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🎟️ Store & Merchandise

Where's the lottery money going on your books?

Lottery, ATM, and money orders are huge cash flows that sit awkwardly between revenue and liability. Most generalist books treat them as one line — and it's almost always wrong. Our lottery accounting gas station service separates commission revenue from state liability, tracks ATM income properly, and handles money order accounting with BSA/AML compliance built in.

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9 deliverables 4-step process
The Problem

Why these three trip up most bookkeepers

01

Lottery sales are mostly NOT your revenue — only the commission is. The rest is a liability owed to the state.

02

ATM cash is your cash but the fees are revenue and the dispense activity is internal transfer, not sales.

03

Money orders sold are a liability until cashed. The fees you charge are revenue. The face value is not yours.

04

Get any of these wrong and the books overstate revenue, understate liability, and confuse the IRS.

05

Lottery accounting for gas stations requires scratch-off inventory tracking, draw-game commission reconciliation, and winner-payout netting — most bookkeepers skip all three.

06

ATM income tracking gets lumped into cash sales, making your convenience store P&L unreliable and your cash reconciliation impossible.

What's Included

Scope, spelled out

01

Lottery sales tracking (state liability) + commission revenue (yours)

02

Lottery winner payouts & commission reconciliation

03

ATM cash management + fee revenue tracking

Money order / check-cashing liability accounting
BSA/AML-aware transaction documentation where MSB activity applies
State lottery commission reconciliation against your settlement statements
Scratch-off inventory accounting with pack-level tracking
ATM income tracking by machine with surcharge revenue separated from cash flow
Money order accounting with serial-number-level liability tracking where required
How We Do It

Step by step

01

Separate revenue from liability

Lottery face value = liability owed to state. Commission = your revenue. Same logic for money order accounting. We book it cleanly in your convenience store accounting system.

02

Reconcile to settlement statements

State lottery sends weekly / monthly settlements. Our lottery accounting team reconciles sales and commissions against them — scratch-off and draw games handled separately.

03

Track ATM dispense separately

ATM cash flowing in and out is not sales — it's vault to ATM. Fees on withdrawals are revenue. ATM income tracking separates those so your P&L is accurate.

04

BSA/AML-aware documentation

For money orders / check cashing / money transfer at MSB thresholds, our money order accounting keeps documentation that holds up under a BSA audit.

Cash-intensive lines that previously confused your books and inflated your apparent revenue are now booked correctly. Sales tax and income tax are right. So is the BSA file.

What owners say after the first full month

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Above certain volume thresholds (set by FinCEN), yes — money services business registration applies. We help you understand whether you cross the threshold and what to document.
Yes — most states issue weekly or monthly settlement statements. Our lottery accounting gas station service reconciles against those.
Both — scratch-off is inventory based (you owe for what you accept), draw games are sales based. Each has its own reconciliation flow in our lottery accounting process.
ATM surcharge income is fee revenue, separate from store sales. Our ATM income tracking ensures it's reported correctly — as other income, not as merchandise sales — so your gas station entity tax return is accurate.
Where required by FinCEN and state money transmitter regulations, yes. Our money order accounting includes serial-number-level tracking so your documentation holds up under a BSA/AML audit.
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The difference

A generalist bookkeeper vs. FuelCFO

Same line item on your P&L - handled two completely different ways.

Generalist bookkeeper FuelCFO
Who does the work A generalist bookkeeper who also does plumbers and salons A team that does Store & Merchandise for stations all day
How often Monthly - or whenever something finally breaks Daily or on a set cadence, before it breaks
Level of detail One blended number you can't act on Broken out by grade, stream & category
Catching errors Surfaces at year-end, if ever Flagged within 24-48 hours
Industry fit Generic small-business templates Built only for fuel & c-store - Lottery, ATM & Money Order Accounting included
What you get A tax-season P&L and a shrug A one-page owner report you actually use

Who it's for

Built for how you actually operate

Lottery, ATM & Money Order Accounting is delivered the same disciplined way whether you run one pump island or fifty - only the scope scales.

Single-site owner-operators

You run one location and wear every hat. Lottery, ATM & Money Order Accounting gets done right - without you learning a new system or hiring in-house.

Multi-site & store groups

Two to fifty locations. We standardize Lottery, ATM & Money Order Accounting across every store so your numbers are comparable site-to-site and roll up cleanly.

Branded & unbranded dealers

Jobber-supplied or fully independent. The work adapts to your supply agreements, fuel brand, and back-office system.

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Book a Free Books Review

Find out what your numbers are really telling you.

Book a free books review. We'll look at your setup, show you what's missing, and tell you exactly how we'd fix it. No pressure, no obligation.

  • 30-minute call, your time
  • We look at a sample of your books
  • Clear scope & pricing afterward

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