To import Shopify sales into QuickBooks Online by hand, work one payout at a time. Take the payout's gross sales, tax, shipping, refunds and fees from Shopify's reports, record them as one sales receipt in Undeposited Funds, then build a deposit that equals the payout. That deposit matches the single line your bank shows.
Why a Shopify payout never equals the day's Shopify sales
A Shopify payout is the money left after deductions, not the total of the orders behind it. Processing fees and refunds come out first, a payout can cover orders from several days, and a chargeback can reduce a later payout. So the deposit on your bank statement is smaller than your sales, and on a different date.
Shopify's help page on payouts describes a payout as a transfer of order funds to the bank account you set up with Shopify Payments. The same page points to a Shopify Payments activity report that breaks down transactions, fees and payouts for a date range. That breakdown is the raw material for the QuickBooks entry.
The mistake this causes
The common error is to categorize each Shopify deposit straight to sales income when it shows up in the bank feed. It feels finished, but it understates sales by every fee and refund, leaves sales tax mixed into income, and hides what Shopify charged you. Recording the full sale and the deductions separately fixes all three.
What QuickBooks needs to know
For each payout, QuickBooks Online needs five figures: product sales before discounts, discounts given, shipping charged, sales tax collected and the deductions taken before the transfer. With those, income, tax owed and fees each land in their own account, and the deposit still adds up to the bank line.
Which Shopify reports feed the QuickBooks entry?
Two places in Shopify feed the QuickBooks entry. The payouts list gives each payout's date, net amount and the orders, refunds and fees inside it. The finance or sales reports give the same period's sales, discounts, shipping and tax. Use the payout view to choose the period and the sales figures to fill the lines.
Work payout by payout rather than by calendar day. A payout already groups the orders that make up one bank deposit, so building one QuickBooks entry per payout means one entry per bank line. Calendar-day entries leave you splitting and joining days to make deposits match.
Exporting the detail
Shopify's payout pages offer views and exports of payout details, linked from its payouts help page. Export the detail for each payout to a spreadsheet and add up the columns you need. Keep the export with the month's records. If a figure in QuickBooks is ever questioned, the export shows which orders it came from.
Checking the numbers before entering them
Before typing anything into QuickBooks, do the payout sum on paper: sales, minus discounts, plus shipping, plus tax, minus refunds, minus fees. The result must equal the payout amount to the cent. If it does not, an adjustment or a chargeback is missing from your figures. Find it in the payout detail before you move on.
One QuickBooks sales receipt per Shopify payout
For each Shopify payout, create one sales receipt in QuickBooks Online under a single customer such as Shopify Sales. Add lines for product sales, discounts, shipping and sales tax, and deposit it to Undeposited Funds. Refunds go on a separate refund receipt. The fees are added later, on the bank deposit.
A worked example
Here is a made-up payout for an example candle shop. All figures are examples.
| Part of the payout | Amount | QuickBooks line and account |
|---|---|---|
| Product sales | 1,640.00 | Item "Shopify product sales", income |
| Discounts | -120.00 | Discount line, contra income |
| Shipping charged | 96.00 | Item "Shipping income", income |
| Sales tax collected | 109.20 | Sales tax payable |
| Sales receipt total | 1,725.20 | Undeposited Funds |
| Refund to one customer | -45.00 | Refund receipt from Undeposited Funds |
| Shopify fees | -52.41 | Merchant fees expense, on the deposit |
| Payout to the bank | 1,627.79 | One bank deposit |
Check the sum: 1,725.20 minus 45.00 minus 52.41 is 1,627.79, which is the payout. If your figures do not land on the payout, do not force the gap into fees. Find the missing item first.
Items to set up once
Create the items before the first entry: Shopify product sales, Shipping income and any others you report on, each pointed at the right income account. If you want sales by product line in QuickBooks, add one item per line, such as Candles and Gift sets. Reuse the same items for every payout so monthly reports stay comparable.
Sales tax lines
Shopify records the tax collected on each order, and that figure is the one to enter. If sales tax is turned on in your QuickBooks file, it may try to calculate its own tax on the lines. Make sure the saved receipt shows the Shopify tax figure, because that is the amount you collected and owe.
