Record orders paid outside your processor

When an ecommerce order is paid outside a connected processor (cash, e-transfer, cheque) HQ still recognizes the sale automatically as it syncs (revenue and tax, into an undeposited-funds holding account). What's left is linking each sale to the bank deposit that actually arrived.

1. Go to Ecommerce › Externally Paid (the tab right after Orders).
2. In the Awaiting deposit list, click Match on an order (or Run Matching to auto-pair what it can). To find one order among many, use the search box at the top of the tab: it takes a customer name, an order number, a date or an amount, and it filters the Awaiting deposit list and the Matched list below it at the same time. Each order shows its customer's name and company, so you can search by either. Run Matching only pairs an order with a deposit of exactly the same amount. When several orders or deposits share that amount, it pairs only the one deposit whose description names the customer or their company, and lists the rest for you. A company whose name is a single word (such as "Tremblay Inc.") only counts when the order carries no person's name. A name counts with or without its accents ("COTE" names Côté), and bank wording such as "MOBILE DEPOSIT" never counts as anyone's name.
3. In Match to bank deposits, tick the deposit(s) that covered it and Confirm settlement. One deposit can cover several orders. When a deposit is a few cents or dollars off, Match, book the difference (or Close this order, short) settles the order, marks it Matched, and puts the difference in Cash Over/Short, an account for small payment differences. It is offered only for a small gap: up to $10, or 1% of the amount when that is more. A larger gap means the wrong deposit or orders are picked. A deposit from before your books' start date can't settle an order: its money is already in your opening balances, so HQ refuses it and never pairs the two on its own.

A deposit you categorized on Ledger › Banking before settling it is counted once. The settlement records the money arriving, so the entry behind the deposit's category is removed when it settles, and Unmatch puts it back. The line keeps the category you picked.

An order paid straight to your PayPal

Sometimes a customer pays a Shopify draft order (or a WooCommerce order) by sending money to your PayPal, and you mark the order paid by hand. Once PayPal is connected in Ledger, Setup, HQ matches the two for you. When a PayPal payment comes from the email address on the order, for exactly what the order still has waiting, within a week of the order's date, the payment becomes a line on your PayPal account and settles the order. The order moves to Matched with your PayPal account as its deposit, and its sale and tax are counted once, from the order. PayPal's fee on it goes into that day's PayPal fees.

HQ leaves it as an ordinary PayPal sale when it can't be sure: the payer's email isn't the order's, the customer has two open orders of that amount, two payments could be the one, or the order was refunded. A PayPal payment line still waiting on your PayPal account can be picked as the deposit under Match; a transfer from your bank into PayPal can't. On Ledger › Banking, a PayPal payment line that may be the payment of one of these orders says "Waiting for" the order (its store, number and date) with a link here, and it doesn't offer Not an invoice payment: match it here instead.

If you marked the order paid after PayPal's day had already counted the payment as a sale, the order and the PayPal sale would both be counted. Click the order's row to expand it and choose Paid through PayPal? (it shows only when HQ finds a PayPal sale that could be the one: the payer's email is the order's customer, the amount is exactly what the order still has waiting, and the day is within a week of the order's date). Each sale is listed with the payer's name, the date and the amount. Pick the one that paid the order. The sheet says what will happen before anything changes: the sale comes out of that day's PayPal sales, the order is settled with it, and the order's own sale and tax stay, so they count once. If that PayPal day is in a closed or filed period, the correction is recorded on the first open day and noted for your accountant; the sheet says so. Choose Yes, move it. The order then shows Matched, with your PayPal account, the day and the amount in the Deposit column, and Undo. Undo puts the sale back into its PayPal day and opens the order again (it asks first). The usual Unmatch isn't offered on it, because that would leave the sale out of its day.

If you matched the order to the bank deposit of your PayPal transfer. When PayPal's day counted the payment as a sale and you then matched the order, under Match, to the deposit in your bank account that is really PayPal moving that money to your bank, the sale is counted twice and the PayPal transfer has no deposit to pair with. Open the order under Matched and expand its row: Paid through PayPal? shows when HQ finds a PayPal sale for the order and a PayPal transfer of exactly that deposit's amount. Each choice names the deposit. The sheet says what changes: the deposit is un-matched from the order and recorded as your transfer from PayPal, the sale comes out of its PayPal day, and the order is settled with the PayPal payment instead. Choose Yes, move it to do all of it at once, or No, it isn't a PayPal transfer if that deposit is the customer's own payment. HQ refuses when the deposit, the transfer or the match is in a closed or filed period, and names the order, the deposit and the day. Undo puts everything back: the sale returns to its PayPal day, the deposit is no longer a transfer, and the order is matched to that deposit again.

HQ refuses, and says why, when the order is partly settled, already matched, or from before your books' start date, when the sale is in another currency or already moved, and when either one was refunded. A refunded order can't be moved, so move the sale first and refund afterwards. If you can't find the payment under Paid through PayPal?, the order's amount, date or customer email doesn't fit it.

When PayPal refunds one of these orders. Once a PayPal payment has settled the order (on its own or with Paid through PayPal?), PayPal's refund of that payment becomes a money-out line on your PayPal account, not part of that day's PayPal sales, so the refund isn't counted twice. Mark the order refunded in the store too. When the store's refund is in HQ for exactly the same amount, HQ records the PayPal line as its payment on its own: it shows under Matched refunds, and the order's undeposited balance is cleared. Until then the line waits, and a books-health card titled "PayPal refund of a store order is waiting" names it by amount, date and order and says what to do. A partial refund waits until the store shows the same amount. While that refund line stands, the order's PayPal payment can't be unmatched or undone; HQ says why.

