Two years of marketplace books, restated so the top line reports what the platform earns.
A top line that is the company’s own.
Median separated platform revenue from booking volume, restated it at the source, and delivered the filing package ahead of the deadline.
In a marketplace ledger, revenue and volume look identical.
PetWorks, led by Michael Caldwell, is a nationwide marketplace that connects pet parents with vetted pet care professionals across nutrition, training, transport and wellness. Payments run through Stripe Connect, with a second processor settling alongside it. Michael brought Median in for a QuickBooks cleanup with an extended partnership return ahead of him.
Two posting mechanisms were recording the same money. Each individual booking arrived in the ledger as its own sales receipt, and a separate monthly entry recorded what Stripe actually settled. Both are legitimate ways to record marketplace activity. Running at the same time, they counted every booking twice, and the booking-level figure was the gross amount the pet parent paid, most of which belongs to the professional who did the work.
On a marketplace the top line can mean one of two very different things: the volume moving across the platform, or what the platform earns on it. The two differ by a multiple, and every margin computed from revenue depends on which one is printed.
Everything else traced back to it. The offsetting side of those booking receipts collected in Undeposited Funds, waiting on cash that had already been recorded on the settlement line, so nothing could ever clear it. The operating bank account could not be reconciled while its deposits were represented two ways at once. And over one turn of the year the card feed had delivered the payments against the card without the charges behind them, so real costs were outstanding.
Established the model first, then corrected the mechanism once.
Confirmed which Stripe Connect charge type PetWorks runs before touching a single entry, because that one fact decides whether a marketplace’s revenue is its gross booking volume or its own platform fee.
Traced the double count back to the posting arrangement producing it, so one structural correction did the work of thousands of individual edits, and restated both affected years on that basis.
Rebuilt the monthly Stripe settlement as a single legible entry, with gross bookings, professional payouts, processing fees, refunds and the Connect reserve each on their own line, so a month can be read without reconstructing it.
Gave the second processor the same monthly treatment, so both payment rails land in the books the same way.
Cleared the booking receipts out of Undeposited Funds, where they had been waiting on cash that had already been recorded elsewhere.
Reconciled the operating bank account and the card to their statements, tracing every item behind each difference until it closed to zero rather than plugging the remainder.
Rebuilt the card activity the feed had never delivered, and tied the card to its statements every month from there on.
Rebuilt the loan and interest position from the company’s own note schedule.
Delivered a profit and loss statement, a balance sheet and a notes memo on the cash basis PetWorks files on, written for the person preparing the partnership return and carrying the facts behind every decision that was his to make.
Surfaced operating facts the books had never been able to show, including what a refund costs the marketplace once a professional has already been paid.
A top line that means something, and a package built for the filing.
Platform revenue, separated
The top line reports what PetWorks earns on a booking, with the volume moving through the platform visible on its own.
Two years restated
Both affected years corrected from the mechanism that produced the double count, in one structural pass.
One entry per processor, per month
Payouts, fees, refunds and the Connect reserve each carry their own line, so any month can be read straight off the entry.
Tied to the statements
The operating account and the card each reconciled, month by month, with every difference traced to zero.
Delivered ahead of the deadline
Statements and preparer notes on the basis PetWorks files on, in hand well before the extended partnership date.
Kept current
The books stay up to date every month, with the Connect reconciliation staying done.
Marketplace books that tie out.
On Stripe Connect the same booking can reach the ledger twice, once when it is taken and once when it settles, and the gross figure is the money moving through the platform rather than the platform’s own revenue. Median establishes the model, corrects it at the source, and keeps the books current.