Stripe, Square and PayPal fee invoices

Every month Stripe sends a "Tax Invoice" listing the fees it charged you: card processing, billing, Stripe Tax and so on. Square and PayPal send similar fee statements. It looks like a bill, but do not add it as a bill.

Why it is already in your books

Stripe does not ask you to pay these fees. It takes them out of your balance before it pays you, which is why the invoice reads "Debited from your Balance" and "Amount Due $0.00".

When a payout arrives, HQ records it in full: the sales, the fees Stripe kept, and the GST or HST Stripe charged on its own fees, all in the same entry. So by the time the invoice comes, every fee on it is already in your books. Adding it as a bill would count the same fees a second time.

What HQ does with it

When the invoice reaches HQ (by email, uploaded on the Bills screen, or in a folder of documents), HQ checks five things: the document is issued by the processor itself (the company named on it, not just the address it was emailed from), this business is connected to that processor, the document says the fees were taken from your balance with nothing due, what it lists are fees, and your books already hold that processor's payouts for the month the invoice covers. When all five are true, HQ files it instead of making a bill, and tells you so. On the Bills screen that is a message saying where it was filed, which stays until you close it; its Open button takes you to the statement.

The filed statement lives with the processor's other documents: open Ledger › Expenses › Vendors, open Stripe, and look under Fee statements. It reads "Already in your books. Stripe took these fees from your payouts, and HQ recorded them with each payout."

If the invoice came by email, the strip above that email in Mail reads "Filed as a Stripe fee statement" (or Square, or PayPal). Click it and HQ opens that processor in Ledger › Expenses › Vendors, where the statement is. The email shows no Extract to Books button, because there is no bill to make.

HQ takes the statement's figures from what the PDF prints: the "Debited from your Balance" amount on each page, and its closing fee and tax totals. A photo or a scanned copy has no text to read, so HQ uses its own reading of the image.

For a Stripe statement HQ also adds up what your Stripe payouts recorded for the same month (the fees and the tax on them) and says whether the two agree. If they differ, both figures are shown. When the statement is the higher figure, the usual reason is that Stripe took some of the month's fees after your last payout; they appear once that payout arrives. When your payouts record more than the statement lists, open the statement and check it was read correctly.

When it is not filed

If the invoice says something is still owed, you paid it by card, it lists something other than fees, or it covers a month whose payouts are not in your books yet (an invoice from before you connected the processor, say), HQ treats it as a normal bill and puts it in your review queue.

It is also kept as a bill when you answered Has this been paid? while uploading it (Not yet, paid from a business account or card, or paid personally), because your answer and the document disagree and HQ does not pick one for you. A Stripe invoice is also kept as a bill when the Account Number printed on it is not the Stripe account this business is connected to. That works for a photo or scan of the invoice too: HQ reads the number off the picture and keeps it as a bill only when it is clearly a different account, not when a character or two could be misread. The bill's notes name both accounts.

When the bill comes from a processor you are connected to, the review shows a warning that it looks like the processor's own fee invoice. If the fees did come out of your payouts, choose File as a fee statement to file it instead. Nothing is posted.

Stripe, Square and PayPal also send receipts on behalf of other businesses: a software subscription billed through Stripe, a shop that takes Square, a purchase you paid with your PayPal balance. Those name the business you bought from, so HQ treats them as normal bills and shows no warning.

Changing your mind

If a filed statement really was paid some other way, open it under the processor's Fee statements and choose Record as a bill. It moves to your review queue as a bill, and nothing is posted until you approve it. HQ asks you to confirm first, because if those fees came through your payouts they would be counted twice.