For creators and online courses

# A launch month you can account for.

Memberships, course sales and refunds through Stripe, recorded as balanced books with a signed receipt for every payment. Know what actually came in.

[Get early access](https://trifold.app/early-access?role=creator) [Planned pricing](https://trifold.app/pricing)

-   ✓ Every payment and refund posts as balanced books.
-   ✓ Refunds are new events, never edits.
-   ✓ Signed receipts members can check, and a sealed month at the end.

Simulated · invented names · synthetic data

## A course launch, simulated.

Night Kitchen Courses is invented. A seeded scenario runs its year through the engine, hledger and DuckDB, and all three give the same KPI hash. Its demo dashboard, below, shows the KPIs from the same runs. Run it yourself with the command on the card. See [every preset](https://trifold.app/proof#simulations) and [where the simulations simplify](https://trifold.app/proof#simplify).

### Creators and online courses

Simulated

Night Kitchen Courses, a simulated course creator.

In their words: members · courses · launch month · cook-alongs

What's modelled

-   –90 members join the paid community in the launch month, then four a month
-   –Many buy a course (sourdough, knife skills) or the recipe pack at sign-up
-   –Members book live cook-alongs
-   –Refunds on about 7% of payments
-   –About 1 in 12 leaves each month

creator-launch · seed 501 · 2026-01..2026-12

A launch month, a steady trickle after it, course sales and refunds.

Gross collected gross\_collected

$25,297

New paying members new\_paying\_members

134

Paying members last month paying\_members\_last\_month

66

MRR last month mrr

$1,460.85

$ scenarios describe creator-launch

KPIs each preset produces

Gross collected · Net income · Refunds · Disputes · Stripe fees · Payouts · Payments · New paying members · Paying members last month · MRR · New, expansion, contraction and churned MRR · Net new MRR · Credits granted, consumed and expired

[How the orgs are simulated ↗](https://github.com/justbry/tfd/blob/dev/packages/atm/docs/scenario-orgs.md)

Night Kitchen Courses · demo dashboard

Demo, synthetic data. [Open the dashboard full screen ↗](https://trifold.app/demo/orgs/creator.html) [All five demo dashboards ↗](https://trifold.app/demo/orgs/index.html)

## Three things that eat a creator’s launch

### 1\. Launch-month chaos

The founding cohort joins in one month, and many buy a course or a download at sign-up.

**How Trifold answers it** (chapters 01 and 02, Money in and Books): every Stripe payment lands as an event and posts as balanced books, automatically. Duplicate deliveries from Stripe are recorded once.

### 2\. Refunds

**How Trifold answers it:** a refund is a new event, never an edit, so the month shows what came in and what went back. Each refund has its own signed receipt (chapter 03, Proof).

### 3\. Knowing what actually came in

**How Trifold answers it:** gross collected, Stripe fees, refunds and payouts come from the same events, and every number traces to its payment. Seal the month and any later change shows.

An honest note: in today’s simulation, a course sale is booked with the member’s tier, not as a separate income line.

## Questions

**Are course sales a separate income line?**

Not in today's simulation: a course sale is booked with the member's tier. The payment, its receipt and its refund are all there; the split by product isn't.

**Can I keep my course platform?**

Yes. Trifold builds the books from your Stripe payments. Direct sync to course or community platforms isn't built.

## A launch that shows its work.

Books **✓**·Receipt **✓**·Stripe **✓**

[Get early access](https://trifold.app/early-access?role=creator) [Verify a sample receipt](https://trifold.app/verify)

Design partners: founder onboarding, free during the pilot.