How to reconcile Stripe Income
This help guide article covers how to reconcile Stripe Income.
Within ExpensePlus there are 2 choices for how to reconcile Stripe Income (you will need to pick the one that will work best for you):
- Option 1: Splitting payouts manually using the 'mixed income' option - This can be a good option where you have only a small number of Stripe Transactions or all transactions are typically either just card donations or relate to just one event (and you wish to bulk together similar income transactions and do the same with fees) - typically not recommended.
- Option 2: Adding Stripe as an account and uploading and reconciling transactions - this option is typically best for most churches and charities.
IMPORTANT: You should not reconcile payouts from Stripe as 'Income Received' as Stripe deducts transaction/application fees. So, recording the net amount that arrives in your bank account simply as income is incorrect from an accounting perspective. Instead, choose one of the above options - both of which enable you to ensure that the gross amount of income collected is recorded as income, and the transaction/application fees are correctly recorded as expenditure.
Option 1: Splitting payouts manually using the 'mixed income' option
Reconciling Stripe payouts appearing on your main bank account statement
When you reconcile your uploaded bank transactions, select the Stripe payout on the left-hand table of your match transactions screen, click the + button, then, in the popup that appears, select the transaction type as 'mixed income'
Within the 'Enter Mixed Income' screen, enter the details for the transactions in the Stripe payout:
- Named Donations - a line per donation transaction
- GASDS Donations - typically not relevant (only for any donations via a contactless Stripe card reader where the amount per individual donation is £30 or less)
- Income (other) - for all other income, such as ticket / book / cafe sales
- Less Expenditure - for the total of the fees deducted (typically grouped into a single expenditure line).
Note: if you are finding the process of splitting payouts as described above tedious or time-consuming, then we'd recommend you consider option 2 which is far quicker and doesn't require manual data entry.
Option 2: Adding Stripe as an account, and uploading and reconciling transactions
Reconciling Stripe payouts appearing on your main bank account statement
When you reconcile your uploaded bank transactions, select the Stripe payout on the left-hand table of your match transactions screen, click the + button, then, in the popup that appears, select the transaction type as 'Payout from Payment Processor', and then select your Stripe account.
Note: you will need to set up Stripe as a payment processor account before you can do this - click here to find out how to do this.
NOTE: the 'ChurchSuite Donations' option will be hidden when setting up GoCardless as a payment processor if you are not using ChurchSuite and your system-wide settings within system settings are correctly set. If you are using ChurchSuite, be sure to set this to 'Yes' to ensure that the donation method gets automatically set as 'ChurchSuite' (ensuring that donations don't get included within Gift Aid claims in ExpensePlus).
NOTE: This first step will temporarily make your account balance of your Stripe account in ExpensePlus go negative (until you upload your Stripe transactions).
NOTE: it is possible for the Stripe payout amount to be negative e.g., where an event has been cancelled. ExpensePlus is able to handle this along with handling refund transactions that are part of the statement uploaded.
Downloading Stripe transactions
Within Stripe, click the 'Balances' option on the top menu, then click 'Payouts'.
Click on the specific payout.
Then scroll down to the 'Transactions' section and click 'Export'.
TOP TIP: change your payout frequency in Stripe to either 'Weekly' or 'Monthly' to avoid having to reconcile multiple payouts. Click here to adjust this within 'payout schedule' within Stripe.
WARNING: Once downloaded, don't edit or resave the file, or change the file format from .CSV to .XLS/.XLSX, as it may stop the file uploading to ExpensePlus properly.
Importing Stripe transactions
Within the bank reconciliation screen, select your Stripe account and click 'upload transactions'.
The upload process works similarly to a regular bank account, except that, each line on the statement will show as two transactions within ExpensePlus - one relating to the income and the other to the transaction fee deducted.
Once payout transactions are uploaded, your Stripe account balance should return to zero (because the net total of the transactions in the payout report you've just uploaded IN to this account should exactly match the amount paid OUT as the payout went from this account into your bank account).
IMPORTANT NOTE: If your latest account balance within ExpensePlus for your Stripe account is not zero we highly recommend you fix this issue BEFORE you reconcile transactions - please see this separate help guide article.
Reconciling Stripe transactions
The bank matching process for Stripe transactions works similarly to a regular bank account - with the ability to remember and quick match transactions.
This means that once you have reconciled Stripe transactions for the first month or first upload, you won't need to manually enter these transactions for future months - instead, you can simply click the 'quick match income' button at the top of the match transactions screen. See How to Quick Match Income.
Where transactions haven't been previously reconciled and auto-remembered:
Named Donations
(1) select the transaction in the left-hand table of the match transactions screen;
(2) click the '+' button to the right of the transaction;
(3) select the 'Named Donation' option in the popup and enter the details.
GASDS Donations
To reconcile contactless card donations that are £30 or under (typically not relevant):
(1) select the transaction in the left-hand table of the match transactions screen;
(2) click the '+' button to the right of the transaction;
(3) select the 'GASDS Donation' option in the popup and enter the details.
NOTE: Contactless card donations over £30 are not eligible for GASDS and should be entered instead as 'Income Received'.
Income Received
To reconcile income for an event or sales income:
(1) select the transaction in the left-hand table of the match transactions screen
(2) click the '+' button to the right of the transaction
(3) select the 'Income Received' option in the popup and enter the details
If you are using ChurchSuite, the 'Description to Remember' field should automatically shorten correctly for you in order to enable future event income to auto-match.
Card/Payment Process Fee
To reconcile transaction/application fees:
(1) select the transaction in the left-hand table of the match transactions screen
(2) click the '+' button to the right of the transaction
(3) select the 'Card/Payment Processor Fee' option in the popup and enter the details
If you are using ChurchSuite, the 'Description to Remember' field should automatically shorten correctly for you in order to enable fees relating to donations or a specific event to auto-match.
Why is my Stripe statement not uploading?
- created (each transaction must contain a date)
- amount (each transaction must contain an income amount. Note: 'Amount', not 'Gross')
- fees (each transaction must contain a fee deducted. Note: 'Fees', not 'Fee')
- description (each transaction must contain a description)
- ID (each transaction does not need to contain an ID, but the column must be present)
(additional columns can be present but won't be imported).
- The file format should be .CSV