Invoicing & Payments
Make every payout reconcile itself
“Stripe and Square deposit one lump sum into my bank account, and at month end I cannot tell what my actual sales were versus what the processor kept in fees.”
The short answer
Connect your processor's official accounting connector and let it split every payout automatically. Gross sales post to income, the processing fee posts to a merchant-fees expense account, and the net deposit matches your bank feed exactly. A $5,000 payout becomes $145.30 in fees and a $4,854.70 deposit — zero journal entries at month-end.
- 40 minutes to set up
- Medium difficulty
What you'll need
- QuickBooks Online leanest paid option
Official Stripe Connector app plus the built-in 'App transactions' feed auto-splits gross, fee, and net on every payout.
Watch the pricing: Advertised at $19/mo — that is 50% off for three months only. Simple Start reverts to $38/mo from month four.
Pricing checked 2026-10-28 — source.
Wall check Gates 4/5 ! Price ! Permission ✓ Gate ! Meter ! Exit what we found User counts rise with the price tier, and after you cancel the data goes read-only for a year — then it is gone. - Xero
Native Stripe feed posts gross, fee, and net lines automatically; reconcile the net deposit against the bank feed in one click.
Watch the pricing: Advertised prices (~$2.70/$5.90/$9.70 per month) are intro rates (~90% off for the first 6 months). Regular prices revert to $27/mo (Early), $59/mo (Growing), and $97/mo (Established). Early plan locks you to 20 invoices and 5 bills per month.
Pricing checked 2026-10-28 — source.
Wall check Gates 4/5 ! Price ! Permission ✓ Gate ! Meter ! Exit what we found Entry tiers cap invoices and bills monthly; cancellation takes a month's notice and the export is DIY. - Stripe free tier
Source system. Payout reports itemize gross, fees, refunds, and net for every deposit; the official Stripe Connector sync is free.
Free until: Pay-as-you-go processing only (2.9% + 30¢ per successful online card charge); zero monthly platform fee.
Watch the pricing: The connector adds no fee — costs are the per-transaction processing you already pay.
Pricing checked 2026-10-28 — source.
Wall check Gates 4/5 ✓ Price ! Permission ! Gate ! Meter ! Exit what we found No subscription floor, but everything is metered per transaction and deep data export is custom-plan only. - Square free tier
'Sync with Square' app (built by Intuit) posts itemized sales, fees, and transfers into QuickBooks automatically.
Free until: Sync app is free; pay only Square processing (2.6% + 15¢ in-person, 3.3% + 30¢ online on the Free plan).
Watch the pricing: Square Plus at $49/mo per location is for advanced POS features — not required for the accounting sync.
Pricing checked 2026-10-28 — source.
Wall check Gates 4/5 ✓ Price ! Permission ! Gate ! Meter ! Exit what we found Real free plan — but the meter runs on every transaction, and Plus features cost 49 USD/mo per location.
Download Step-by-Step Application Instructions (PDF)
Printable engineering runbook with wholesale utility configurations, step-by-step setup walkthrough, and our 5-point quality verification protocol.
- ✓ Complete step-by-step setup instructions
- ✓ Zero agency markups · wholesale utilities
- ✓ 5-point quality verification protocol
- ✓ Self-hostable · client ownership guaranteed
We are not paid by any tool listed here. If a cheaper or better option exists, that's what you'll see.
Pricing above was checked on 2026-10-28. Vendors change their terms without notice, and free tiers do get withdrawn. We take no money from any vendor listed here. If something on this page is out of date, tell us and we will correct it.
How to set it up
- Turn on the official connector
In QuickBooks: Apps → search for your processor ('Stripe Connector' or 'Sync with Square'). In Xero: Settings → Payment services → Stripe. Approve read-only access — no credentials leave the platform.
- Map the three lines
Point gross sales at your income account, processing fees at a 'Merchant Service Fees' expense account, and the net transfer at your operating checking.
- Enable payout matching
Turn on automatic matching so each deposit in the bank feed pairs to its payout record instead of arriving as a raw lump sum.
- Verify with one real payout
Wait for the next payout, open it, and confirm gross, fee, and net landed as three separate lines before trusting it at month-end.
- Save the bank rule
Create a rule so every future payout from that processor auto-categorizes identically — nothing left to classify by hand.
Common questions
- Does the connector cost extra?
- No. The Stripe Connector and 'Sync with Square' apps are free — the only requirement is an existing QuickBooks Online or Xero subscription. You keep paying your normal card-processing fees either way.
- What about payouts that already landed as lump sums?
- They stay unreconciled history. You can pull the processor's payout report CSV for prior months, or let your CPA make one adjusting entry — the connector keeps it from happening again.
- Does this work if I use both Stripe and Square?
- Yes — run both connectors. Each payout lands with its own gross, fee, and net lines keyed to the right processor account.
Last reviewed 2026-10-28. Tools change — if something here is out of date, tell us and we'll fix it.
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