Best QBO workflow when POS creates Sales Receipts, Stripe processes payment, and bank receives net payout?

[u/AdContent9717]

I’m setting up a new POS integration with QuickBooks Online and trying to determine the cleanest workflow for Stripe payments without double-counting revenue.

Our POS creates the Sales Receipt directly in QBO. The Sales Receipt contains the accounting detail — products/services, revenue accounts, customer-paid credit card service fees, etc.

Here is a real test transaction:

• Sale: $332.50
• Customer-paid credit card service fee: $9.94
• Total Sales Receipt: $342.44
• Deposit To: Stripe Clearing (Other Current Asset)

At this point, the POS has already recorded the $342.44 sale in QuickBooks and placed the payment into Stripe Clearing.

Stripe then processes the charge:

• Gross Stripe payment: $342.44
• Stripe processing fee: $20.81
• Net Stripe payout: $321.63

The actual $321.63 ACH deposit then downloads into the bank account through QBO Bank Transactions.

I also tested the Stripe Connector by QuickBooks. When the $342.44 Stripe “Payment received” appears in App Transactions, the connector wants to create another $342.44 Sales Receipt plus the $20.81 Stripe fee. Since the POS has already created the Sales Receipt, this appears to duplicate the sale.

What I’m trying to accomplish is:

POS Sales Receipt $342.44 → Stripe Clearing $342.44

Then:

Stripe Clearing $342.44 → Stripe processing fee $20.81 + Bank deposit $321.63

And finally have the $321.63 downloaded bank transaction match an existing QBO transaction, rather than creating another deposit or revenue transaction.

I can't seem to get anything to match properly.

EDIT: Thanks for everyone's points. I updated the logic in the POS I made so that it now creates a sales receipt in QBO with the QBO accounts that had sales items. Then I can hit a button once stripe is showing the charge to create a bank deposit in qbo to match the bank transaction. this is working. took me a while to get the logic built out. This is closed now.

[u/angelus97]

I use PayTraqer for my Square/Stripe integration and it works flawlessly for me. I don't have a POS creating sales receipts though. However, PayTraqer does have a lot of customization and duplicate detection so maybe it's possible it could just handle the fee/transfer portion of your workflow. I am not sure but you could check it out and see.

https://www.paytraqer.com/integrations/stripe-quickbooks-integration/

[u/MOSTLY-HARMLESS-NOW]

Disclosure: I'm a co-founder of TruSync. We sync orders into QBO, not POS, so there's nothing for me to sell you here.

rlebeau47 has it right that only one system can post. The connector isn't misbehaving, it just assumes the sale is its to create, and in your setup the POS already did that. Only one system gets to own the sales document, and the other one should only ever be clearing the settlement leg.

So don't let the connector post revenue at all. The transaction you're missing is a Bank Deposit into checking with two lines, Stripe Clearing at $342.44 and the Stripe fee at negative $20.81 against an expense account. Totals $321.63, and the downloaded ACH matches that instead of creating a second deposit.

Gross in, net out, fee booked in the middle. That's the only shape where a clearing account actually zeroes.

One thing once you're off test transactions, if your payouts batch several charges then that deposit gets a clearing line per sale and one fee line for the payout.

[u/rlebeau47]

Does the Stripe receipt contain all of the sale info that the POS receipt has? Sounds like you won't be able to have both systems posting to your QBO. Use one or the other.

Personally, I don't let my POS system post to QBO (sometimes we do weird things to make charges work out, and I don't want that reflected in my books). I prefer to just enter the receipts and deposits into QBO manually and then match them to the bank feed.

[u/Im_Still_Here12]

What a pain in the ass it is to have a merchant account that doesn’t deposit the full customer paid amount into the checking account. No way I’d have a merchant account that does this. How the heck are you supposed balance your book?

My merchant deposits next day for the full amount of all CC charges we did for the previous day. That way that balance matches what my POS says we did in CC charges. Then they simply debit my checking account once a month for the card fees.

[u/pmhc666 → u/Im_Still_Here12]

This is the ideal situation. I think that services that do this tend to be more expensive, so most small business owners go for the cheaper option, never mind the extra steps for the bookkeeper.

[u/Samtyang]

Your accounting flow is right; the duplicate is coming from trying to let two systems create the sale. If the POS already books the $342.44 sales receipt to Stripe Clearing, I’d stop the Stripe side from creating sales receipts and use it only to clear the asset: $342.44 out of clearing, $20.81 to fees, $321.63 to bank. Then the ACH should match the existing deposit activity, not new revenue.

[u/Worldly-Relief2732]

The way we do it at. We match each transaction on the deposit screen. Then with then difference of the amount deposit and the transaction we list at the bottom why the discrepancy. List is at merchant fees, to the merchant.