Heidi's Precision Books

04/28/2026

03/04/2026

A question I get a lot:

Are payment processing fees just a normal expense… or part of cost of sales?

It depends on how your business earns revenue.

If you’re in retail or e-commerce and every sale runs through a processor, those fees are directly tied to income and may belong in cost of sales because they impact your gross margin.

If you’re a service provider who occasionally pays card fees on invoices, they may make more sense as an operating expense.

Same fee.
Different model.
Different financial story.

Where you categorize them changes how your reports read — and that matters when you’re looking at pricing, margins, and profitability.

Payment processing fees are normal.
But the way you classify them should be intentional.

02/06/2026

Fun fact about bookkeeping...... bookkeeping dates back to ancient Mesopotamia, where clay tablets were used to record transactions. And the double-entry bookkeeping system was developed in the 15th century by Luca Pacioli, an Italian mathematician.