An oil & gas revenue check stub looks dense, but it is really just one equation: your share of what a well sold, minus the costs of getting that product to market, minus taxes. Once you can find each term, the stub stops being a mystery, and you can tell whether the number at the bottom is right.
The five things every stub tells you
Property and product. The stub identifies the well or unit and the product (oil, gas, or natural gas liquids). A single well can pay you on more than one product, on separate lines.
Gross value. This is 100% of what the product sold for, before anything is taken out and before your ownership share is applied. It is not your money yet. It is the whole pie.
Your decimal interest. The small number, often carried to six or eight places, that is your fraction of the well. Gross value multiplied by your decimal is your gross share. If this decimal is wrong, every payment is wrong.
Deductions and taxes. Severance and production taxes are withheld and remitted to the state. You may also see post-production deductions (gathering, compression, processing, transportation) that move the product from the wellhead to a buyer. Whether those deductions are allowed depends on your lease.
Net payment. Gross share, minus your share of taxes and deductions, is the check. Every honest stub lets you walk that arithmetic yourself.
How to tell if you were paid correctly
Check the decimal first. It should match your division order. A decimal that changes without a new division order is the single most common payment error.
Watch the deductions. If post-production deductions appear and your lease has a strong no-deduction clause, that is worth a question to the operator, and possibly to a landman or attorney.
Compare month to month. A check that drops while production is flat usually means a price change, a new deduction, or a decimal change. A check that stops entirely often means the interest went into suspense: money the operator is holding because of a title or ownership question.
Why this is hard to do by hand
One stub is readable. The problem is that you receive many (different operators, different formats, different months) and the picture only emerges when you line them up. That is the work Strata Vantage automates: it reads every stub you receive, ties each figure to the document, and tells you when a payment changed and why.
See it on your own documents.
Strata Vantage turns the paperwork you already receive into clear reporting. Free for owners during early access.