Online accounting with Stripe/PayPal transactions?

Question

I have a small solo business where I sell services on a website. I probably have about 100 small transactions per month and people pay me with PayPal or Stripe. I have been doing accounting in an Excel spreadsheet, where each month I export all of the transactions from PayPal and Stripe, add some other expenses, and add some formulas to add up relevant numbers. It works, but I'd like something more automated. I've been checking out online accounting tools (Wave, Quickbooks, etc.). Some of them have some functionality for automatic import of PayPal/Stripe transactions, but it is complicated and time consuming to set up and then I find out it doesn't do something I need. Instead of doing automatic import of PayPal/Stripe transactions, I was thinking of doing it manually and just adding 6 monthly entries for total sales, fees, and transfers for each of PayPal and Stripe for the entire month. For example, with Wave, it syncs with my business bank account so transfers from PayPal/Stripe will show up there. I'll then add just 6 manual entries per month and reconciling seems straightforward. Is this a good solution or are there pitfalls that I need to be aware of? Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Yes — what you’re describing can be a perfectly reasonable solution for a small, service-based business, especially when transaction volume is moderate and simplicity is a priority.

Recording monthly summary entries for each processor (total sales, fees, and net transfers) is a common approach and can work well, as long as a few things are handled consistently:

• You retain the detailed PayPal/Stripe reports for support, refunds, and disputes

• Fees are broken out separately (not netted against income)

• Transfers to your bank are reconciled cleanly so nothing is double-counted or missed

• You apply the same method month-to-month so trends and comparisons remain meaningful

Where people sometimes run into trouble is during tax preparation, when chargebacks or refunds increase, or when transaction volume grows and monthly summaries no longer reflect enough detail.

For many solo businesses, starting with monthly summaries is a smart, low-friction approach. As complexity grows, moving to automated imports (or a hybrid method) often makes sense — but it doesn’t have to be an all-or-nothing decision from day one.

I’ll also add that for many businesses, connecting PayPal or Stripe directly to QuickBooks Online is often simpler than it’s made out to be, as long as it’s set up thoughtfully from the start. The key is mapping income and fees to the correct accounts and understanding how those transactions should match to the bank deposits. Once that foundation is in place, the day-to-day workflow is usually very manageable.

In practice, most problems I see come from setup — not from QuickBooks itself.