Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Fuel retailers handle enormous amounts of money that was never theirs to keep. NACS reports the convenience industry collected $232 billion in taxes in 2025, more than 28% of total revenue. Fuel sales alone were $476.3 billion.
Then there are card fees. The NRF reports U.S. businesses paid $198.25 billion in credit and debit card swipe fees in 2025, and that swipe fees have tripled since 2009. NACS puts the convenience industry’s share at a record $21.3 billion. Because card fees are charged on the full transaction amount, fuel retailers pay fees on the tax portion of every gallon too.
When taxes and fees take that big a bite, small accounting mistakes turn into big problems. At Petrosoft, we run 22 gas stations, and we built CStoreOffice® so fuel, store and accounting data live in one place.
Where fuel accounting goes wrong
- Fuel deliveries, invoices and tank readings live in different places, so variance goes unnoticed.
- Tax and card-fee costs aren’t tied back to each site’s margin.
- Store and fuel sales are reconciled by hand at month-end, long after problems start.
- Jobbers and multi-site dealers can’t see true profit by location.
How Petrosoft helps: CStoreOffice® includes a full accounting ledger, so fuel and merchandise sales, costs and expenses sit in the same system. You see real margin per site without exporting to spreadsheets.
Reconcile fuel the way you reconcile cash
With fuel making up 65% of c-store sales dollars but only 38.8% of gross profit (NACS), there’s little room for unexplained variance.
How Petrosoft helps: CStoreOffice® ATG-integrated wet-stock reconciliation compares tank readings with sales and deliveries automatically and flags variance early. It’s the core of our Take Back the Cents approach.
Get invoices in electronically
Manual invoice entry is slow and error-prone, especially across many sites. Wrong costs mean wrong margins and wrong prices.
How Petrosoft helps: Wholesale EDI purchasing in CStoreOffice® brings vendor invoices in electronically, matches them to your costs and updates your price book automatically.
See it all from the road
With 122,620 fuel-selling stores in the U.S., the most in eight years according to NACS, competition at the pump keeps tightening. Owners and jobbers need answers fast.
How Petrosoft helps: Retail360 puts fuel forecasting and store performance on your phone. SmartPOS records every fuel and inside sale correctly from the start, and Eagle Eye ties video to transactions for exception review.
The fuel retailer’s accounting checklist
- Keep fuel, store and expenses in one ledger in CStoreOffice®.
- Reconcile wet stock daily with ATG data.
- Bring vendor invoices in by EDI and let costs update automatically.
- Track card fees and taxes against each site’s margin.
- Review site performance and fuel forecasts in Retail360.
- Grow higher-margin inside sales with QwickServe food ordering.
Frequently asked questions
How much in taxes do convenience stores collect?
NACS reports the industry collected $232 billion in taxes in 2025, more than 28% of total revenue.
How much do businesses pay in credit card swipe fees?
The NRF reports U.S. businesses paid $198.25 billion in credit and debit card swipe fees in 2025. NACS reports convenience retailers paid a record $21.3 billion.
What accounting software do gas stations and fuel jobbers use?
Look for software that combines a full accounting ledger with fuel inventory, wet-stock reconciliation and EDI purchasing. CStoreOffice® does all of this in one cloud system.
What is wet-stock reconciliation?
It compares automatic tank gauge (ATG) readings with fuel sales and deliveries to find variance from leaks, meter drift, short deliveries or theft. CStoreOffice® does it automatically.
Why do fuel retailers pay card fees on fuel taxes?
Card fees are charged as a percentage of the full transaction, and fuel taxes are part of the price at the pump. That’s why tracking card fees against each site’s margin matters.
See CStoreOffice® accounting, EDI and wet-stock reconciliation in action. Book a live, no-pressure demo at petrosoftinc.com.
Sources
- NACS, “U.S. Convenience In-Store Sales Top $340 Billion” (State of the Industry, April 2026): https://www.convenience.org/stay-current/news/2026/april/15/u-s-convenience-in-store-sales-top-$340-billion
- NRF, Swipe Fees policy page (2025 data): https://nrf.com/advocacy/policy-issues/swipe-fees
- NACS, “2026 Sees Slight Decrease in C-Store Count” (January 2026): https://www.convenience.org/stay-current/news/2026/january/26/2026-sees-slight-decrease-c-store-count_research
