Creator accounting that shows which platform actually pays you.
Brand deals, AdSense, affiliates, merch, a course. It all lands in one account and gets called 'income'. Saturn BPO is the outsourced controller and bookkeeping team for creators: every payout and brand deal on its own line, business and personal untangled, a set-aside for tax every month, and a fast month-end close a controller signs off. So you know what each thing you make actually earns.
YouTube · Instagram · TikTok · Patreon · Impact · LTK · Shopify · QuickBooks Online & Xero
Creator P&L
This month
Total creator income
$0
18.2%Revenue by platform
- Brand sponsorships$0
- YouTube / AdSense$0
- Affiliate (LTK, Impact)$0
- Merch & courses$0
Tax set-aside
0%
Net margin
0%
Payouts reconciled
0
Works with the tools you already run
A $40,000 month. Here is how much of it is yours.
Most creator books are one income line and a pile of expenses. You know the total, you don't know the shape. Here is one month, booked the way most bookkeepers do it, and booked the way we do it.
One month, one creator · illustrative
- Gross income (brand deals, AdSense, affiliate, merch & course)$40,000
- Agent / manager fee (20% of brand deals)−$4,400
- Editor and production−$6,000
- Merch COGS and fulfillment−$2,100
- Software, gear, travel−$1,900
- Net before tax$25,600
- Set aside for tax (at the rate your tax pro sets)−$7,700
- Actually yours this month$17,900
Free product for posts is logged at fair market value too. It is income whether or not cash moved.
How a generic bookkeeper books it
Income $40,000 · Expenses $14,400 · “Profit” $25,600
- • One income line. You can't see that merch runs at 12% while affiliate runs at 93%.
- • The agent's 20% is buried in expenses, so brand deals look better than they are.
- • Nothing is set aside for tax. The $25,600 gets spent. April is a surprise.
- • Personal swipes on the business card sit inside the $14,400. Every number above is a little wrong.
How Saturn books it
- Brand deals, net of agent and production$14,600
- AdSense, net of editing share$6,600
- Affiliate, net$3,900
- Merch & course, net of COGS and fulfillment$500
- Tax reserve moved monthly→ set aside
- Four streams, four margins, and a tax reserve that already exists in April.
Illustrative numbers, not client data. Your mix will differ. The method won't.
Six things your current setup probably gets wrong.
Every creator we onboard arrives with most of these. We're not judging. Creator income is messier than any other business we serve.
One big 'income' number
Sponsors, AdSense, affiliates, and merch lumped together. No way to tell what to make more of.
Business and personal tangled
Wrong card, wrong account. It muddies every margin and every tax position you have.
Brand deals never tie out
Invoiced, paid net-30, paid late, paid through an agent. Nobody knows what's still owed.
Payouts never reconciled
Impact, ShareASale, Amazon Associates, LTK, Patreon. None of them tied back to the books.
No plan for tax, just surprises
Nothing set aside month to month. You spend cash that was never yours to spend.
Nobody reading the numbers with you
Growing fast with no statements, no cash read, and no one who can tell you what changed.
Credentialed by the people who set the rules
QuickBooks ProAdvisors
Xero Advisors
NACPB Certified Bookkeepers
The difference shows up in what you keep.
| Feature | Saturn BPO | Generic bookkeeper |
|---|---|---|
| Platform payouts | Each platform its own line, reconciled to payout reports | One 'income' line |
| Brand deals | Invoiced, tracked to payment, agent fees matched | Booked whenever cash lands |
| Business vs personal | Separated historically, rules so it stays that way | Tangled |
| Tax set-aside | Reserve moved every month at your tax pro's rate | April surprise |
| Free product / barter | Logged at fair market value | Ignored |
| Margin per stream | Yes | No |
| Month-end close | Fast, controller-reviewed, every month | Whenever the bank feed catches up |
| Financial statements | Real P&L and balance sheet, lender-ready | A QuickBooks export |
| Who reviews the work | A controller signs off every close | Nobody |
From a shoebox of receipts to books a controller signs off every month.
