Do I need to connect my Paypal if I already have my main bank account connected?

I'll share some insights regarding this, @prelb. 

QuickBooks Online (QBO) depends on the financial data shared by your bank. 

If this main bank account isn't a parent account of PayPal or they're separate, there's a need to connect it to QBO. You won't have an issue with duplicate transactions for this. 

If this main bank account is a parent account of PayPal, you'll need to know how they send the downloaded transactions to the program.

Also, you've mentioned above that PayPal clears to your bank account in batches. It seems like that the transactions download to the main account. Thus, there isn't a need to connect PayPal to QBO. It won't throw off your report numbers. For more information, refer to this article: About Bank Or Credit Card Subaccount Setup. 

Once done, let's go to the For Review tab to categorize your transactions to ensure they're accurate. You can also match them to the existing entries to avoid duplicates in QBO. 

During reconciliation, you only need to reconcile the parent account because all transactions in the subaccounts roll up into it.

The Community and I will be around to help if you need further assistance. Keep safe. 

Thanks for this, very helpful Raymond! 

I'm a little confused still whether you're saying I need to connect it - PayPal is a completely separate account to our main bank account. It does transfer the money to our main operating bank account, but they aren't otherwise parent-child accounts I don't think (separate entities, but we really deposit money from Paypal to MainBank on a daily basis). 

Would this mean I need to link in Paypal, then just 'match' the Incoming Paypal transactions when I'm reviewing?

Thanks for your prompt response, @asdfasdfasdfa.

 I'd be happy to share some information about the connecting Paypal in QuickBooks.

As mentioned by my peer above, QuickBooks Online will depend on the financial data that shared on your bank.

If your PayPal sales don't manually enter QuickBooks Online, you can connect your PayPal so that all the sales amount can be downloaded and record your income in QBO. You can check this article for detailed steps to connect: Connect bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online.

However, if your PayPal sales are recorded manually or imported using a third-party app, you won't need to connect it with QBO.

Once everything looks as expected, we can go back to your bank feeds and categorize your transactions. Then, you might want to reconcile the account. 

I'm just here if you need more help. I'll be around the corner to keep an eye on your reply. Have a nice day!

Awesome, thanks for that @GraceC!

If I'm understanding what you guys are saying, sounds like best QBO practices are to connect all accounts in general? Then deal with any possible mis-matching/duplicates in the monthly reconciliation. 

Let me know if that is wrong, sorry if these are newbie questions, we really appreciate the help and insight!

Allow me to provide some clarifications regarding this matter, @prelb.

If your main account is a different type of bank account (not Paypal), then you can connect the Paypal account. It won't create any duplicates since they are two separate entities. This way, your Paypal transactions will be downloaded in QuickBooks Online.

However, if the main bank account is also a Paypal account, there's no need for you to connect the second account.

Bottom line is that, you only link the main bank account where transactions are downloaded. It is because the said account will serve as the umbrella of all the bank activities, which gathers and transmit the entries to QuickBooks Online.

This way, you can prevent duplicates to your transactions and be able to categorize them smoothly.

Let me know if you have any other questions. I'll make sure you're all set. Take care!

@BettyJaneB Thank you for the clarification, that's very helpful! In that case I will connect the Paypal account as the main account is not a PayPal account.

And to confirm, the proper way to deal with depositing funds from one of our accounts to another (ie. PayPal >> Main Bank Account) is to mark those as a 'Transfer', correct? 

Thanks again for your help!

Thanks for getting back to us, @prelb.

I'm glad that my colleague was able to provide the clarification that you needed.

To answer your follow-up question, yes, that's correct! To move them from PayPal to the main Bank account (or vise versa), all you need to do is to select the Record as transfer option in the Banking page.

Here's how:

1. In QuickBooks Online (QBO), go to the Banking menu at the left pane to get to the Banking page.
2. Select the specific transaction, then choose Record as transfer.
3. Pick the account where you want it to be moved in the Transfer account drop-down.
4. Hit Record transfer to complete. 

In addition, QBO also has the ability to transfer funds between accounts. This applies to those transactions you've already added in the Chart of Accounts. To learn more about this, check out this article: Transfer funds between accounts.

I'll also add this article for more details about matching bank transactions: Categorize and match online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online.

Please leave a comment below if you have any other questions or concerns. I'm more than happy to answer them. Have a wonderful day!