Tracking Groupon and Other Deal Sites

Wondering how to track sales and redemption of services you've offered on a deal site? While not all deal sites are the same, with some basic information from your deal you can record it in Bodywork Buddy to add toward your income and also track redemptions.

I recommend creating a client file with the name of the deal site. So for example, create a client of "Groupon". (You could put the city for the last name, or create a different client file for each time you run a deal - having the date as the last name.)

Once you know how many deals have been sold, create a session record for the client Groupon, with X amount of services sold (using your regular services at full price). Enter a discount in the discount field equaling the discounts given for the deal, and then record the payment from the deal site.

Then in your business expenses, create an expense with the deal site as the vendor and record the amount that they took from the deal you ran. (I would classify this expense as advertising.)

Create a service (set to private) of "prepaid sessions" or "groupon deal", etc. with the price of $0. When a client redeems one of your deals, set the service to the private prepaid session service. The balance for the session will remain zero, but you'll still have a record of when the client had their session.

This will:

1. Record the payment from the deal site
2. Include the percentage you paid to the deal site for advertising expense
3. Track the discount you offered for the deal
4. Create session records for each client redeeming the deal

Use the deal site to track how many have been redeemed altogether.

Cindy Iwlew is co-founder of Bodywork Buddy Massage Software, a complete online management solution for independent massage therapists that includes online scheduling. 

She continues to operate her own private massage practice since 1999. www.BodyworkBuddy.com