Accounting & administration. | Stager Help Center

This guide explains how to manage your financial administration within Stager, which reports to use for your bookkeeping, and how to reconcile ticket sales and costs.

Managing your administration in Stager involves tracking sales, handling taxes, and reconciling payouts. This guide consolidates all essential information to help you manage your bookkeeping efficiently.

Before we start accounting, we first state the time frame you must book the various costs and revenue.

Stager costs are accounted for in the month that the costs were incurred, in other words: the month in which you sold a ticket.
You book your revenue from entrance fees in the month that the event takes place: or, effectively, the moment you provide the service.
VAT must always be reclaimed or paid in the period in which the transaction took place.

Required documents for accounting

To correctly register the cash flow in your administration, use the following files. You can download this directly from the Stager backstage.

Receipt: The receipts shows you all costs collected by Stager for the use of the ticketing service in the previous month. On the receipt you will see for each payment method the number of tickets sold, the costs incl. VAT and the VAT withheld by Stager. You receive an email every fourth day of the month that your invoice is ready to be downloaded and you can then download the invoice via Settings - Account - Billing.
Invoice: If you pay a fee for your users and/or send out messages via Stager we will send you an monthly invoice. You receive an email every first day of the month that your invoice is ready to be downloaded and you can then download the invoice via Settings - Account - Billing.
Payout statement: A payout statement is generated for every payout made. You can find these payout statements under Settings - Account - Payouts. On this proof of payment you will find the amount paid out, the payment method you have chosen and the bank account number to which the amount was transferred.
Accounting reports: To properly register the payments and also to check your Stager invoices, there are various reports that can be downloaded in the Stager backstage. To do this, go to Reports - Accounting. The following two reports are especially important for your administration:
- Accounting by date - in this report you can see all ticketing revenues, Stager costs and VAT in a given period.
- Accounting by event - this report provides you with an overview of all revenue and costs for each event, including a breakdown of the VAT for that event.

Administration using the Accounting by sales date report

You can download a monthly financial overview via Reports - Accounting - Accounting by sales date. In this report you can see what revenue has been received for each month and each event, for online sales, what the VAT component is and what costs are involved. You use this report for accounting purposes.

You will now see an overview of all events for which tickets were sold that month, with the associated project types and event IDs. For each event we show the following information:

Revenue (incl. VAT): Total revenue minus Stager fees deducted - this is all ticketing revenue minus refunds minus Stager fees, which is the total amount you can pay yourself or have already partially paid out. All amounts include VAT.
Received (excl. VAT): Ticketing income ex. VAT - these are all ticketing revenues, where we have already deducted the VAT for you. Use this amount to book your turnover.
Refunded (excl. VAT): Refunds ex. VAT - these are all refund amounts per event, again excluding VAT. This is negative turnover, which you can enter separately, but you can also balance the income and refunds and make one turnover entry.
VAT payable (%): VAT to be paid - Listing each VAT percentage, you can find a total amount that you must pay in VAT on your ticketing turnover.
Stager fees (excl. VAT) - Stager costs: these are the costs that Stager has deducted for taking care of the ticket sales and for the refunds made through Stager.
VAT receivable (21%) - VAT receivable - Stager charges 21% for Dutch customers and diverts the VAT for international customers. In this column you will find the VAT amount you can reclaim from the tax authorities, provided you are a taxable entity.

An example of how to record an event in the accounts.

First we explain the booking process and then we show you an example booking. Note: The ledger numbers and names of ledger accounts used in the examples below may be different in your accounting system.

In the chosen month, enter the amount in the accounts that you can pay to yourself and enter this amount in the suspense account. This is the total turnover including VAT but without the Stager costs, because we have retained them.
You then book the Stager costs and VAT that you can reclaim from the Tax Authorities. This can be done on the basis of the invoice we send you or with the amounts from the Accounting by date report.
Afterwards, book the turnover for your event excluding VAT: this is the amount that you can actually pocket.
Finally, there is the VAT that you have to pay on your ticket sales. Consult the website of the Tax and Customs Administration to find out which rates you should set for each type of event.

The accounts will look like this if your event took place on August 12, 2021 and you are going to administer them in the month of June 2021. For the sake of completeness, we assume different VAT percentages on the tickets. This will generally not be the case.

