Accounting for Gyms
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Bookkeeping for BJJ Gyms

Adults, kids, and gear are three different businesses sharing a lease. Your bookkeeper should see all three. Most don't.

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Three Programs, One Set of Books

A BJJ academy looks like one business from the curb. The IRS treats it like one. Your books should not.

Adults pay monthly, drop in occasionally, and churn hardest around the white-to-blue cliff. Kids pay a different rate, run on a different schedule, and stay enrolled longer than any owner expects. Gi sales, rashguards, and the seventy-five rolls of athletic tape you ordered for the team look like a side project until you're standing on $6,000 of inventory at the front desk.

A monthly P&L that lumps all of that into "membership revenue" tells you nothing useful. A monthly P&L that splits adults, kids, retail, drop-ins, and seminars tells you which program is actually paying the rent. That is the difference between bookkeeping for BJJ gyms done right and bookkeeping done by someone who has only ever seen a spin studio.

From the team behind PushPress, used by 5,000+ boutique gyms, including a healthy chunk of academies. We built this for the kind of operation you actually run.

Line Items Only a BJJ-Aware Bookkeeper Catches

These are the entries a generic bookkeeper either gets wrong or buries in a category called "Other."

Affiliation fees

Gracie Barra, 10th Planet, ATOS, Renzo Gracie, Alliance, name your lineage. The yearly or monthly check you write to the mothership is a real cost of doing business and belongs on its own line. Not "subscriptions." Not "professional fees." A line that says what it is, so when you're deciding whether to renew, you can see what you actually paid.

Belt promotions and seminars

Promotions are revenue events, not monthly recurring. So are visiting black-belt seminars, in-house no-gi camps, and the kids' summer intensive. Each gets tracked as its own thing, often in cash. As long as you log what came in at the door, the cash side lands where it belongs instead of "miscellaneous."

Mat-time leases

When your Tuesday-night kickboxing coach runs his program in your space and gives you a cut, that money is not membership revenue. Lease income behaves differently at tax time and on your books. Treating it like a membership payment is one of the most common mistakes a generalist bookkeeper makes for an academy.

Private lesson splits

60-40 with your purple belt coach. 70-30 with the head instructor on weekends. Flat fee per session for the visiting brown belt. Whatever you negotiated, the books should track the gross, the split, and the net to you, every month, per coach. No shoebox.

Tournament travel

ADCC trials, IBJJF Worlds, the local open. Coach airfare, athlete entry fees, hotel splits. What is deductible, what is reimbursable, what is on the academy versus on the athlete. Tracked, separated, and ready for your CPA in February.

Cash on the mat

The drop-in who paid in twenties. The kid's uncle who Venmoed you for the birthday party. The white belt who handed you a check made out to your name. Cash and informal payments are part of how a BJJ academy actually runs. We reconcile each month against what you log, so what you record is what the books show. The log is on you. The math is on us.

Books that actually look like a BJJ academy.

$150 a month, flat. No per-transaction fees. Onboard yourself in 5 minutes, or book a 15-minute call.

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Coach Pay Without the Mess

Coach pay in BJJ is the messiest payroll question in fitness. A typical academy has a head instructor, two or three regular coaches, a kids-program lead, occasional visiting belts, and the owner who teaches a class or two. Some are W-2. Some are 1099. Some take a percentage. Some take a flat. Some never get a real paystub.

We do not do payroll. What we do: make sure your books reflect whatever you and your CPA decided, every month, with the right classifications, splits, and totals. If something looks obviously off (a full-time head coach on a 1099, for example), we'll raise it for your CPA. We're not tax pros, but we know enough to flag the easy ones.

The IRS has clear rules on the W-2 versus 1099 question. A coach teaching your set schedule in your facility on your curriculum is almost always W-2. A visiting black belt running a one-time camp is 1099. The mistake most generic bookkeepers make is assuming everyone is one or the other, and the academy owner pays for it three years later when the audit notice arrives.

What $150 a Month Actually Buys You

Every month, by the 15th of the following month:

  • A P&L that splits revenue by program based on how cleanly the data comes in: adults, kids, drop-ins, private lessons, retail, seminars.
  • Reconciled bank, credit card, and Stripe accounts. Cash reconciled against your log.
  • Affiliation fees on their own named line.
  • Coach pay summarized by person, using whatever classifications you and your CPA set.
  • Inventory tracked separately from service revenue, once you share supplier invoices for gis, rashguards, and apparel.
  • A balance sheet that reflects what you actually own and owe.
  • Year-end financials your CPA can use without rebuilding them.

One flat price. No hourly billing. No per-transaction fees. No annual contract. We work with whatever gym software you run, including Wodify, Kicksite, Gymdesk, Mindbody, paper notebook, or PushPress (where the integration runs deepest).

