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For accountants managing Stripe revenue in QuickBooks Online, month-end close often involves a familiar struggle: downloading Stripe reports, parsing through transaction data, and creating journal entries to properly record revenue, fees, and refunds. While each step is necessary, the process is time-consuming and prone to errors. This guide demonstrates how to automate this workflow using FinOptimal's Booker app, transforming hours of manual work into a streamlined process requiring just one Google Sheet and one Stripe report.
Before we get into making your accounting life easier, a quick Author's note: the video below covers everything in this article, but also provides visuals. We recommend watching it and using this article as a supplement to the video. Additionally, the resource we're dropping here is the Booker template used in the video, which should be helpful.
Before diving into the solution, let's understand why Stripe accounting can be particularly challenging:
Now let's understand how Booker transforms Stripe accounting. Instead of manually creating journal entries or using QBO's recurring transactions, Booker acts as an intelligent intermediary between your Stripe data and QuickBooks Online. It uses Google Sheets as a flexible, formula-driven interface to:
The real power comes from Booker's ability to handle historical data dynamically. Rather than creating new spreadsheets each month, you'll maintain a single sheet that automatically processes all transactions from your start date to present.
Important: Always maintain this full date range when pulling reports. Instead of creating monthly reports, you'll update one comprehensive dataset that Booker's formulas will automatically parse by month.
Select "All Columns" before exporting. This is crucial because Booker's formulas rely on specific columns for:
Once your export is run, you'll copy and paste your data into a Booker sheet. Booker is one of FinOptimal's many apps, and it's the easiest way to create and manage journal entries in QuickBooks Online. Sign up for Booker here, and download our Booker template here.
This formula is crucial for two reasons:
Your Booker sheet will need the key components below. Booker uses SUMIFS formulas to aggregate transactions by type and month, so we'll break down each of those as well:
This column acts as a reference for charge, refund, and fee formulas. Charge, refund, and fee are the reporting categories standard to Stripe, and can be found in Column K of the Stripe Data tab. In the notes column of the Booker tab, list charge, refund, and fee in cells A7-A9. Below are each of the corresponding formulas that will be written in cells H7-H9.
This formula:
The fee calculation requires special handling and some tweaking if copied over, because:
This formula automatically calculates the net settlement amount that should match your bank deposits. This formula will be placed in cell H6, with cell C6 being toggled to Stripe Bank, which is what we've decided to call our dedicated account where cash amounts are received to.
This validation formula serves multiple purposes:
The formula should always equal zero. If it doesn't:
Once your formulas are written, they can be dragged and copied over (cells H5-H9) all the way over from left to right (Columns I, J, K, etc.) as far as you have data.
As a quick overview, here are all of the formulas we've used so far:
Month Column
Charges Row
Refund Row
Fee Row
Stripe Bank Row
Check Row
Set up these dedicated accounts in QuickBooks Online:
Pro Tip: Using a dedicated Stripe settlement account makes reconciliation easier by separating Stripe deposits from other bank activity.
In your Booker template, configure:
Once configured, your monthly process becomes:
The beauty of this system is that formulas automatically:
If Stripe settlements don't match bank deposits:
To validate formula accuracy:
When implementing mid-year:
If managing multiple Stripe accounts:
The structured data enables custom analytics:
Booker automatically creates an audit trail by:
By implementing this automated system, you transform Stripe accounting from a manual, error-prone process into a streamlined, validated workflow. The initial setup time is quickly recovered through:
Ready to automate your Stripe accounting? Sign up for Booker here, and download our Booker template here.
Booker processes refunds based on the refund date, not the original transaction date. This matches Stripe's settlement process and maintains proper cash accounting.
Yes, the template is fully customizable. Common modifications include:
Stripe's Balance Report converts all transactions to your account's default currency, and Booker processes these converted amounts automatically.
You can either:
It has never been easier to account for Stripe revenue in QuickBooks Online. If you want to use this system for you or your clients' books, all you need to do is:
Still want to see more of Booker first? Follow the button below to see a demo of Booker with a CPA.
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