A hybrid fitness coach typically runs three or four distinct revenue streams at the same time: in-person session packages, monthly online coaching subscriptions, digital product sales (programs, courses), and sometimes group coaching or membership communities. Each stream may live in a different payment system. In-person packages might run through Mindbody or Square. Online coaching subscriptions might bill through Stripe connected to Kajabi or GoHighLevel. Standalone product sales might go through ThriveCart or Teachable. The coaching app—Trainerize, TrueCoach, or TrainHeroic—might have its own billing module.
By the end of the month, your VA needs to reconcile all of it: confirm what was collected, identify failed payments, flag discrepancies, and produce a clean summary for your accountant or bookkeeper. Without a defined SOP, billing reconciliation becomes a 3-hour scramble at month end. With a good SOP, it's 60-90 minutes of structured work that your VA handles completely.
The Scope of a Hybrid Coach's Billing Reconciliation
Before building the SOP, your VA needs a map of every place revenue enters the business. This is a one-time setup task, but it's critical. The VA creates a simple billing sources document—a spreadsheet or a Notion table—that lists:
- Payment processor: Stripe, Square, PayPal, or other
- Platform/source: Mindbody, Kajabi, ThriveCart, GoHighLevel, coaching app, etc.
- Product/service billed: What does this line item represent?
- Billing cycle: Monthly, per-session, one-time, annual
- Client segment: In-person clients, online clients, hybrid clients, course buyers
Once this map exists, reconciliation becomes a systematic check against it—not an open-ended hunt for money.
The Monthly Billing Reconciliation SOP
Run this SOP in the last three business days of each month or the first three business days of the following month. Consistency matters more than the exact timing.
Step 1: Pull Revenue Reports From Every Payment Source
The VA logs into each payment system and exports or screenshots the month's transaction data. Specifically:
Stripe: Go to the Payments tab, filter by the prior month, and export to CSV. Note total collected, any refunds, and any disputes opened.
Square: Reports > Sales Summary > select the month. Export the transaction list. Note any card-on-file charges that failed.
Mindbody or Glofox (in-person booking): Revenue reports under the Reporting tab. Filter by month. Note packages sold, sessions used, and any outstanding balances on client accounts.
Kajabi or Teachable (online programs/courses): Payments section in the platform dashboard. Export or screenshot monthly revenue.
ThriveCart or other standalone checkout tools: Transactions report for the month.
Coaching app (Trainerize, TrueCoach): If you bill through the app, pull the subscription report. If you bill outside the app, note which clients are on active plans vs. paused vs. cancelled.
GoHighLevel: If you use GHL for recurring billing or payment links, pull the payment report from the Payments module.
The VA collects all of this into a single working spreadsheet. One row per transaction, with columns for: date, client name (if identifiable), platform, amount, product/service, and payment status (collected, failed, refunded).
Step 2: Reconcile Active Clients Against Expected Revenue
With the transaction data in the spreadsheet, the VA cross-references it against the active client list in the CRM.
Build the expected revenue figure first. List every active client, their plan, and what they should have paid this month. If you have 20 online coaching clients at $300/month, expected revenue from that segment is $6,000. If you have 8 in-person package clients who each bought a 10-session package at $800 and 4 of them purchased this month, expected revenue from new packages is $3,200.
Compare expected to actual. The VA goes line by line through the active client list and checks whether each client's expected charge appears in the payment processor export. Any gap is flagged:
- Client on the active list but no charge found = potential failed payment or subscription cancellation that wasn't processed
- Charge found but no corresponding active client = potential ghost subscription, a test charge, or a client who cancelled but wasn't removed from billing
Flag every discrepancy. Do not try to resolve them all independently—bring them to the coach or bookkeeper with a clear question.
Step 3: Failed Payment Recovery
Failed payments are the most time-sensitive part of billing reconciliation. The VA should catch these weekly during the month, but the monthly reconciliation is a final check.
Stripe failed payments: Stripe sends automated retry emails, but many clients need a human follow-up. The VA checks the failed payments tab, identifies any that haven't resolved after Stripe's automatic retries, and sends a personal message:
"Hi [Name], it looks like the payment for your [plan name] didn't go through this month. Could you update your card on file? Here's a link: [Stripe payment update link or customer portal link]. Let me know if you have any questions."
Send via email and SMS. Give 48 hours before following up again.