A refund made only in PayPal. If you refunded the customer in PayPal and never in the store, the PayPal refund line waits a week for the store's refund. After that, open the line in Ledger › Banking and choose Book PayPal's refund: HQ shows what it will book, then books PayPal's amount as the order's refund, with the sales tax worked out from the order's own tax (PST comes back too when the order charged it), and records the PayPal line as its payment. Nothing is booked until you confirm. If the store later shows the same refund, it isn't booked again; Undo on the line takes the refund back out and the line waits again.

More than one store

If your business has more than one storefront connected, the store selector at the right of the Ecommerce tab bar narrows this screen to one store: the totals at the top, the orders waiting to be matched, the matched orders and the refunds waiting for you are all that store's. A deposit can pay orders from more than one store, so a link from Ledger › Banking to the orders one deposit settled always shows every one of them, whichever store is picked.

What's behind a matched order

Orders that have been paid move to the Matched list. Click the Matched pill on a row to open the bank deposit on Ledger › Banking. If an order was paid by more than one deposit, each deposit in the Deposit column opens its own bank line.

Click anywhere else on the row to expand it. Under In your books you'll see:

• Sale: how the order was booked (product, shipping, gift card and each tax) and View sale entry. HQ books all of a day's externally-paid orders in one entry, so when there were several that day the entry's totals are larger than this order, and the row says so.
• Settled by: each deposit's date, bank account, description and amount, how many days after the order it arrived, whether it was matched automatically or by hand, Open bank line and View settlement entry. If a deposit was a little more or less than the orders it paid, the difference booked to Cash Over/Short is shown.
• Refunds: any refund recorded against the order, and whether it has been posted. One that is still waiting for you has the same Approve and Not owed controls as the list at the top of the tab (see below).

The order's customer, payment method, items and tax follow underneath, with a link to the order in your store.

Going the other way, a bank line that paid one of these orders shows a Matched pill on Ledger › Banking. Click it (or Open the order in the line's details) to jump straight to that order here, whatever period this page was on. Show all orders takes you back to the full list.

Orders that need a processor connected, or that HQ can't place, are listed under Needs a payout integration and Needs review. Once you connect that processor in Ledger, Setup (PayPal or Stripe), its orders stop showing there and count as already booked through its payouts instead. Recognition is CAD-only; foreign orders are handled separately.

An order under Needs review was paid through a payment method HQ doesn't recognize, such as a card terminal in your shop (Shopify might call it "moneris"). HQ books nothing for it: the sale isn't in your books and its sales tax isn't in your GST/HST or PST return. Your books' health check raises a card that says how many orders, how much money and which payment method. HQ can't book that payment method on its own yet, so contact HQ support with its name, and tell your accountant before you file a return that covers those orders.

When you refund one of these orders

If you refund an order HQ already recorded as a sale, the sale and the tax you collected on it need to come back out of your books. When HQ can work out how much of the refund was sales tax, it reverses the sale on its own. WooCommerce refunds are included, even though WooCommerce doesn't tell us how the refund was split between the goods and the tax: HQ works the split out from what the original sale collected.

Occasionally it can't work the tax out at all, or it can't post the reversal. Those refunds wait for you at the top of Ecommerce › Externally Paid, under Refunds waiting for you, whatever period the page is showing. Each one shows the order, the customer, how much was refunded, and what the original sale collected and charged in sales tax, so you have the figures in front of you. A refund on a sale from before your books' start date isn't listed there: that sale is already inside your opening balances, so HQ doesn't post a reversal for it. If the refund was made before the start date, it's inside your opening balances too and there's nothing to do. If it was made on or after the start date, record the refund payment on its bank line in Ledger › Banking as a customer refund and choose the order (see Record a customer refund).

1. In Sales tax that went back, type the GST/HST, PST and QST that went back to the customer with the refund, together. Type 0 if none did. The box starts empty because HQ doesn't know the figure; it can't be more than the amount refunded.
2. Press Approve. HQ shows you the order, the amount and the tax, and posts the reversal when you confirm.
3. If no reversal is due, press Not owed instead. Nothing is posted, the sale stays in your books as it is, and HQ won't offer that refund again.

Approving reverses the revenue and the tax, and leaves the money owed back sitting in the same undeposited-funds account the sale went through, so the refund payment matches against it like any other bank line. If your books are locked through today, HQ won't post the reversal and tells you so; the refund keeps waiting.

Match the refund payment to the bank

Once a refund is reversed, the money you paid back waits under Refunds to match to the bank on Ecommerce › Externally Paid, until you match the bank line it left by:

1. Press Find the payment on the refund. HQ lists the money-out lines in Banking that aren't matched to anything yet, with the ones for the same amount first.
2. Press Match on the line that paid it. Only a line for exactly the refunded amount can be matched; if the amounts differ, check the refund and the bank line first.

Matching records the payment from that account (a PayPal account's own balance if it was paid from PayPal) and clears the refund out of undeposited funds. It doesn't touch the sale or its tax again. It works whether or not the original sale's deposit has been matched yet: the deposit and the refund each match their own bank line. To undo it, open Matched refunds and press Unmatch; the refund goes back to waiting and the bank line is free again.

Do it before you file the sales-tax period those orders fall in. If you don't, you'll pay the tax office tax you already handed back to the customer. Your books' health check lists refunded orders that haven't been reversed yet, in two cards. For a sale in your live books, one it sends you to the journal for is a refund HQ hasn't picked up: post a correcting entry there that reverses the revenue and the sales tax it gave back. For a sale from before your start date that was refunded after it, the card sends you to Ledger › Banking instead: record the refund payment as a customer refund with the order chosen, and don't post a journal entry for it as well, or the sale is reversed twice. That card clears once the payments recorded against the order cover the refund.