Dashboard Revenue vs Financial Reports
Why the totals can be different
The Dashboard and Financial Reports use different dates because they answer different questions.
| Screen |
Date used |
Question answered |
| Dashboard |
Session occurrence date |
What paid activity is scheduled to be delivered this month? |
| Financial Reports |
Payment creation date |
What qualifying booking money was received this month? |
Neither view should be changed to force the totals to match. Both are useful when their date basis is understood.
Example: payment before the session
A parent pays GBP 120 on 28 August for a block beginning in September.
- August Financial Reports includes GBP 120 because the payment was received in August.
- September Dashboard includes the paid booking value against the September occurrences represented by the booking records.
Example: late payment
A July session has an outstanding balance that the parent pays in August.
- The Dashboard associates the booking with July because that is when the session occurred.
- Financial Reports associates the payment with August because that is when the money was recorded.
Other scope differences
The date basis is the main difference, but scope also matters.
Dashboard
- Uses session occurrence dates.
- Focuses on operational delivery.
- Its headline revenue query uses paid booking value.
- Shows booking counts, children attending, pending sessions and programme activity.
- Platform and Stripe charts can include operational estimates tied to those session dates.
Financial Reports
- Uses payment dates.
- Includes qualifying paid, cash and deposit payment records linked to bookings.
- Excludes pending and failed payments from received revenue.
- Applies recorded booking refund adjustments.
- Separates Oakline and Stripe fees.
- Provides payment-level and session-allocation views.
Which number should I use?
Use the Dashboard for delivery planning, attendance context and understanding the value associated with sessions running in a month.
Use Financial Reports for reviewing payment activity, fees and net value recorded in a month.
Use your accounting records and Stripe payout data for statutory bookkeeping and bank reconciliation.
How to investigate a difference
- Use the same tenant and visible currency.
- Confirm the selected month and year on both screens.
- In Financial Reports, inspect payments near the start and end of the month.
- Look for advance payments for future sessions and late payments for past sessions.
- Check cash and deposit transactions, which have different operational treatment.
- Check recorded refunds.
- Use the session summary to identify which programmes received the selected payments.
For all field definitions, read Financial Reports: Complete Guide.