How to categorize a Paypal payment

I'll help you manage your payment transactions, Zelwinat. You can categorize money-in entries synced from Paypal through the App Transactions page. Let me guide you through the process.

In QuickBooks, payment apps use Products and Services to assign categories to sales transactions. Each product and service have an assigned income category or Income Account.

Thus, when you select a product or service, the income category is assigned to increase by the amount of the sale.

To begin, here's how to categorize the transaction:

1. Go to Transactions then select App Transactions.
2. Select PayPal then For review.
3. Select the transaction to categorize to expand it.
4. Select appropriate Products or Services in the Products and Services section of the transaction.

Once you save the transaction, QuickBooks increases the income accounts (categories) you assigned to those products and services. If the intended Product or Service does not exist, add a new one with the correct Income Account (category).

Additionally, you'll want to seek additional guidance from our Live Expert Assisted team to help you manage user permissions and provide assistance in keeping track of your overall transactions.

Moreover, it’s best to regularly review and reconcile your accounts to ensure they always match your financial statements.

Categorizing these entries helps ensure an accurate recording of your file, Zelwinat. Lean on us for any additional assistance you need when managing payments in your account. Our team will be around to guide you further.

FateCandylaneT, first off...I sincerely appreciate you attempting to assist me with this, it means a lot. My challenge is that in your screenshot, highlighted in the red box, you have a "category or match" column, I don't seem to have that. I have shared my screenshot in this post for your reference. How can I get that column in my view?

Thanks for providing further information by sending a screenshot, Zelwinat. I'll share my insights into why you can't see an option to match your transactions from PayPal in QBO.

Transactions from PayPal are often transported as either Sales Receipts or Deposit (money-in) transactions in QBO. Sales Receipts offer comprehensive transaction details that enable precise automatic payment categorization and matching with existing entries like invoices.

In contrast, the Deposit method presents a streamlined approach, listing transactions for manual account assignment without item-specific information. This is where you can have an option to manually match and categorize transactions from QBO.

In relation to your situation, when you've transported your transactions in QBO, they are processed as individual payments or sales receipts, this indicates that all your transactions have been automatically matched to your existing invoices and sales receipts, which you have already entered into your QBO account. Thus, the reason why you're unable to have an option to match transactions on your end.

In addition, here's an article you can refer to learn how QuickBooks handled all your PayPal app transactions within QBO: Use the Connect to PayPal app with QuickBooks Online.

Also, you can read this page if you want to begin your reconciliation to keep track of all your business transactions within QuickBooks: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online.

We're here to ensure your PayPal and QBO integration runs smoothly, Zelwinat. Please don't hesitate to revisit this thread if have any other concerns with QBO. We're always here to help.

JaneDave_I,

Thank you, based on your response, I believe we are on the path to a resolution of my situation, just not quite there yet.In short, is there a way for me to bring my Paypal transactions in through the Deposit method instead of the Sales Receipts method?

My situation is that I am running a not-for-profit, so I don't have invoices or POs. The majority of my transactions are donations that I receive payment for through Paypal. If I could continue to use the Deposit method, like I could when my Paypal transactions were brough in as "Bank Transactions" I think this would fix my issue.

Thanks again for all the time, I appreciate it. 

To bring your transactions as deposits, you can connect your PayPal account to QuickBooks Online (QBO) Zel. I'll provide steps to guide you on how below.

Here's how:

1. Open QuickBooks and go to Bank Transactions.  
   
2. To connect, select Link account.
3. Choose the account you want to connect.
   
4. Put your login credentials then click Continue.
   

    

For detailed steps, refer to this article: Connect bank and credit card accounts to QuickBooks Online.

After you connect your PayPal account, this article helps you on how to categorize Bank transactions in QuickBooks Online: Categorize online bank transactions in QuickBooks Online. 

Furthermore, you can check out this article to know your accounts are balanced and accurate: Reconcile an account in QuickBooks Online.

Curious about the best ways to use QuickBooks? Our QuickBooks Live Expert Assisted can help keep your books organized and efficient.

If you have questions or concerns about connecting your PayPal account to QuickBooks, hit the reply button. We're here to assist you.

@JeraldR , ok, we are so so close, thank you. 

- I added our Paypal account back to the Bank Transactions page successfully.

QUESTION: When Quickbooks moved our Paypal account over to the "App Transactions" tab, we had 5 transactions that were and still are in the queue. Is there a way to move those into the queue on the "Bank Transactions Tab.?

QUESTION 2: Once we move the transactions in the Paypal queue from the App Transactions tab to the Bank Transactions tab, do I just delete the Paypal account from the App Transactions tab.

I liked the setup QBO had previously for the Paypal account, in the Bank Transactions tab.

Thank you.

@JeraldR Please ignore my last message. Once I gave the setup 5 minutes and sync'd my account the transactions came through.

THANK YOU to the team for all the help. I appreciate it. 

You're welcome, Zel.

I'm grateful that our team was able to assist and successfully resolve your banking issue in QuickBooks Online.

Moreover, whenever you need help doing or fixing a reconciliation in QuickBooks, you can check out this article for your reference: Learn the reconcile workflow in QuickBooks.

Feel encouraged to get back here in the Community forum if you have any other QuickBooks/related concerns or questions in the future. We're always here to help you.