Turn a DistroKid earnings report into a Xero or QuickBooks journal

1. Your DistroKid earnings report

The earnings report from DistroKid Bank, as CSV or TSV. Columns are matched by several aliases (Sale Month or Reporting Date, Store, Title, Artist, ISRC, Quantity, Songwriter Royalties Withheld, Earnings, Currency, Total), not verified against a real export, so rename a column if the page says it is missing. Only a date, a store and an earnings amount are required; the rest add detail and checks. DistroKid reports your share after its team splits, so Team Percentage is not applied again.

Read, check and build journals Load an example Load an example with errors Reset accounts Clear

Choose a file or paste the text, then click Read, check and build journals.

Result

Gross by store and kind

Total check

Journals

Download

Xero journal CSV QuickBooks Online CSV QuickBooks Desktop IIF Plain CSV

The accounts must already exist in your software under these names or codes. Xero's journal file has no currency column, so the currency is in each journal's narration; import each currency to a Xero account in that currency if you hold one. Post the journals, then check the DistroKid receivable account against what DistroKid has paid out to you. Download findings as CSV

The model, and what it leaves out

• Rows: each row is one line of the report with a sale month or date, a store and an earnings amount, and optionally a title, quantity, songwriter royalties withheld, currency and a total. Amounts are read to cents; $1,234.56, 1.234,56 and (12.00) all work. Months written 2026-09 or September 2026 count as that month. The Sale Month is preferred over the Reporting Date, so income lands in the month it was earned.
• Categories: streaming services (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer and others), download stores (iTunes, Amazon MP3, Beatport and others) and social and video platforms (TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, YouTube Content ID, Snapchat) to their own income accounts, each line carrying its store. A store no rule recognises goes to an uncategorised account and is listed.
• Withheld: by default the earnings column is taken as before songwriter royalties withheld and the withheld column is deducted from it. If your earnings column is already after that amount, switch the setting and the page adds it back onto income and books it as a deduction. Which way your file is built is your call; check one row against DistroKid. Whether the withheld amount is yours to claim later, taxable or deductible is a question this page does not answer.
• Currency: one journal per currency per month, labelled with the currency. No exchange rate is applied or invented. With no Currency column the page uses the currency you set and warns.
• Completeness checks: a per-row Total column must equal earnings less the withheld amount; a Total row must equal the sum of the rows (checked for a single-currency file only). A difference names the row or total and the amount, and the journals are marked not to post until it is fixed. With neither, the page says completeness cannot be proved.
• Month split: rows are grouped by sale month. A journal is dated the month end, or the last report date for the final month. Each balances to the DistroKid receivable account, so it holds exactly that month's net earnings.
• Not checked: that the report agrees with DistroKid or your books, the real column names, tax treatment anywhere, currency conversion, when DistroKid actually pays, and that the accounts exist in your software.

Common questions

How do I turn a DistroKid earnings report into a journal entry?

Download your earnings report from DistroKid Bank as a spreadsheet, paste it here and press Read, check and build journals. The page books each row to an income account for its kind of store (streaming, downloads, social and video) with the store in the memo, books songwriter royalties withheld as a deduction, and writes one balanced journal per currency per month against a DistroKid receivable account.

Why book earnings by store and month instead of the bank deposit?

DistroKid pays out when you withdraw, long after the streams happened, and the deposit lumps every store and month together. Booking only the deposit as income puts it in the month it was withdrawn rather than the month it was earned and hides which stores pay. This page books income on its own lines, by store, in the sale month the report gives.

My earnings column is already after songwriter royalties withheld. Can it still show the withheld amount?

Yes, if the file has a withheld column. Choose that the earnings column is already net of it and the page adds the withheld amount back onto income and books it as a deduction, so income is gross and the amount owed by DistroKid is unchanged. Check the result against your Bank balance, because which way your file is built is something you tell the page, not something it can read.

What about currencies?

DistroKid reports in US dollars. If a file has a Currency column each currency gets its own journal, labelled with that currency, and nothing is converted: no exchange rate is applied or invented. With no Currency column the page journals everything in the currency you set and says it assumed it.

How does the page know a row is missing or wrong?

If the file has a per-row Total column, each row's earnings less withheld amount must equal it. If the file has a Total row, the rows must add up to it. A difference is an error that names the row or the total and the amount. With neither, the page says completeness cannot be proved.

How are TikTok, YouTube and Instagram earnings handled?

Stores that are social and video platforms (TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, YouTube Content ID, Snapchat and similar) are booked to their own income account, separate from streaming services and download stores, so you can see what each kind of store earned.

What does the page do with stores it does not recognise?

It never drops them. A row whose store is not one the page knows is journalled to an uncategorised account so the journal still equals the report's total, and it is listed so you can review it.

Which accounting software can I import to?

Xero (manual journal CSV), QuickBooks Online (journal entry CSV), QuickBooks Desktop (IIF general journal) and a plain CSV for anything else. You can rename the accounts for each category before downloading so they match your chart of accounts.

Is it safe to paste a DistroKid report into a web page?

The page runs in your browser, the file is read locally and nothing is uploaded. The report names your songs and sales; delete columns you would rather not have on screen, because the page only needs the sale month, store, earnings and the optional withheld, currency and total columns.

What does this not check?

Whether the report matches your DistroKid account or your books, tax treatment anywhere (US withholding, VAT, self-employment tax, publishing and songwriter royalties), currency conversion, and that the accounts exist in your accounting software. It is bookkeeping help, not tax or accounting advice.