-ins for your accountant. An activity log, visible to the owner only, shows who changed what. More on the reports page.