Where the Work Splits

A bookkeeping service can only see what gets recorded. The cleanest setups have a clear division of labor between owner, bookkeeper, and CPA. Ours looks like this.

You

  • Log cash and Venmo as they come in, or use a system that logs for you.
  • Tell us when programs, coaches, or revenue streams change.
  • Share supplier invoices and receipts for retail inventory.
  • Decide coach classification and entity setup with your CPA.

Us

  • Pull transactions from your bank, credit card, Stripe, and gym software each month.
  • Categorize everything into your gym-specific chart of accounts.
  • Reconcile every account against statements and your cash log.
  • Deliver a P&L (split by program where the data supports it), balance sheet, and year-end package.
  • Flag anything that looks obviously off.

Your CPA

  • Annual return, sales tax filings, quarterly estimates.
  • Entity structure and tax strategy.
  • Anything that requires a license.

The split keeps each person doing what they are trained for. You run the academy. We keep the records straight. Your CPA handles the tax brain.

Ready to See What Your Academy Actually Makes?

Adults, kids, retail, seminars, all on one P&L, sorted by us. $150 a month.

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Questions BJJ Owners Ask Us

How do you handle our affiliation fees?
On their own line, not buried under "subscriptions." Bookkeeping for BJJ gyms in 2026 means the academy owner can pull up the books and see, in one number, what they paid Gracie Barra (or 10th Planet, ATOS, Renzo Gracie, name your lineage) last quarter. Generic bookkeepers categorize affiliation fees as a software subscription or a generic professional fee. Yours should be a real, named line item, because it is a real, named cost. Accounting for Gyms sets that up at onboarding.
Can you split adults, kids, and retail in the P&L?
Yes, with a caveat. At onboarding, we set up your chart of accounts to split adult memberships, kids program, drop-ins, private lessons, retail (gis, rashguards, apparel), and seminars. Every month, your P&L reflects however the data comes in. If transactions are tagged cleanly (or PushPress does it for you), the report is clean. If everything arrives as one big pile, we sort what we can and ask you about the rest. Most academy owners discover their kids program is either their biggest profit center or their biggest leak, and they had no idea which.
What about cash on the mat?
BJJ runs on cash more than most fitness niches. Drop-in fees, gear sales out of the front desk, the kid's uncle who Venmoed you. We reconcile every channel you log: card, ACH, Venmo, Cash App, cash. Honest answer: the books are only as accurate as the cash log, and that part is on you. What we do is make sure you have a system to keep it honest, and reconcile against it every month so things don't drift.
How do private lesson splits and mat-time leases work in the books?
Private lessons get tracked per coach with whatever split you negotiated (60-40, 70-30, flat fee per session). Mat-time leases, where another instructor runs their own program in your space and pays you a cut, get tracked separately from membership revenue, because lease income is a different beast at tax time. Your CPA will thank you, and so will the coaches when you can show them clean monthly numbers instead of a guess.
Should my coaches be 1099 or W-2?
It depends on the actual relationship, not what is convenient. The IRS uses a specific test around behavioral, financial, and relationship control. A coach who teaches your set schedule using your curriculum, in your facility, on your equipment, is almost always a W-2 employee. A visiting black belt running a one-time seminar is a 1099. Most BJJ academies have a mix. We keep the books straight either way. If a classification looks obviously off (a full-time head coach on a 1099, for example), we'll raise it for your CPA. We're not tax pros, but we know enough to flag the easy ones.
Do you handle gi and gear inventory?
Yes. If you sell gis, rashguards, mouthguards, or branded apparel out of the front desk, the inventory belongs on your balance sheet, not buried in expenses. We track cost of goods sold separately from service revenue, which is the only way to know whether your retail program is profitable or just busy. Most BJJ academies that sell gear are sitting on $4,000 to $10,000 of inventory at any given time and have no line on the books that says so.
What if I run my academy on Wodify or Kicksite, not PushPress?
Works either way. PushPress data gives us the deepest view into membership churn and program-level revenue, but it is not required. We pull data from Wodify, Kicksite, Gymdesk, Mindbody, Stripe, your bank feed, or whatever you run on. The bookkeeping work is the same. Onboarding takes about 5 minutes regardless of your stack.
How much does this cost?
$150 a month, flat. No hourly billing, no per-transaction fees, no annual contract. The price does not change based on academy size, how many programs you run, or whether you sell retail. Most BJJ academies pay $400 to $1,200 a month for generic bookkeeping that does not split programs or track lineage fees properly. Ours costs less. The tradeoff is that we don't do payroll, we don't file taxes, and we don't show up in person. For most academy owners, that's the right tradeoff. Ready to start? Sign up here. Book a 15-minute call or self-onboard.