How to reconcile payouts from Shopify
This helpguide article is for Churches and Charities that use the Shopify platform. The article covers how to manage and reconcile payouts from Shopify within ExpensePlus in the most efficient way possible.
Shopify Payouts
Shopify uses Stripe to handle card payments made on the Shopify Platform. This means that payouts from Shopify will appear on your bank account statement as 'STRIPE PAYOUT'.
If your organisation also has another Stripe account, you may well find you have payouts transactions in your bank account with the same description.
Important: If you do have multiple Stripe accounts, each one needs to be set up as its own separate account in ExpensePlus (within the 'payment processor accounts' section of this settings page.
Payout Frequency
As with all payment processors, we'd highly recommend that you set the payout frequency within Shopify to either 'weekly' or better still 'monthly' as this will minimise the number of transactions you have to reconcile. Possibly more importantly, it will also minimise your risk of error (particularly if you have other stripe accounts in addition to your Shopify account.)
Warning: Shopify default payouts to 'automatic' - we'd highly recommend you change this to either 'weekly' (or ideally 'monthly')
To update your Shopify payout frequency, go to settings -> payments within Shopify, then click 'manage'.
Reconciling Shopify Payouts
When a payout from Shopify appears on the left hand table of the bank matching screen for your bank account, click on the transaction.
Note: the transaction is likely to have the description of 'STRIPE PAYOUT' (rather than 'Shopify') and do be careful to check within Shopify that it relates to a Shopify payout if you have other Stripe accounts.
In the popup that appears, select the 'mixed income' option and click 'confirm'.
The payout needs to be split into 'Gross Income' and 'Fees'. To find the amounts you need for this, within Shopify go to the payouts screen, then click on the payout in question (deduced based on the payout amount).
Within the breakdown of the payout, you will then be able to see the 'Gross Income' and 'Fees'.
In this example:
Gross Income: £281.99
Fees: £8.50
Payout (Net Income): £273.49
Note: in accounting, you shouldn't record the net income (known as 'netting off'), but rather record the gross income, and the fees (expenditure)
Then, within ExpensePlus you can add the gross income and the fees to the mixed income transaction.
Note: If you wish to split the income (or expenditure) between multiple funds/categories, then you can do this. However, Shopify doesn't provide an easy way to get a summary of the items within a payout, which is one reason we don't provide a file upload option for Shopify.