For Texas clubs with live entertainment that allow alcohol

Ten dollars a head. Ninety nights a quarter. Every one counted.

Headcount keeps the nightly door count as the daily record the Comptroller asks for, adds the quarter up at the rate in force each night, shows the 20th it is due — and will not mark a return filed while any open night in the quarter has no count.

Open the demo See pricing

Opens in this browser with an invented club already in it. No account, no email address, nothing installed.

Headcount with its example records in it

Open the free demo →

The problem

The quarter adds up in January. The nights happened in October.

Texas charges $10 for every customer entry at a club with live nude entertainment that allows alcohol, reported quarterly by the 20th. The count has to be written down every day, a customer back the same night counts once, and the rate changed in 2023. A box of clicker notes on the 19th, with nine nights missing, is how a late penalty and a bad figure happen together.

$10

per customer entry since 1 September 2023 — it was $5 before.

Texas Comptroller →

Daily

The number of customers admitted is to be recorded daily, and a customer who comes back the same business day is one entry.

Comptroller FAQs →

5% / 10%

Penalty if paid 1–30 days after the 20th, then 10%, with interest from day 61.

Texas Comptroller →

Will not mark a return filed with a night missing.

Not a reminder. Mark the return filed refuses, with the nights listed, while any night the club is normally open has no count and no note that it was closed — or while the quarter has not ended. A filed quarter’s counts are frozen. There is no override.

How it works

One number a night, one figure a quarter

Write tonight’s count

Customers admitted, who counted. A night written down later is kept and stamped late; a night closed is said to be closed.

Watch the quarter add up

Month by month, at $10 an entry (or $5 before September 2023), with the due date and the nights still missing.

Mark it filed

Once every open night is counted. The report is still on paper and the payment goes through the Comptroller; Headcount keeps the figure and the date.

What it will never do

It keeps numbers. Nobody’s name.

A count of people through the door is all the fee needs, and all Headcount holds.

No customers.No names, no IDs, no cards. A number per night.

It does not file or pay.The report is on paper and payment is through the Comptroller. Headcount records that you did it.

It never touches a payment.No cover charges, no dances, no fees collected. The fee for Headcount is flat and it is for software.

Texas only.The rate, the dates and the penalties are the Texas Comptroller’s.

Pricing

Priced per club, flat

The fee is per customer. The worksheet is not.

Club

$25/month

One club.

Nightly counts with late stamps
Quarter worksheet by month
Return gate, no override

Most clubs

Club plus

$35/month

One club, several managers counting.

Everything in Club
Late-penalty arithmetic
Export of the daily record

Group

$79/month

Several clubs under one owner.

Everything in Club plus
One copy for each club, each with its own counts
Priority support

Flat fee, billed monthly. Never per customer or per night. Your bank statement says Headcount Software. Your licence key is emailed to you within two working days of payment.

Checkout is our own bitcoin server, not a card processor — nobody we had to apply to and nobody who can close the account. The button takes you straight to it. Give your email address there — that is where your key is sent.

Questions

The ones we actually get asked

What counts as an entry?

Each customer admitted. A customer who leaves and comes back the same business day is one entry; a business day runs from opening to close.

What if we forgot to write a night down?

Write it down from your door record. Headcount keeps it with the day it was written and marks it late.

Can it file the return for us?

No. The Comptroller takes the report on paper and the payment by Webfile or TEXNET. Headcount gives you the figure and keeps the record behind it.

Is this tax advice?

No. It is a worksheet that argues with you. The Comptroller’s pages and rules are the authority.

What do I actually get when I pay?

The demo on this page is the whole program, running on invented records. Paying gets you a licence key — one line of text, emailed to the address you give at checkout within two working days. Paste it into the program and from then on it keeps your own records. Until then, nothing you type into it is kept.

The key is checked inside the page, on your own machine. It never calls us, so there is still no account and nothing about your business goes anywhere. If you ever stop paying, your records stay exactly where they are, read-only, and Export still hands you every one of them.

Open the demo in the week the return is due

The quarter before last was counted every night and filed early. Last quarter adds up to a five-figure fee — and three open nights have no count, so it cannot be marked filed until somebody finds the door record for them.

Open the demo See pricing