> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.mad-kitty.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# How sales are counted

> Backdating — why every dollar, refund, and trial conversion lands on the day the buyer checked out

Ask Opti "what did Tuesday earn?" and the answer is built on one rule: **money is booked to the day the buyer checked out — permanently.** Opti calls that day the buyer's *acquisition day* (or *cohort day*), and everything that later happens to that sale is written back onto it.

## The rule

| What happens later                                    | Where it lands                |
| ----------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------- |
| A trial converts to a paid subscription on day 7      | The day the trial **started** |
| A refund three weeks after purchase                   | The day of the **purchase**   |
| A chargeback, a payment-provider fee                  | The day of the **purchase**   |
| A payment hold that gets released instead of captured | The day of the **purchase**   |

The reason is ad spend. Tuesday's ads bought Tuesday's buyers; the only honest way to ask "did Tuesday's spend pay for itself?" is to hold Tuesday's spend against *everything those buyers turn out to be worth* — including the refund that arrives in three weeks. Booking money on the day it moved would flatter bad days and punish good ones.

## What this does to recent days

**Recent days change retroactively.** A day gets *better* as its trials convert and *worse* as its refunds land. Practically:

* A day is **mature** once its trial window has fully passed. Before that, low conversions and lots of pending trials are the norm, not a signal.
* A fresh day's ROI is a **floor**, not a verdict — re-read it after the trial window.
* Refunds can drag a day down weeks later. Aggregate to **weeks** before judging a small funnel; a single refund can turn a thin day negative.
* Trials whose conversion charge is failing and being retried are counted as **not converted** from the first failure. Retry recoveries are a nice surprise later, never something Opti forecasts on.

## What's *not* in daily funnel revenue

**Renewals.** The second, third, fourth payment of a subscription belongs to the retention view (plan by plan, cycle by cycle), not to the day's acquisition economics. Mixing them in would make acquisition ROI look better every month a customer stays — the number would stop meaning "did this day's ads work".

Ask for either explicitly: *"net revenue per day for this funnel, last 30 days"* (acquisition) vs *"what is a buyer on the 6-month plan worth so far?"* (lifetime, incl. renewals).

## Vocabulary Opti uses

| Term                                     | Meaning                                                                                                                                                  |
| ---------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Checkout**                             | An attempt to pay — includes declines. Never the same as a sale.                                                                                         |
| **Sale**                                 | The payment provider accepted real money (or an authorized hold).                                                                                        |
| **Trial start**                          | A \$0 card verification passed. **Not** a sale until it converts.                                                                                        |
| **Trial converted / pending / retrying** | Paid the first real charge / still inside the trial window / trial over, charge failing (counted as lost)                                                |
| **Gross → returns → fees → net**         | Money charged, minus refunds + chargebacks + released holds, minus provider fees. **Net** is the number that matters.                                    |
| **Unattributed**                         | A sale Opti couldn't tie to a specific ad or funnel — a stable small share is normal (blocked tracking); a growing share means tracking broke somewhere. |

<Note>
  **Meta backdates too — differently.** Ads Manager books a purchase to the day of the ad click or impression that led to it, in your ad account's timezone; Opti books it to the checkout day. Same idea, different clock — one reason the two dashboards disagree at day boundaries. See [Facebook numbers vs real sales](/team/opti/tracking/facebook-vs-real-sales).
</Note>