GB number	Ledger account	Description	Debit	Credit	Period
2200	Advance admission online	Recette income June '21	€ 20.991,49		06-2021
7000	Stager costs	Stager invoice June '21	€ 1.151,25		06-2021
1520	VAT to be claimed	Stager invoice June '21	€ 241,76		06-2021
8000	Ticketing revenue	Recette income June '21		€ 19.772,42	08-2021
1500	VAT to be paid high	Recette income June '21		€ 1.456,98	06-2021
1510	VAT to be paid low	Recette income June '21		€ 1.155,10	06-2021
		check:	€ 22.384,50	€ 22.384,50

Costs and Revenue by event

When you organize multiple events, you may have created extra categorizations in your accounting, such as project codes, cost centres or cost units. They offer you the opportunity to book the turnover and possibly Stager costs per event. If you work this way, you can also use the Accounting by date report, because it contains all amounts, codes and periods that are important to properly record everything.

Your booking will then look like this:

GB number	Ledger account	Description	Project code	Cost centre	debit	credit	period
2200	Advance admission online				€ 20.991,49
8000	Ticketing revenue	Event 1	10	2021000090		€ 2.631,19	06-2021
7000	Stager costs	Event 1	10	2021000090	€ 180,00		06-2021
8000	Ticketing revenue	Event 2	11	2021000123		€ 6.938,02	07-2021
7000	Stager costs	Event 2	11	2021000123	€ 277,50		06-2021
8000	Ticketing revenue	Event 3	10	2021000012		€ 1.658,72	08-2021
7000	Stager costs	Event 3	10	2021000012	€ 175,50		06-2021
8000	Ticketing revenue	Event 4	8	2021000292		€ 1.307,34	09-2021
7000	Stager costs	Event 4	8	2021000292	€ 93,00		06-2021
8000	Ticketing revenue	Event 5	13	2021000129		€ 1.472,48	09-2021
7000	Stager costs	Event 5	13	2021000129	€ 250,50		06-2021
8000	Ticketing revenue	Event 6	8	2021000393		€ 5.764,68	02-2022
7000	Stager costs	Event 6	8	2021000393	€ 174,75		06-2021
1520	VAT to be claimed	Stager invoice June '21			€ 241,76		06-2021
1500	VAT to be paid high	Recette income June '21				€ 1.456,98	06-2021
1510	VAT to be paid low	Recette income June '21				€ 1.155,10	06-2021
				check	€ 22.384,50	€ 22.384,50

Every company is different and has set up its administration differently, reflecting many different procedures. You can do your administration in many ways based on reports in Stager. We have chosen to describe this one way, but if you want to book in another way, please discuss this with your bookkeeper or accountant.

The Accounting per event

You can download the financial overview of each event via Reports - Accounting - Accounting per event. You use this to book events that have taken place or to make a settlement with external parties you have worked with. In this overview you can see the turnover, the costs incurred and the amount of tickets.

Gross revenue

Revenue excl. service fees online tickets: This is the revenue from online ticket sales, without self-imposed service costs.
Service fees online tickets: The total service fees you have set, per ticket, for online tickets.
Refunds excl. service fees - online: The total amount of refunded tickets, without service costs.
Service fees refunded - online: The total of refunded service costs.
Total gross revenue incl. VAT: The total of ticket sales, minus all refunds. Including VAT.
X% VAT: The VAT component associated with this turnover.
Total gross revenue excl. VAT: The total gross revenue, excluding VAT.

Stager fees

Stager fees incl. VAT: The total costs charged for online ticket sales, including VAT.
Stager refund fees incl. VAT: The costs charged for performing refunds, including VAT.
Total fees incl. VAT: The total of all ticketing costs charged for this event, including VAT.
21% VAT: The VAT component of these costs, to be reclaimed from the tax authorities.
Total fees excl. VAT: The total costs for ticketing, excluding VAT.

Net Revenue

Total gross revenue excl. VAT: The total of the first part. The total of the turnover, excluding VAT.
Total fees excl. VAT: The total of the second part. The total of the costs, excluding VAT.
Net revenue: The net revenue. This is the part that you, the organizer, have left over from the event, minus the costs and without VAT.

Visitors

Paid tickets: The amount of paid tickets sold for this event.
Free tickets: The amount of free tickets sold for this event.
Scanned tickets: The amount of scanned tickets.

Some tips

Stay Consistent: Always use the same reporting method (by date or by event) for your primary tax filings to avoid double-counting.
Payouts: Remember that payouts are internal transfers between your Adyen submerchant account and your bank account; they do not trigger new VAT liabilities.
Always make sure the correct VAT percentage is set in your Setting - Ticketing -Ticket Types. If this is not set correctly, the VAT amounts shown in all accounting reports will be inaccurate.