Almost every creator's bookkeeping we take over contains the same mistake, and it is an understandable one: the amounts credited to the bank account have been recorded as turnover. That looks sensible. It is also wrong, and it costs you money.
Because between what your fans paid and what lands in your account sits a commission. That commission is a business expense. Record only the net amount as turnover and that expense disappears from your books, so you pay tax on the same figure, just without the deduction that belongs with it.
Gross, commission, net
The right way to process a payout is two entries rather than one:
- Gross turnover. The full amount you earned, before the platform's deduction.
- Platform commission. The amount withheld, as a business expense.
The difference is what gets paid out. Why this matters, with an example. Say you earn 4,000 euro gross in a month and the platform withholds 20 percent. 3,200 euro arrives in your account.
- Recorded wrongly: turnover 3,200 euro, no costs. Result: 3,200 euro.
- Recorded correctly: turnover 4,000 euro, costs 800 euro. Result: 3,200 euro.
The result is the same, which is why people think it does not matter. Yet there are three places where it does. Your turnover figure is wrong, and you need that figure for your VAT return and for thresholds such as the small businesses scheme. Your gross turnover is what a bank or a landlord wants to see when you apply for something. And if the commission ever changes or you get a correction, records without gross amounts can no longer be checked.
Where your statement comes from
Every platform offers a payout or earnings statement. What you need per period:
- Gross earnings, broken down by type where the platform provides it: subscriptions, tips, paid messages
- The commission withheld
- The amount paid out
- The currency it was settled in
- The date the amount became available, and the date of payout
Download those statements monthly. Not because it looks tidier, but because platforms sometimes limit historical data or change the format. Looking back a year later at a period you have no export for is the most common reason we end up reconstructing records instead of processing them.
Converting dollars: pick one method and stick to it
If your platform settles in dollars, you have to convert to euro. Two moments qualify: the day you earned the turnover, and the day the money reached your account. Those two rates are not the same, and the difference is a currency result.
What we recommend: convert the turnover at the rate for the period in which you earned it, and treat the difference against what actually arrived in euro as a separate exchange result. That difference can be positive or negative and belongs in your result.
The important rule here is not which method you pick, but that you apply it consistently. Switching methods between quarters makes your figures incomparable and is the hardest thing to explain in an audit.
The right financial year: earned, not received
Platforms pay out with a delay. What you earn in December often reaches your account in January. So which year does that turnover belong to?
For a business, the principle is that you allocate turnover to the period in which you earned it, not the one in which you received it. That December turnover therefore belongs to the old year, even if the money was not there yet. Your books then show a receivable from the platform at 31 December.
This is the entry that is missing first in almost every set of records we take over, and it is not trivial: for a creator with a strong December it can be thousands of euro sitting in the wrong year. That shifts your profit between two years, and your tax with it.
Chargebacks, refunds and corrections
Reversals come with the territory. A fan disputes a payment, a subscription is rolled back, the platform corrects an earlier settlement. That is not an expense but a correction to your turnover, and you process it in the period the correction falls in.
If you see a negative line on a statement you cannot place, do not leave it out because it does not come out neatly. Those lines are exactly where an audit looks to see whether your records are complete.
Other costs around a payout
Besides the platform commission there are costs tied to the payment itself, and they are all business costs:
- Transaction or payout fees from the payment provider
- Costs of an intermediary, if the platform pays out through a payment service
- Currency charges from your bank when receiving dollars
- Bank charges on your business account
Individually these are small amounts. Over a year of weekly payouts they add up to a figure worth tracking.
How to set this up in practice
The arrangement that works best for creators, and asks the least discipline:
- One business account that all platform payouts land in. Nothing mixed with private.
- Pull the export from each platform every month and save it under a fixed name, platform and year and month.
- Scan receipts the moment you get them, not in January.
- The bank account connected, so transactions come in automatically and can be laid against the statements.
That is exactly what we ask you to supply, and no more. What happens after that is set out in how we work.
Reconciling: the check that finds the mistakes
The most important check in a creator's records is also the simplest. Per period you lay two things side by side: what the platform statements say was paid out, and what your bank account says was credited. Those two have to match.
If there is a difference, it is always one of these six:
- A payout falling across the period boundary, sent in one month and received in the next
- Transaction fees from the payment provider deducted from the amount
- An exchange difference on a payout in dollars
- A reversal or correction the platform processed
- A payout to an account other than the business one
- A payout that was held or delayed
Each of those six is a real entry. The reason to chase them is not tidiness: an unexplained difference is the first thing an audit notices, and records where the reconciliation works every month are records that raise no questions.
What to do if you are paid into a private account
It happens often, usually because there was no business account when things started. For a sole trader it is fiscally not a disaster: the business and you are the same person, so the turnover is still turnover.
Practically it is a problem, and a growing one. You have to judge every credit on whether it was business, in among your groceries and your rent. At twenty payouts a month that is hundreds of lines a year for someone to sort by hand, and that is exactly the work mistakes come from.
So open a business account as soon as you can and have every platform pay into it. That is an afternoon's work and it turns your monthly bookkeeping into checking rather than reconstructing. Watch your SBI code when applying, because banks look at it; see which SBI code fits a content creator.
Retention: what you keep for seven years
The Dutch retention obligation for business records is seven years, and for platform income that concretely means:
- The monthly or periodic payout statements per platform
- The bank statements showing the credits
- The invoices you drew up yourself
- The purchase receipts and invoices for your costs
- Your agreement or the platform's terms, in the version that applied
That last point is never done and is sometimes the most useful. The terms decide who your customer is fiscally and what commission rate applied. If a platform changes them unilaterally, the old version is the only evidence of how it stood that year.
Frequently asked questions
Is the platform commission really deductible?
Yes. It is a cost of delivering your service, like the fees of a payment provider or an editor. The condition is that you can substantiate it, and the payout statement does that.
Is there VAT on the commission the platform withholds?
That depends on where the platform is established and how it structures the deduction. With a foreign platform there is often a reverse charge, so the VAT lands with you and you declare and reclaim it in the same return. How that fits with the rest of your return is in VAT on your OnlyFans income.
I have old months I can no longer export. What then?
Then we reconstruct from the credits on your bank account and the commission rates that applied in that period. That is workable, but it is more work and less precise than an export. Hence the advice to pull them monthly.
I use several platforms. Do I have to keep them separate?
The turnover can go together, but the substantiation cannot: each platform has its own commissions, currencies and sometimes a different VAT treatment. See several platforms, one set of books.
In closing
If you take one thing from this article: record gross, not net. That single distinction makes your turnover figure correct, your commission deductible and your records checkable.
We do this daily for creators on OnlyFans and F2F, including the conversion and the year-end cut-off.