Before Saturn BPO
- All income blurred into one big number
- Business and personal spending tangled
- Brand deals and payouts never tied out
- No statements, no tax reserve, just April surprises
- Nobody reading the numbers with you
After Saturn BPO
- Revenue split by platform so you know what to grow
- Clean books, closed early every month
- Every brand deal and platform payout reconciled
- A tax reserve moved monthly, not reconstructed in April
- A controller who explains what the numbers mean
Margin by income stream. Most creators see this table for the first time with us.
Gross income per stream, minus the agent fees, production, COGS, and tools that went into it. Every month, from reconciled books.
| Stream | Gross | Direct costs | What you keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand deals | $22,000 | $7,400 | $14,60066% |
| YouTube AdSense | $9,500 | $2,900 | $6,60069% |
| Affiliate | $4,200 | $300 | $3,90093% |
| Merch & course | $4,300 | $3,800 | $50012% |
Illustrative, not client data. When merch runs at 12% and affiliate at 93%, you find out in the first week of the month, not when the merch reorder is already paid for.
Your first 30 days.
No mystery onboarding and no 90-day blackout. A clean takeover takes two to three weeks. Twelve months of cleanup first takes four to six. We'll tell you which on the discovery call.
Access and an honest diagnosis
Read-only access to QBO or Xero, your bank and cards, your platform payout dashboards, and your brand-deal invoices or agent statements. We size any cleanup and tell you the real scope first.
A chart of accounts built for creators
Revenue by stream: brand deals, ad revenue, affiliate, memberships, merch, course. Agent fees and production as direct costs per stream. A tax reserve account. Personal spending out.
First fully reconciled month
Every payout tied to its platform report, every brand deal to its invoice, personal swipes separated. Backlog cleanup runs in parallel if you need it.
First close, first real statements
P&L by stream, balance sheet, what you actually kept, and the tax reserve moved. Then a call with your controller to walk through it. From here it repeats every month.
This is the finance team you'd hire if you had the time to hire one.
Fast month-end close
Controller-run month-end close, built to be fast and efficient once your records and access are in place.
Controls that hold
Internal controls, approvals, and audit-ready records. Nothing slips.
Visibility, not hindsight
Weekly cash and AR pulse, monthly statements, KPIs. See where you stand, not just what happened.
Books to board, one team
Bookkeeping, controller, and reporting under one roof. Income tax filed via our partner.
Creator engagements are scoped to your operation.
Final price is sized to income-stream count, entity structure, and the reporting support you want. Custom quote in 24 hours after a 30-minute discovery call.
What that buys you
- • Clean books + reconciliations (the base layer)
- • Revenue split by platform (sponsor, ad revenue, affiliate, merch, course)
- • Brand deals invoiced and tracked to payment
- • Payout reconciliation + a tax reserve moved monthly
- • Fast month-end close + a controller's read on what each stream earns
- • Federal + state income tax filing via our tax partner
Typical engagement
Custom quotein 24 hours
Month-to-month. Stay on QBO or Xero. No forced migration.
Get a custom quotePrice scales with
- • Income stream count (each platform = its own complexity)
- • Entity structure (sole prop, LLC, S-corp election)
- • Brand-deal volume and whether an agent is involved
- • Merch or course revenue with inventory or fulfillment
- • Reporting cadence requested
Which one is right for you?
We'd rather you pick the right partner than the wrong one. Here's where each genuinely wins.
Saturn is the right fit when...
- You earn from 3+ streams and can't say which one is actually worth your time
- You're grossing roughly $250K to $5M a year and tax season has surprised you at least once
- Brand deals, agent statements, and platform payouts never quite tie out
- You've got merch, a course, or a membership and no idea what it really nets
- You want to stay on QuickBooks Online or Xero, not a creator app that owns your data
Probably not the fit when...
- You're under about $100K a year (a good bookkeeper and a separate business card will do)
- You're looking for a manager or agent to negotiate deals (we account for them, we don't broker them)
- You want tax prep only, once a year, and nothing in between
- You need someone to run your merch store or fulfillment (we reconcile it, we don't operate it)
What people actually ask before they sign.
Bring last month's payouts. We'll show you what each one actually earned.
Thirty minutes with our team. Bring your platform payout summaries and your last brand-deal invoices. We'll walk the gap between 'income' and what you actually keep, no logins needed, and tell you straight whether we're the right fit.
Book a free 30-min creator auditNo contract. No high-pressure follow-up. If we're not a fit we'll say so.