The formula
= pump price, less taxes
− cost of the fuel actually in your tank
− card fees
− freight
Each line is shown to a tenth of a cent, and net is always the subtraction of the lines shown, so the column on your report always adds up with a calculator.
This is your fuel margin after card fees and freight. It is not your profit: wages, rent, utilities and other store costs are not included.
Where each number comes from
| Line | Taken from |
|---|---|
| Gallons and pump price | Daily fuel sales by grade from your POS |
| Cost of fuel in the tank | Your fuel invoices and delivery tickets, blended tank by tank |
| Card fees | Your card processing statements, matched to each day’s card sales |
| Freight | The freight charge on each fuel invoice |
| Taxes | The rates for your station, printed on your report for you to check |
| Delivery check | Delivery tickets against tank gauge readings |
How it is worked out
Fuel is costed at what is really in the tank
Each delivery blends into a running average cost for that tank. Fuel is costed at what you paid for the fuel you are actually selling, not at today’s rack price. The gap between the two is the “next load is cheaper” signal on the Tanks screen.
Taxes come out of both sides
Excise taxes are collected from the driver and paid to the government, so they are neither your revenue nor your cost. Card fees are the exception: the processor charges them on the full swipe, taxes included, so that is how they are counted.
Card fees are charged to the day they were earned
Your processor statement is monthly. NineTenths works out the statement’s effective fee rate and applies it to each day’s own card sales, because the card mix changes with the day of the week. Spreading the fees evenly across the month would hide that.
Deliveries land before that day’s sales
A delivery made on a given day is counted before that day’s sales. This is stated on every report so nobody has to guess.
Delivery checks use the right gallons
Invoices bill “net” gallons, corrected to 60°F. Tank gauges measure actual volume, which is not temperature-corrected. Comparing the two directly would invent a shortage on every warm day, so the gauge is checked against gross gallons and the money is worked out on billed gallons.
Midgrade is blended at the pump
At most stations midgrade has no tank of its own. Its cost is a mix of the regular and premium tanks, and selling it draws down both.
Known limits
- Missing data stays missing. If a month’s card statement is missing, those days get a gross margin but no net margin. They are left out of the totals, and the gap is shown on the report. Treating missing fees as zero would overstate what you keep.
- Tax rates need your check. State rates and fees change. If a rate is wrong, the margin is wrong by exactly that much, so every report prints the rates it used.
- The result is only as good as the files. A missing invoice or a mistyped delivery shows up as a gap or a flag, not a guess.