Recording Shopify fees, refunds and chargebacks
Shopify fees, refunds and chargebacks are the deductions between the sale and the payout, and each belongs somewhere different. Fees are an expense. Refunds reverse sales, so they go on a refund receipt. Chargebacks reverse a sale too, and any dispute fee attached to one is an expense. Recording each one keeps income and costs honest.
Fees
Enter Shopify fees as a negative line on the bank deposit, coded to a merchant fees or payment processing expense account. That keeps the fee next to the payout it came out of. If you prefer, record fees as a separate expense, but then the deposit will not equal the bank line until you add it in.
Refunds
A refund issued during the payout period reduces that payout. Record it as a refund receipt to the Shopify Sales customer, using the same items as the original sale, and pay it from Undeposited Funds. Then include it in the deposit alongside the sales receipt. If the refund also returned shipping or tax, refund those lines too.
Chargebacks and adjustments
A chargeback happens when a customer disputes a payment with their card issuer. It can come out of a later payout than the original sale. Record the reversed amount against sales, as a refund would be, and any dispute fee as an expense. Note the order number in the memo so you can link it back if the dispute is won and the money returns.
Other marketplaces work the same way
The pattern of gross sales in, deductions out, net to the bank repeats on every marketplace, though the fee types differ. If you also sell elsewhere, see importing Etsy sales into QuickBooks and importing eBay sales into QuickBooks for how their reports map to the same structure.
Matching the Shopify deposit to the bank line
The Shopify deposit matches the bank line through a bank deposit in QuickBooks. Open a new deposit, tick the payout's sales receipt and refund receipt from Undeposited Funds, add the fees as a negative line, and check the total equals the payout. When the bank line arrives, QuickBooks Online offers this deposit as a match.
Intuit's article on the Undeposited Funds account explains it as a holding place where payments wait until you combine them into the deposit the bank actually made. That is exactly the gap between a Shopify sale and its payout.
When no match is suggested
Intuit's article on matching bank transactions in QuickBooks Online gives the usual reasons a match does not appear: fees or discounts changed the total, several payments were deposited as one, or the record falls outside the date range QuickBooks searches. For Shopify, check that the deposit total is to the cent and dated near the bank line. You can also use Find other match to pick the deposit yourself.
Getting the bank lines into QuickBooks
The payout lines reach QuickBooks through your bank feed, or through a file you upload. If the bank connection stops with an error such as OL-222, what QuickBooks error OL-222 means and how to clear it is the place to start. If your bank only gives you PDF statements, SimpleBankConvert is being built to turn a PDF statement into a CSV or QBO file for the QuickBooks Online upload, so the payouts appear as lines you can match.
Shopify sales paid through PayPal or other gateways
Shopify sales paid through PayPal or another gateway do not arrive in your Shopify payout. The money goes to that provider's balance first, with its own fees, and reaches your bank on its own schedule. Record those sales separately, with the gateway's report, and match them to the gateway's transfers instead.
Treat each payment route as its own stream. Create a separate customer such as Shopify PayPal Sales, use the same items, and build deposits from that provider's transfer reports. If you mix them into the Shopify Payments receipt, none of the deposits will match.
Gift cards and store credit
A Shopify gift card sold is money received for goods not yet delivered. Record the sale of a gift card to a liability account, not to income, and move it to income when the card is spent. Your sales report will show gift card sales separately from product sales, which makes this easy to pick out.
Is a Shopify connector app better than a manual import?
A connector app is better than a manual import once the monthly payouts are too many to enter calmly, or when you need order-level detail in QuickBooks. For a shop with a handful of payouts a month, the manual summary is cheap, accurate and easy to check. Past that, the time saved usually justifies an app.
Whatever you choose, use one route per period. If an app starts posting Shopify sales from a given date, stop manual entries from that date, and check the first app-posted month against Shopify's own reports. Two routes recording the same payout is the fastest way to double your sales.
A monthly check either way
At month end, add up the month's payouts from Shopify and compare them with the Shopify deposits in your QuickBooks bank account. Then compare Shopify's gross sales for the month with the sales income on those receipts. Both pairs should agree. If Undeposited Funds still holds Shopify receipts from weeks ago, a deposit was categorized as income instead of matched.