What is a pay in and pay out report?

A summary of money received and money spent over a period, with the net movement between them. It answers what came in, what went out, who paid you, who you paid, and what the fees and taxes were, without needing a full profit and loss statement.

How is net movement different from profit?

Net movement is cash in minus cash out for the period. Profit adjusts for invoices raised but unpaid, bills received but unpaid, depreciation and accruals. A business can show a profit and still have negative net movement in the same month.

Are internal transfers included?

No. Movements between your own accounts are detected and excluded, so moving money from a current account to a savings account does not appear as income and an expense at the same time.

Where do processor fees show up?

As their own line and as a separate fees total. When a payout report gives gross, fee and net, the fee is recorded rather than absorbed, so the gross figure and the amount that reached the bank both make sense.

Can I export the report?

Yes. The pay in and pay out view exports as CSV with the same figures shown on screen, so it can be dropped into a spreadsheet or handed to an accountant.

Which plan includes it?

The Business plan. On other plans the section shows a short note and a link to the plans page.

Pay in and pay out analysis

Pay in and pay out analysis answers one question that accounting reports often bury: over this period, how much money actually arrived, how much actually left, and what is the difference. It is built from cash movements, so it reflects the bank rather than the accruals, and it is usually the first number a small business owner wants before anything else.

What the report shows

Money in. Every credit that is genuine income, with internal transfers removed.
Money out. Every debit that is genuine spend, again without transfers.
Net movement. Money in minus money out for the period you selected.
Fees. Processor and bank fees totalled separately, because they are the costs most often lost inside a net payout figure.
Tax. Tax amounts read from the documents, kept apart from the amounts they sit inside.
Top payers and top payees. Ranked counterparties, so concentration risk is visible without building a pivot table.
Month by month. In, out and net per month across the period.
CSV export. The same figures, downloadable.

Why transfers have to be excluded

The most common way a cash summary lies is by counting the same money twice. Ten thousand moved from a current account to a deposit account and back again is not twenty thousand of income and twenty thousand of spend, but a naive total will say exactly that. Karchu flags rows that look like a movement between your own accounts and keeps them out of both totals while still showing them in the transaction list, so the money is not hidden, just not counted.

Why gross, fee and net matter

If you only ever look at the bank, a card processor looks like a single friendly deposit. In reality a customer paid one hundred, the processor kept a percentage plus a fixed amount, and the rest landed days later. Reading the payout report rather than the bank line gives you the true revenue figure and the true cost of collection. Karchu writes the fee as its own line so the arithmetic is visible: gross in, fee out, net matching the bank. The processor analyzer page goes through this per provider.

Getting the documents in

Upload bank and card statements, processor payout reports, invoices, bills, receipts and accounting exports. Formats and layouts are covered on the business document analyzer page. For spreadsheet and delimited exports specifically, see the CSV and spreadsheet converter.

Reading the numbers honestly

A pay in and pay out report is only as good as its inputs. Two overlapping statements will double count unless the duplicate rows are removed, a missing month leaves a hole that looks like a quiet trading period, and a payout that settled after the period end belongs to the next period even though the sale happened in this one. Karchu flags duplicates and period gaps rather than smoothing over them, because a summary that quietly fills in a gap is worse than one that says the gap is there.

Who uses it

Owner managed businesses checking whether a good month was really a good month, bookkeepers preparing a client pack, accountants sanity checking a ledger against the bank, and anyone applying for finance who needs to show real movement rather than a projection. For lender specific preparation see preparing statements for a loan.

Frequently asked questions

What is a pay in and pay out report?: A summary of money received and money spent over a period, with the net movement between them. It answers what came in, what went out, who paid you, who you paid, and what the fees and taxes were, without needing a full profit and loss statement.
How is net movement different from profit?: Net movement is cash in minus cash out for the period. Profit adjusts for invoices raised but unpaid, bills received but unpaid, depreciation and accruals. A business can show a profit and still have negative net movement in the same month.
Are internal transfers included?: No. Movements between your own accounts are detected and excluded, so moving money from a current account to a savings account does not appear as income and an expense at the same time.
Where do processor fees show up?: As their own line and as a separate fees total. When a payout report gives gross, fee and net, the fee is recorded rather than absorbed, so the gross figure and the amount that reached the bank both make sense.
Can I export the report?: Yes. The pay in and pay out view exports as CSV with the same figures shown on screen, so it can be dropped into a spreadsheet or handed to an accountant.
Which plan includes it?: The Business plan. On other plans the section shows a short note and a link to the plans page.