How daily summaries work
Why Australian accountants love Revively
Revively is built for Australian GST and accrual accounting from the ground up, so your bookkeeper gets clean, correct numbers with no monthly clean-up, no manual journals to "fix" bad data, and no spreadsheet workarounds.
- GST is handled correctly at the source. Prices are GST-inclusive the way Australian consumers expect, and every line is posted to Xero with the right tax code - GST on Income for taxable sales, GST Free for exempt items, and BAS Excluded for movements that are not a supply (like recognising previously-deferred revenue). Your BAS reconciles without adjustments.
- Gift cards and prepaid packages are treated as liabilities, not premature income. Money you have taken but not yet earned sits in the correct liability accounts, so your Profit and Loss is never overstated and your revenue lands in the period you actually delivered the service.
- Deferred revenue is done properly. Sell a 10-session pack today and Revively can hold it as unearned revenue and recognise one-tenth each time a session is attended - the accrual treatment your accountant would otherwise have to build by hand.
- One clean journal per day, not hundreds of messy ones. Revively consolidates a day of activity into a single balanced Xero invoice (plus a single revenue-recognition journal when you use accrual), so the audit trail is tidy and reconciliation is trivial.
- The rules are locked in at the moment of sale. Every sale carries its own tax and recognition treatment for life, so changing a setting never silently rewrites history.
The rest of this article shows exactly how each transaction type flows through the daily summary and into Xero.
What the daily summary is
The daily summary is your end-of-day sales and cash report. For each business day it gathers every payment you collected and every invoice you settled, so you can reconcile the till, hand clean numbers to your bookkeeper, and (when Xero is connected) push a single summary invoice instead of hundreds of individual ones.
You will find it under Reports - Daily summary. Each row is one business day in your account timezone.
The two headline numbers
Every summary is built from two independent measures. They answer different questions, so they will not always be identical - and that is by design.
Total receipts
Money that actually moved that day. The sum of all successful payments minus refunds, counted on the day the payment was recorded, split by method - Cash, Card (Stripe online, in-person terminal taps, and SmartPay are grouped under Card in the till view; the detail drawer can show SmartPay separately), and EFTPOS. Gift card redemptions appear as their own method.
Total receipts answers: how much money hit my accounts today?
Recognised revenue
Sales you earned that day. The sum of settled invoice line items plus tax, counted on the day each invoice was marked fully paid.
Recognised revenue answers: how much did I actually sell today?
The balancing line
Each day also shows a Balancing figure:
Balancing = Total receipts - Recognised revenue
- Balancing is $0 - cash in matches sales earned. The common case for pay-in-full visits.
- Balancing is positive - you took more money than you recognised as sales today (for example a deposit, or a prepaid package on accrual).
- Balancing is negative - you recognised more sales than money collected today (for example an invoice settled with a gift card, where no new cash moved).
When you sync to Xero, any non-zero balancing is posted as a single "Daily summary balancing adjustment" line so the summary invoice still reconciles to the cash you banked.
How the daily summary maps to Xero
In daily summary sync mode, Revively posts one consolidated accounts-receivable invoice per closed day to a shared Revively contact. On that invoice:
- Each revenue line is posted to an account and tax code based on what it is (see the table below). Amounts are GST-exclusive with the tax code carrying the GST, so Xero calculates GST the same way your other sales do.
- Each payment method (cash, card, SmartPay, EFTPOS, gift card) is posted as a payment against the appropriate bank, clearing, or liability account. SmartPay uses its own clearing account when mapped, otherwise it shares the Stripe card clearing account.
- The balancing adjustment squares the invoice to the receipts.
Revively can auto-create the accounts it needs, including Revively Gift Card Liability (a current liability) and Revively Deferred Revenue (a current liability), and you map the rest (revenue, cash, card clearing, GST) in Settings - Integrations - Xero.
