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How Finaloop Calculates and Reports Ad Spend

Written by Emily Burrows

About

Finaloop’s Ads page gives you a single source of truth for both the financial and performance side of your advertising.

By connecting directly to your Ad platforms, Finaloop automatically pulls:

  • Ad spend

  • Charges

  • Refunds

  • Credits

  • Performance metrics

Everything is reconciled end-to-end, so your books, platform balances, and performance dashboards stay aligned without spreadsheets or manual tracking. With the Ads page, you can:

  • Track your ad platform ROAS in one place

  • See how much you currently owe each ad platform

  • View spend and performance by account, campaign, and ad set

  • Reconcile platform balances directly against your books

  • Export clean data

1. Supported Ad Platforms

Finaloop currently integrates with:

  • Meta

  • Google Ads

  • Amazon Ads (Coming soon)

2. What the Ads Integration Does

Finaloop connects directly to your ad accounts and automatically syncs all relevant financial and performance data.

Full Financial Coverage

We sync the entire ad payable lifecycle:

  • Accrued ad spend (as ads run)

  • Charges to your bank or card

  • Refunds to your bank or card

  • Platform-issued credits

  • Other balance adjustments

Your reports reflect what you actually owe, not just what has been charged so far.

Automatic Reconciliation

Finaloop continuously compares platform balances with your books to ensure they stay fully aligned.

Performance Visibility

In addition to accounting accuracy, you get detailed platform metrics such as:

  • Spend

  • ROAS

  • Clicks

  • CTR

  • CPM

  • CPC

  • CPA

  • Purchases

  • Conversions

For detailed explanation of each of these metrics, see the Ads page overview, below.

3. Understanding the Ads Payable Cycle

This section explains how money flows between your business and your ad platform, and how Finaloop tracks each step.

1. Accrued spend

Ad spend is recorded as soon as ads run, even before the ad platform charges your bank or card. If you use accrual accounting, this ensures your books reflect your true liability in real time.

2. Charges

When the ad platform bills your bank account or card, the charge is matched against the accrued spend.

3. Refunds

If they issue a refund (for overcharges or adjustments), it is recorded and reconciled automatically.

4. Credits

Credits include:

  • Promotions

  • Adjustments

  • Refund-related credits

Credits reduce the amount you owe and are tracked separately for full visibility.

Finaloop tracks all of these components together so your Ads Payable balance always matches your ad platforms (the source of truth).

4. What You’ll See in Your Books

Balance Sheet

Under Liabilities, you’ll find an Ads Platform Payable account.

It includes:

  • Accrued ad spend not yet charged

  • Charges and refunds

  • Platform credits

  • Related bank transactions (to prevent double counting)

  • Balance adjustments used to keep your ad platforms and Finaloop balances in sync

Profit and Loss (P&L)

On your P&L, you’ll see:

  • Ad spend by account: View how much each ad account spent in a given period

  • Credits by account: All credits broken down by account for full visibility

This makes it easy to understand your true advertising costs for any period.

In certain cases, you may see an additional “unidentified account” in your P&L. This happens when we see ad-related transactions in your bank or credit card that we can’t match to the data we sync from the ad platform.

This can happen if there are timing differences, a campaign that wasn’t connected, or a miscategorized bank transaction. In this case, we automatically add an adjustment so your ad spend is accurately reflected in your P&L and fully reconciled with your source of truth.

We review these adjustments both during the month and again at month-end to ensure your advertising expenses remain complete and accurate.

5. Ads Page Overview (In-App)

Click Ads in the left menu to view your advertising data provided by your ad platforms.

Overview tab

The Overview tab gives you a high level snapshot of your ad activity and performance:

Summary metrics such as:

  • ROAS; Revenue generated per dollar spent

  • Spend: Total ad spend

  • CPM: Cost per 1,000 impressions

  • CPC: Cost per click

  • CPA: Cost per purchase

You can also:

  • Compare period over period performance

  • See live campaign status

  • View account balances

This view is ideal for executive-level reporting and quick health checks.

An Action Required button will appear next to an account whenever we need something from you, for example if we need you to grant us a role to your ad account. You’ll also see a corresponding mission in your My missions screen.

Campaign analysis tab

View performance metrics at the campaign level:

  • Spend: Total amount spent on this campaign

  • ROAS: Revenue generated for purchases for every dollar spent on ads

  • Impressions: The number of times this campaign was viewed, including multiple times by the same user.

  • Clicks: The amount of times your campaign was clicked on

  • CTR: The percent of people who click on your ad after seeing it

  • CPM: Total average cost per 1,000 impressions of your campaign

  • CPC: The cost paid for each click on your ad

  • Purchases: the total amount of purchases attributed to your ads in this campaign

  • CV: The total revenue generated from purchases

  • CVR (impressions): The percent of people who saw your ad and completed a conversion

  • CVR (clicks): The percent of people who clicked on your ad and completed a conversion

  • Budget: Daily campaign budget

  • CPA:The cost of acquiring customers through your campaigns

This helps you evaluate which campaigns are driving results.

Ad set analysis tab

Drill down further into ad set performance to understand:

  • Which audiences perform best

  • Which structures drive conversions

  • Where spend is most efficient

Account analysis tab

See a consolidated view of spend and performance across all ad accounts.

Filters and exports

Across all views, you can:

  • Filter by date, platform, account, campaign, or ad set

  • Filter for active campaigns only

  • Sort by any metric

  • Export data to CSV for deeper analysis

6. Why this matters

Most ad platforms focus only on performance. Most accounting systems focus only on charges.

Finaloop brings both together.

With the Ads page, you always know:

  • How much you’ve spent

  • How much you owe

  • How your ads are performing

  • Whether your books and platform balances are fully reconciled

This gives finance and marketing teams a shared, accurate view of advertising performance.

Need Help?

If you have questions about syncing or creating wholesale or retail invoices in Finaloop, contact our Support team through chat or at [email protected].

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