Question about credit card refunds and merchant fees

Hello there, @ricklee1124.

We have a service called Live Bookkeeping, which allows you to connect to QuickBooks-certified virtual bookkeeper to take care of your books and answer your questions.

I've also included an article that you can use to check what's included in the service, FAQs, and what the team of bookkeepers can do for you: Common questions about QuickBooks Live Bookkeeping.

Please know that you can always post your questions in the Community. It's a place where users and accountants share their knowledge and practices about the product. Have a good day!

Thank you...I don't need monthly bookkeeping, so I'll post my question to the group.

My question is about credit card refunds and merchant fees. I own a day spa and use Stripe as our merchant processor. We balance our books using a monthly sales and balancing report from our POS software (Zenoti). Regarding the refunds issued by Stripe, I'm wondering if I need to include these in my books and deduct them from revenue (I have been doing it this way)? The payments we receive from Stripe are after all refunds and fees have been taken out by them. Because I'm getting my revenue numbers from my sales report, I'm starting to think that I should't deduct refunds on my books b/c it's a separate item and more about balancing the Stripe account? I hope this makes sense :-).

Also, I am including the monthly Stripe fees in expenses. I think this is correct?

Thank you for your help!!

Hey there, @ricklee1124.

Yes, all you've been doing is correct. Being an entrepreneur, it's crucial that you track all the expenses related to your business. This will give you a more accurate sense of your overall profitability for the year. 

You can also check the Year-end checklist in QuickBooks, this will guide you and your accountant to complete certain task in QBO to close out the old year and prepare for the new one.

If you have other question or clarification about running your Business with QuickBooks, please let me know by clicking the reply button below.