Accounting for multi-unit spa franchisees
A membership is sold once, and earned one treatment at a time.
Sold in January, redeemed in March. Memberships and gift cards stay deferred until the treatment and are released at close. Commission sits beside the revenue it was earned against.
AI agents do the work overnight. A named accounting lead owns your books.
$350 per location a monthno add-ons
Kite· Meridian Wellness Group · 52 spas07:00Needs your attention · everything else has already been handled
- Open
A $5,912.30 processor payout has not reached the bank
- Chase
Spa 2214 has 3 unreported days
Draft vendor bill
Royalty and brand fund · week 36
$3,211.20
posted · JE-10422
Already in hand
14 overnight
41 bank lines matched
Weekly sales journal drafted for 6 spas
- JE-10422Royalty payable · week 362,376.00
Posted, because a person said so. The agent drafted; the approval is the authorization.
Meridian Wellness Group · 52 spas, on one night in its books.
Operators of these brands run their back office on Kite
- Cost Cutters
Reads from the systems you already run
Where the money moves
Followed to the deposit, and every fee booked where it lands.
Every night, not at month end. The books are current when you open them, not when somebody closes them.
Running every night, not at month end
Spa 2214 · Meridian Wellness Group.
Memberships as revenue on day one
2280Sold once, carried as a liability, released at close from your spa software’s earned-revenue report. Revenue lands where the treatment happened.
The settlement short of the day
$5,912.30The processor says it settled on Tuesday. The bank shows nothing. Raised the morning after.
The license that lapses on a Tuesday
21 daysA therapist’s license is watched from the day it is filed and raised three weeks before it expires — before the state board notices, not after.
The workflows, in your words
Five workflows. One spa at a time, and all of them together.
01
Money in
Services, memberships, retail and gift cards from the day’s export. Every processor settlement followed to the deposit, with the fee booked as its own cost. Redeemed memberships released at close, so the revenue lands in the month of the treatment.
02
Money out
Backbar and professional product, retail distributors, linen and laundry, the spa software subscription, the brand’s fees: dropped in the inbox, read, coded against precedent, drafted for approval. Commission paid booked beside the service revenue it was earned against, so the margin on a treatment is real.
03
Bank
Three tiers of reconciliation. Proof matches by itself. Evidence is suggested and waits. Interpretation is one pass of the model over the remainder, with its confidence shown, posting nothing.
04
Contracts
The franchise agreement and the lease, read into rules with a clause cited for every number. Royalty and brand fund on weekly sales as your agreement defines them, gift cards sold left out where it says so, settled per week in arrears. Percentage rent by the breakpoint.
05
Close
Weekly sales journals per spa. Memberships, packages and gift cards deferred at close and released from your spa software’s earned-revenue report. Depreciation on the fit-out schedule, loan interest, period recognition. A close package whose clean state reads: nothing open.
Obligations from the contract
- Royalty at a percent of weekly sales as your agreement defines them, less gift cards sold where it says so
- Brand fund and local marketing, each on its own basis
- CAM, tax and insurance recoveries reconciled to the landlord’s annual statement
- Percentage rent over a breakpoint, settled in arrears
- Technology and platform fees per spa per period
Compliance and audits
- Massage establishment license
- Therapist licenses
- Business license
- Sales tax permit
- Liability insurance certificate
The state board inspection and the franchisor’s visit read into scored findings with an owner and a deadline each; a therapist license lapsing is raised before the board notices, not after.
The calendar
A calendar month, with royalty settled on the brand’s weekly cycle inside it, so the week the franchisor bills and the week the books recognize are the same week.
Proactive insight
The morning after, not the month after.
A monthly report tells you a location ran hot last month. Kite tells you this morning, naming the spa, the amount and the next action.
Processor settlement
A $5,912 processor settlement has not reached the bank
The processor says it settled on Tuesday; the bank shows nothing yet.
Unreported days
Spa 2214 has 3 unreported days
Royalty waits on a complete week; a closed day is an explicit zero, not a gap.
Restated sales
Spa 2210 restated Tuesday after the royalty was billed
The royalty changes by the difference. Kite raises a delta charge; it never edits a posted bill.
Missing bill
Linen service has not billed Spa 2210 this month
It has come on the 4th for six months. The month reads better than it was until it is accrued.
Lease expiring
The lease at Spa 3120 expires in 90 days
The renewal-notice window from the lease itself, not a calendar someone forgot to keep.
Permit expiring
The massage establishment license at Spa 2210 expires in 21 days
Until it is renewed the location is operating without it.
Repeat finding
Sanitation log incomplete — cited again at Spa 1045
Repeats are what a franchisor escalates on; the first fix did not hold.
Sync stopped
The bank feed for Spa 4402 has stopped syncing
Two days without new lines. Matching waits on the reconnect.
What matched overnight is already handled; these are what did not.
Start with a few spasHow we charge
$350
per location per month. An agentic software platform and a named accounting lead.
- The same rate at four locations and at four hundred. From twenty, the team working your books becomes yours alone at no extra cost.
- Only operating locations count. A store in development or closed costs nothing.
- Pilot a few stores, on your real data, at the same rate.
- No add-ons for payables, a faster close or franchisor reports.
Questions
Questions spa operators ask first.
Do you connect to Zenoti, Meevo, Boulevard or Mindbody?
By export today, not by API — a day of tickets by spa dropped in and read. The banks, cards and your ledger connect directly. We would rather say so on this page than on the first call.
How do you handle provider commission and tips?
Payroll, including commission and tips, stays with your payroll provider. What comes back from payroll — the commission actually paid — is booked to its own line beside service revenue, so the margin on a treatment is a real number and not a spreadsheet.
How do you treat memberships that are redeemed as services?
As deferred revenue until the treatment, released at close from your spa software’s earned-revenue report. Royalty is usually owed on the membership when it is sold, so the royalty basis and the revenue line differ — Kite keeps both, with your agreement’s definition quoted beside the royalty.
Who actually works our books?
A named accounting lead, the same person all month. Under twenty locations your lead works with a qualified team shared across a few operators; from twenty, that team works only on your books, so they learn your brands, your entities and your franchisor’s reporting calendar rather than switching between groups. The lead is the same person all month: the bank on Monday, the bills daily, the close the week after period end.
Do we have to move every location at once?
No. Start with two to five stores through one full month-end close, beside your current bookkeeper, at the same price. The pilot has proved itself when that close ties to your bookkeeper’s to the dollar, with every difference explained. Then move the rest.
Start with a few spas.
Four fields. A person replies within one business day.