Accounting for Gyms
Blog Get Started

Bookkeeping for CrossFit Gyms

Profit First works on numbers. Without clean books, the numbers are a guess.

Get Started →

Profit First Runs on Real Numbers, Not Vibes

If you run a CrossFit affiliate, there is a good chance you have read Profit First for Microgyms. John Briggs' book is the closest thing the affiliate world has to a financial Bible. Five (or seven) bank accounts, fixed percentage allocations, owner pay before operating expenses. The framework works.

But Profit First is a cash management strategy, not a bookkeeping system. The multi-account structure tells you what to do with money once it is in the right buckets. It does not tell you whether your January P&L actually reflects what happened on the gym floor.

That is what we do. Bookkeeping for CrossFit gyms, monthly, at $150 flat. Every transaction categorized, every account reconciled (including the Profit First accounts if you run them), every report current by the 15th of the following month. Briggs writes the playbook. We keep the dashboard current.

Same logic applies if you run YNAB, an envelope spreadsheet, or any other cash framework. The system tells you what to do with the money. The books tell you whether the money was tracked right in the first place. One does not replace the other.

From the team behind PushPress, used by 5,000+ boutique gyms, including a healthy number of affiliates. We built this for boxes specifically.

Line Items Only a Box-Aware Bookkeeper Catches

These are the entries a generic bookkeeper either gets wrong, misses entirely, or buries under "Other."

Affiliate fee and L1 certifications

The annual CrossFit affiliate fee runs $3,000 to $4,500 depending on your tier. L1 certifications for new coaches run about $1,000 per person, plus specialty courses on top. These are real costs of running an affiliated box and they belong on their own named lines, not "subscriptions" or "professional development." When affiliate renewal hits in 2026, you should be able to look at last year's books and see exactly what affiliation cost you.

Drop-ins and class packs

Drop-ins are variable, seasonal, and often paid in cash. Summer brings travelers. October and November bring friends-of-members prepping for the Open. A box might do $20 to $50 per drop-in. Class packs (the ten-pack you sold a member's parent during a holiday visit) sit between drop-ins and memberships and need to be tracked separately. Splitting these from core memberships is how you see whether drop-ins are a real revenue stream or just a vibe.

Retail and Games-week inventory

Apparel, supplements, branded gear, the Games-week merch run. If you sell it, you have inventory. Most boxes that sell merch are sitting on $3,000 to $8,000 of stock at any given time with no balance sheet line that says so. We track cost of goods sold separately from service revenue, once you share supplier invoices. Otherwise retail just looks like membership revenue with extra steps.

Programming licenses

If you run outsourced programming (CompTrain, Mayhem, Linchpin, OPEX, name your subscription), you are paying $80 to $300 a month for it. That is a programming cost, not a generic subscription. Categorizing it correctly lets you see your true cost-per-class once you factor coach pay on top.

Open and Games event revenue

The Open intramural fee in February and March, the viewing party you charged five bucks a head for, the team t-shirts you printed for the Games week throwdown. These are revenue events, not monthly recurring. They often come in cash. We track them as events instead of folding them into membership revenue, so your year-over-year membership trend stays clean.

Coach comp

A typical box has a head coach, two or three regular coaches, a kids program lead, maybe a nutrition coach, and the owner. Some are W-2, some are 1099, some take a percentage of class revenue. The IRS classification rules are specific. We keep the books reflecting whatever you and your CPA decided. If something looks obviously off, we will raise it for your CPA before it becomes a problem.

Books that actually look like a CrossFit affiliate.

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

Get Started →

Owner Pay, S-Corp, and the Two-Brain Median

Per the Two-Brain State of the Industry, the median CrossFit gym owner earns about $4,000 a month in total owner benefit. The mean is closer to $7,291. Either way, that is a real number, and the IRS treats it differently depending on how your entity is structured.

Most owner-operator boxes eventually elect S-corp once profit clears about $40k a year. Once you do, your owner comp splits between W-2 wages and distributions. The IRS scrutinizes that split. Too low a wage and you trigger questions. Too high and you pay more in payroll taxes than you needed to. The right split is a call for you and your CPA.

We do not do payroll, and we do not decide your wage. What we do is keep the books clean enough that your CPA can make that call from real numbers instead of a January-through-November guess. Sloppy books on an S-corp can easily cost $1,500 to $3,000 in extra CPA hours at year-end. Clean ones cost a lot less.

