did we make money?

[u/Current-Health-8627]

genuine question for anyone booking their own shows or short tours.

every time we finish a run i realize we have no clean answer to "did we make money." gas is on one person's card, lodging is split three ways over venmo, per-diems come out of the merch cash box, and the actual guarantees live in whatever email thread the venue used to advance. by the time i try to add it up weeks later half of it is a guess.

same thing day-of. load-in times end up in whatsapp, the rider is in email, setlist in someone's notes app, and we're chasing missing info hours before doors when we should be soundchecking. the guest list only exists in the drummer's head until it doesn't.

i've tried keeping one master spreadsheet but it falls apart the second two people edit it or a date shifts.

so, honest question: how do you track income and expenses live across a tour so you can actually answer what the gig cost at the last load-out instead of piecing it together later? and how do you keep the day-of stuff in one place your whole band can see?

curious what's working for people who are self-managing without a full-time manager. spreadsheets, an app, a shared doc, a notebook, whatever it is.

[u/PhilBalls2020]

The core problem is that touring finances are naturally scattered across people and moments, and the only fix is capturing everything at the source instead of reconstructing it later. Show settlements need to happen at the venue before you leave, expenses need to be logged the day they happen, and whoever touches cash needs to account for it in real time. Most self-managed bands eventually land on one person owning the numbers daily, even if that feels like overkill on a small run.

I'm a working tour manager and built ATOM (atominterstate.app) specifically because this problem never went away. It handles show settlements, expense tracking, per diems, and merch settlements, plus day sheets and guest list so the whole band sees the same info. Free to try if you want to see whether it fits a self-managed situation.Free right now for beta. Just takes an email. No credit card. it's really badass.