In this tutorial, Linda Ardesani explains how to integrate PayPal with QuickBooks Online (QBO) using the bank feed method, contrasting it with the PayPal Sync app. She outlines scenarios where each method is appropriate, walks through the step‑by‑step setup of a PayPal bank feed, demonstrates reviewing and categorizing transactions in the feed tray, and shows how to apply rules for matching. Ardesani also covers practical reconciliation advice—reconciling monthly, handling missing fees, excluding pending or hold transactions, and simplifying fee entry by using a single gross‑amount line. Throughout, she emphasizes the method’s suitability for small‑business clients who both receive sales and pay bills through PayPal, and invites viewers to reach out for further help.
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Hi there, Linda Ardesani, Ardesani Bookkeeping. Okay, PayPal app/integrating with QuickBooks Online, part 2. So in an earlier video, I will provide a link for you in the blog, explained when you should and when you shouldn't hook up to PayPal Sync. And just to quickly review it, if you use PayPal for specifically just sales or just expenses, then that's a great use of the app. It will pull everything in seamlessly and probably pull it in a little better than using the bank feed method. However, for a lot of us that doesn't work, and for some of us it's good to use both methods. So if you do know that the app will work for you but you're restricted by importing— was you can import, not import anything, import 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, or something like that. If that doesn't work in your scenario, maybe you only want to go back to January and it's the beginning of June. If you click, click on to pull a sync in, you'll have to delete— you'll have to choose the one that's closest to the amount of transactions and either manually catch up or delete what it comes in if it brings in more than you really want to see. So you can use this method to bring in the past to get you fine-tuned into a specific date, and then you could go to use the sync method if that works in your business. But for most businesses anyway, the ones that I work with, they don't work well with the app at all. The app, for most of them, they use PayPal. They get most of their business and sales through PayPal, and they also pay out of it. It's just really easy to have it as a bank account. So for those people, the method to import would be to import in the PayPal Connect or bank method. So let's connect the account of PayPal. So I'm going to select my PayPal account. So here's your 2 selections. You can set up sync with PayPal, and that's the one discussed in the earlier blog post, or set up with bank feeds. So bank feeds are going to pull it in, put it in the tray. You're going to have to review the transaction. You're going to get to fine-tune the rules. And bring them in. So let's do that. I'll set it up with bank feeds, and then I'm going to log into my PayPal account. Signing into PayPal. Bank feed method. Really simple. You can bring in as many transactions as you like because it's not going to run in the background. You're going to have them sitting in the tray. You can exclude And you can exclude the ones you don't want. So here I will pick my PayPal account, which is just called PayPal, and I'm going to connect it. And it's going to populate the transactions into the feed. Now, I don't use PayPal a lot. I'm not like my clients. A lot of my clients sell things on eBay and they sell things on Amazon and they sell things on their website. So this method works for them because they also pay a lot of their bills through this. A lot of them have the PayPal debit card. Some of them have PayPal loans that they borrow money from PayPal and they pay it back with a percentage of their sales. So there's lots of ways to work with PayPal. This one works for most of my customers. I think I only have one customer that does the synchronization way. Now on this, as you can see, it's taking a little bit of time. It didn't ask me how many months I want to bring in. It's going to bring in as many as it will allow and then I'm going to go into the feed. So you see it's just like a bank feed. I have 7 transactions to review. I can click here and review them. I can apply rules to them. It's matching up things, so I can match up things on here, and then you'll see that there will be ways to add them into my QuickBooks. I want to make sure that they're not over here, so matching means that they're there, and it's just a way to connect your bank account, PayPal bank account, to your file. So that is it in a nutshell. If you're interested in more videos, Please feel free to reach out to me. I would love to go over it. Of course, the bank feed method is way easier than synchronizing the app. The app will bring more transactions in. Also know that you need to reconcile your account with PayPal. You need to reconcile it every month, not every transaction. I reconcile lots of PayPal accounts. Never have I gone in and just clicked check them all and have it come through. Never. There's always things missing. With this particular method, you do lose the fee, so it'll bring in the gross amount that your client paid you, but when they take out the merchant fee or the PayPal fee, that doesn't show. But what I do is I just take that gross amount for the month that's on your statement and I just enter it as one line item instead of entering it individually. You can do it either way, but it's just time-saving to do it that way to make it reconcile. Although, you You also have to watch out for pending or any garbage transactions that PayPal has. It's a hold. It'll show the holds. So you just need to just exclude those from the screen. Hopefully that explains it pretty well. If it doesn't, please reach out to me on Facebook. PayPal is confusing. So please reach out to me on Facebook and I'll try to help you out as best I can. If you have any questions or comments or have any ideas for any future videos, please also reach out to me on Facebook. Thank you so much for watching. Bye now. Bye.