What $150 a Month Actually Buys You

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

  • A P&L that splits revenue based on how cleanly the data comes in: memberships, drop-ins, class packs, retail, programming pass-throughs, event revenue.
  • Reconciled bank, credit card, and Stripe accounts. Profit First accounts reconciled if you run them.
  • Affiliate fee, L1, and programming licenses on their own named lines.
  • Coach pay summarized by person, using whatever classifications you and your CPA set.
  • Inventory tracked separately from service revenue, once you share supplier invoices.
  • 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 Wodify, Zen Planner, Kilo, Sugar, 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 drop-ins, retail sales, and event revenue as they come in, or use Wodify/PushPress to log them for you.
  • Tell us when programming, coaches, or revenue streams change.
  • Share supplier invoices for retail and programming licenses.
  • Decide coach classification, entity structure, and Profit First percentages with your CPA or mentor.

Us

  • Pull transactions from your bank, credit card, Stripe, and gym software each month.
  • Categorize everything into your CrossFit-specific chart of accounts.
  • Reconcile every account against statements, including Profit First accounts if you run them.
  • 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.
  • The wage-to-distribution split for S-corp owners.
  • Anything that requires a license.

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

Ready to Run Profit First on Real Numbers?

Clean monthly books for $150 a month. The framework is yours. The dashboard is on us.

Get Started →

Questions CrossFit Owners Ask Us

How does this work with Profit First or YNAB?
Both are cash management strategies, not bookkeeping systems. We do the bookkeeping that lets either one run on real numbers. If you have multiple bank accounts set up for owner's pay, operating expenses, taxes, and profit, we reconcile all of them every month and reflect the percentage transfers correctly in your books. If you run YNAB, we reconcile against your category structure the same way. John Briggs wrote the Profit First playbook for microgyms specifically. Our job is keeping the dashboard current so whatever playbook you run actually runs.
Will you work with my Wodify, Zen Planner, or Kilo data?
Yes. The CrossFit gym management space has more software options than most fitness niches (Wodify, Zen Planner, Kilo, Sugar, PushPress, even Mindbody at some boxes). We pull membership, drop-in, and retail revenue from whichever platform you run, categorize it correctly, and tie it back to your bank deposits. PushPress data gives us the deepest view, but it is not a requirement.
How do you handle the affiliate fee and L1 certifications?
On their own named lines, not buried under "subscriptions." Bookkeeping for CrossFit gyms in 2026 should let the owner pull up the books and see exactly what running an affiliated box cost them: the annual affiliate fee (roughly $3,000 to $4,500 depending on tier), L1 certifications for new coaches (about $1,000 per person), and any specialty courses on top. Accounting for Gyms sets that categorization up at onboarding.
What about owner pay, S-corp salary, and distributions?
If you are an S-corp (most owner-operator boxes eventually elect S-corp once profit clears about $40k a year), the IRS requires you to take "reasonable compensation" as W-2 wages before any distributions. The wage-to-distribution split is one of the most-audited issues for small S-corps. The split itself is a call for you and your CPA. We keep the books current so your CPA has real numbers to work from instead of a guess. For context, the Two-Brain State of the Industry puts the median gym owner benefit at about $4,000 a month.
How do you split drop-ins, ten-packs, retail, and memberships?
At onboarding we set up your chart of accounts so memberships, drop-ins, class packs, retail (apparel, supplements, Games-week merch), and event revenue each get their own line. Your monthly P&L reflects however the data comes in. If Wodify or your payment processor tags transactions cleanly, the split is clean. If everything arrives as one Stripe payout per day, we sort what we can and ask you about the rest. The owner work is logging cash drop-ins and event revenue as they happen.
Are you Incite Tax or affiliated with John Briggs?
No. Incite Tax is a tax firm and John Briggs is a CPA who literally wrote the book on Profit First for microgyms. He and his team are who you call for tax strategy, entity questions, and CFO-level financial planning. We are a $150/mo bookkeeping service. Different jobs, different rates, different scope. Many CrossFit owners use both: a bookkeeper for monthly transactional work, a CPA for tax work, and Profit First as the cash framework on top. See our take on CPA vs. bookkeeper for gyms for the breakdown.
Should my coaches be 1099 or W-2?
It depends on the actual relationship. The IRS uses a specific test around behavioral, financial, and relationship control. A coach teaching your programmed classes on your schedule using your equipment is almost always a W-2 employee. A specialty coach running an Olympic lifting cycle for six weeks could be a 1099. Most boxes 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 will raise it for your CPA. We are not tax pros, but we know enough to flag the easy ones.
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 box size, how many programs you run, or whether you sell retail. Most CrossFit boxes pay $400 to $1,200 a month for generic bookkeeping that does not know what an affiliate fee is. 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. Ready to start? Sign up here. Book a 15-minute call or self-onboard.