Separately, when you use accrual (redemption) revenue recognition, Revively posts a daily revenue-recognition Manual Journal that moves earned amounts out of Deferred Revenue and into income. This is a second, purpose-built journal - it is not part of the receipts-driven daily summary invoice, because recognising a prepaid session moves no cash.
Revenue recognition: Cash vs Accrual
Revively supports two revenue-recognition bases for packages and package gift cards, set once per account and editable from both the Daily Summary settings and the Xero settings (it is a single shared setting):
- Option A - Cash / Upfront (default). The full package sale is recognised as income on the day it is sold. Simplest, and ideal for smaller setups. GST is still charged at the point of sale.
- Option B - Accrual / Redemption. The sale is booked to Deferred Revenue (a liability) on day one, and income is recognised in slices as each session is marked Attended. Any sessions left unused when the package expires are recognised as breakage income. GST is still charged in full at the point of sale.
Either way, GST is collected at sale for packages because a package (for example "10 x PT sessions") is a voucher for a specific, identified supply. This is different from a plain dollar-value gift card, which is treated as a face-value voucher with GST deferred to redemption.
Immutable snapshot. The basis in force when a sale happens is stamped onto that transaction and used for its entire life. If you switch the account from accrual to cash, the packages you already sold keep recognising on accrual until they are used up - only new sales adopt the new basis. Nothing is ever rewritten retroactively.
How each transaction type is posted to Xero
The table below shows where each event lands. "Daily summary" means it appears on the consolidated day invoice; "Recognition journal" means the separate accrual Manual Journal.
| Transaction | In the daily summary? | Xero account | Tax code | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service / product sold and paid in full | Yes | Revenue (or the mapped item account) | GST on Income (or GST Free) | Cash/card/EFTPOS receipt balances it. |
| Booking deposit taken | Yes (as a receipt) | Bank / clearing | n/a | Revenue recognised later when the invoice settles. |
| Gift card sold (dollar value) | Yes | Gift Card Liability | GST Free / Exempt | No GST at sale; it is stored value, not a sale yet. |
| Gift card redeemed against an invoice | Yes | Gift Card Liability is drawn down by the "gift card" payment; the goods/service line posts to Revenue | GST on Income on the service line | No new cash moves, so receipts do not rise but revenue does. |
| Package sold - Cash basis | Yes | Revenue | GST on Income | Full amount earned on the sale day. |
| Package sold - Accrual basis | Yes | Deferred Revenue | GST on Income | GST charged now; income deferred. |
| Package gift card sold | Yes | Deferred Revenue (accrual) or Revenue (cash) | GST on Income | Same treatment as a package; it is a voucher for a specific supply. |
| Package gift card claimed by a customer | No | none | n/a | Just converts the voucher to the customer's package; the money was already booked at sale. |
| Package session attended - Accrual basis | No (Recognition journal) | Dr Deferred Revenue, Cr Revenue | BAS Excluded | One slice recognised per attended session; no GST movement. |
| Package expires with unused sessions - Accrual basis | No (Recognition journal) | Dr Deferred Revenue, Cr Revenue (breakage) | BAS Excluded | Remaining balance recognised as breakage income. |
| Package session attended - Cash basis | No | none | n/a | Already recognised at sale. |
| Refund | Yes (reduces receipts; posts a credit note) | Reverses the original accounts, including proportional GST | mirrors the original | For an accrual package, the unearned portion and its GST reverse out of Deferred Revenue. |
A few things worth calling out:
- Deposits count as receipts the moment they are captured, even though the sale is recognised later.
- Selling a gift card is different from redeeming one - selling stores value (a liability); redeeming spends it (draws down the liability while the service line books revenue).
- Package gift cards carry GST at sale and follow your recognition basis, exactly like a package sold directly.
- Accrual recognition and breakage are the only events that appear in the separate recognition journal rather than the daily summary invoice.
- Refunds reduce receipts on the day the refund is processed, which is often a different day from the original sale.