In-person package clients with outstanding balances: In Mindbody or Glofox, some clients may show a negative balance or an overdue amount. The VA sends a note through the platform messaging tool or via the CRM, depending on the client's contact preferences.
Subscription tools (Kajabi, ThriveCart): Check for failed subscription renewals. These platforms usually have a dunning sequence built in, but the VA verifies that the sequence is active and reviews which clients are in it.
Log every failed payment recovery attempt in the CRM contact record with the date and the channel used.
Step 4: Process Adjustments and Refunds
Any refund requests that came in during the month should already be logged in the CRM. The monthly reconciliation is when the VA confirms they were processed correctly.
Check:
- Every refund request logged in the CRM has a corresponding refund in the payment processor
- The refund amount matches what was agreed to
- The client's subscription or package was updated in the system (cancelled, paused, or downgraded as applicable)
If a refund was issued but the client's access wasn't updated—for example, they still have active access to a Kajabi course or Trainerize subscription—the VA flags this as a loose end and either resolves it (if they have the access) or escalates it to the coach.
Step 5: Compile the Monthly Billing Summary
The final output is a one-page billing summary the coach can share with their bookkeeper or accountant. This is not a detailed transaction log—it's a clean summary. It includes:
- Gross revenue collected for the month, by revenue stream
- Refunds and chargebacks, totaled
- Net revenue
- Failed payments outstanding (amount and number of clients)
- New clients billed for the first time this month
- Cancelled/paused clients who stopped billing this month
- Any discrepancies that couldn't be resolved, with a brief note
Format this as a simple table or a short written summary. Send it to the coach by a fixed date each month—first business day of the new month works for most businesses.
Tools to Make Reconciliation Faster
Zapier or Make.com integrations: If your platforms are connected via automation, some reconciliation work happens in real time. A Stripe payment can automatically create or update a contact record in GoHighLevel, add a tag, and log the payment amount. The more your tools talk to each other, the less manual cross-referencing your VA does at month end.
FreshBooks or QuickBooks Online: If your bookkeeper uses one of these, reconciliation gets simpler because the payment processor data syncs automatically. Your VA's job becomes reviewing the sync for errors, not manually entering data.
A shared Google Sheet: For businesses not yet on accounting software, a shared Google Sheet with one tab per revenue stream and a summary tab is a reliable fallback. Build the template once and the VA updates it monthly.
How Long Reconciliation Should Take
A well-organized hybrid coaching business with clean CRM records and synced payment tools should take your VA 60-90 minutes per month to reconcile billing. If it's taking longer, one of three things is wrong: the billing sources aren't documented, the CRM client records are out of date, or there are too many manual exceptions in the billing process.
The first time a VA runs this SOP on a new account, it will take longer—count on 2-3 hours while they map the revenue sources and build the baseline spreadsheet. After that, it should normalize.
For a full picture of what your VA manages operationally, see the fitness VA tasks list. If you're still evaluating whether to hire, the what is a fitness virtual assistant guide covers the role.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should my VA have access to my Stripe account?
They need at least read-only access to pull reports and review failed payments. Many coaches give VAs a restricted Stripe login that allows viewing transactions but not issuing refunds. Refunds should require your approval unless you've explicitly authorized the VA to process them independently up to a certain dollar amount.
What if a client disputes a charge?
Flag it to the coach immediately. A chargeback requires a response within 7-10 days depending on your payment processor, and the response needs documentation (signed contracts, session logs, communication records). The VA can gather the documentation, but the decision on how to respond should come from the coach.
How do I handle clients who pay cash or via Venmo for in-person sessions?
Cash and P2P payments (Venmo, Zelle, CashApp) create reconciliation problems because they don't appear in any formal system automatically. Your VA needs a manual log—a simple Google Sheet entry every time cash or P2P payment is received, with the date, client name, and amount. The VA reconciles this log against the client's package or account in the booking system monthly.
My coaching app and my payment processor don't sync. How does my VA handle that?
Manual cross-referencing, which is more time-consuming. The VA uses the billing sources document to know which clients should be in both systems and checks each one. This is also a strong argument for connecting your tools via Zapier or Make.com, or switching to a coaching app that has built-in payment processing.
Should billing reconciliation happen monthly or more frequently?
Monthly is the minimum. Checking failed payments weekly is better—the faster you catch a failed payment, the easier it is to recover. Weekly checks take 15-20 minutes and can be built into your VA's standard Monday morning routine.