Worked examples
Example 1 - straight pay-at-visit (balanced)
A client books a $120 massage and pays by EFTPOS at the desk.
- Total receipts: +$120 (EFTPOS)
- Recognised revenue: +$120
- Balancing: $0
Xero: revenue line $109.09 + GST $10.91, EFTPOS payment $120.
Example 2 - deposit now, balance later (crosses days)
A $200 facial is booked on Monday with a $50 deposit, and the $150 balance is paid on Wednesday.
Monday - receipts +$50, revenue $0, balancing +$50. Wednesday - receipts +$150, revenue +$200 (invoice now settled), balancing -$50.
Across both days receipts ($200) and revenue ($200) net out; each day is intentionally unbalanced.
Example 3 - dollar gift card: sale then redemption
Friday you sell a $100 gift card, paid cash. Saturday a customer redeems $80 of a gift card against an $80 treatment.
Friday - receipts +$100 (cash), revenue +$100 (posted to Gift Card Liability, no GST), balancing $0. Saturday - receipts $0, revenue +$80 (treatment settled by the gift card), balancing -$80. In Xero the $80 draws down Gift Card Liability while the treatment line books revenue + GST.
Example 4 - 10-session PT package on Accrual basis
You sell a 10 x PT pack for $1,100 (GST-inclusive) on 1 March, paid by card. The client attends one session per week.
1 March (daily summary)
- Total receipts: +$1,100 (card)
- Xero posts: Deferred Revenue +$1,000 with GST on Income +$100, card payment $1,100.
- Recognised income (P and L): $0 - nothing earned yet, but GST is already reported to the ATO.
Each attended session (recognition journal)
- Dr Deferred Revenue $100, Cr PT Revenue $100, BAS Excluded (no GST).
- After 10 sessions, Deferred Revenue is $0 and $1,000 has been recognised as income across the weeks it was earned.
If the client only attends 7 sessions and the pack expires, the remaining $300 is recognised as breakage income at expiry.
Example 5 - package gift card
You sell the same 10 x PT pack as a gift card for a customer to give away. It is posted exactly like Example 4 at sale (Deferred Revenue + GST on accrual, or Revenue + GST on cash). When the recipient later claims the code, no journal is posted - the pack simply becomes theirs and, on accrual, starts recognising as they attend.
Example 6 - refund
A client paid $90 by card on Tuesday, refunded $90 on Thursday.
Tuesday - receipts +$90, revenue +$90, balancing $0. Thursday - receipts -$90 (refund), revenue -$90 (credit note reverses the sale and its GST), balancing $0 with both sides reduced. For an accrual package, the unearned portion and its GST reverse out of Deferred Revenue rather than out of income.
Statuses and syncing to Xero
Each daily summary moves through three states:
- Pending - the day is still open (it is today or has unsettled activity).
- Generated - the day has closed and the summary is finalised.
- Synced - the summary has been pushed to Xero as a single invoice.
Only closed, generated days can be synced, and only when Xero is connected in daily summary mode. Synced rows are locked so your books stay consistent - if you need to change a synced day, adjust it in Xero. You can Regenerate any day that is not yet synced if underlying invoices or payments changed.
The accrual revenue-recognition journals follow the same daily, closed-day rhythm and post as Xero Manual Journals once the day is finalised.
To open a day, click its row. The detail drawer breaks down receipts by method and lists the individual revenue lines that make up recognised revenue for that day.
Investigating a difference
If a balancing figure looks wrong:
- Open the day and review the receipts-by-method split and the revenue lines.
- Look for deposits, gift card redemptions, prepaid packages, or refunds - these are the usual reasons receipts and revenue differ.
- For a specific sale, open the invoice itself. Its paid date is the revenue-recognition day, and each payment row shows its own date - if those fall on different days, that is your cross-day case.
For setup, see connect Xero for accounting and sell and redeem gift cards.