Patreon Payout Export to Xero and QuickBooks Journal

Turn a Patreon earnings export into a Xero or QuickBooks journal

Paste or drop your earnings CSV from Patreon (Insights / Payouts > download CSV). Every pledge charge is split into membership income, shipping, tax you collected, the Patreon platform and processing fees and refunds, the rows are added up and checked against your payout, and the result is written as a balanced journal to a Patreon clearing account — split at month end when a payout straddles two months — for Xero, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop (IIF) or plain CSV.

The file is read in this browser tab and never leaves your device. Only dates, prices, fees, net totals, refund flags and payout IDs are used. Independent of Patreon, Xero and Intuit. The export layout and the importer layouts are read from memory of public help documents; no real Patreon export and no live Xero or QuickBooks import was available when this was written.

1. Your Patreon report

The earnings CSV from Patreon (Insights / Payouts) or the CSV behind a payout. Columns are matched by name; if a payout ID column is present each payout is checked on its own, otherwise type the deposit below. More than one payout per file is fine.

Choose a Patreon report …or paste the report text

Journals

Dates written as slashes

Xero tax rate

Deposit in your bank (optional)

Accounts (one category = account per line; names or codes as your software has them)

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

Result

Deposit check

Payout	Payout date	Patreon states	Journals clear	Agrees

Journals

Journal	Date	Account	Debit	Credit	Memo

Download

The accounts must already exist in your software under these names or codes. Post the journals, then match each bank deposit to Patreon clearing.

The model, and what it leaves out

Rows: each row is one sale with a price, optional shipping and tax, Patreon's fee, a net total and a refunded flag. Rows are grouped by payout ID when there is one. Amounts are read to cents; European 1.234,56 and US 1,234.56 both work.
Payout check: the signed nets of a payout's rows must add up exactly to the payout. A row typed payout in a Type column states it; otherwise type the deposit from your bank or PayPal into the optional box. If they do not agree, the page says by how much, and you should not post the journal. A sale whose price plus shipping minus fee is not its net is flagged too.
Categories: pledge amount to membership income, shipping to shipping income, the platform and processing fee columns (summed) to fees, a refunded sale to refunds (the fee is assumed kept unless the net says otherwise). Tax is booked as a payable only when the row's own arithmetic shows it was in your payout. A difference no rule explains goes to an uncategorised account and is listed.
Month split: rows are grouped by the sale date. A journal is dated the month end, or the payout date for the last month. Each journal balances to Patreon clearing, so the clearing account holds exactly the part of the payout that belongs to that month.
Not checked: that the export agrees with your Patreon dashboard or your books, tax treatment anywhere (tax Patreon collects and remits as merchant of record is not in your payout and is left out), currency conversion between sale and payout, and that the accounts exist in your software.

Common questions

How do I turn Patreon earnings into a journal entry?

Export your earnings CSV from Patreon (Insights / Payouts > download CSV), paste it here and press Read, check and build journals. The page splits every pledge charge into membership income, shipping, tax you collected and the Patreon fee, books refunds separately, checks the total against your payout, and writes a journal that balances to a Patreon clearing account.

Why book gross pledges and fees instead of the payout?

A Patreon payout is net of Patreon's fee and refunds. Booking only the deposit as income understates revenue and hides what Patreon costs you, and a payout that spans two months pushes one month's sales into the next. This page books pledges, fees and refunds separately, in the month they happened, and the deposit clears the Patreon clearing account.

What is the Patreon clearing account?

A holding account. Each journal debits or credits it with that period's net, and the payout, when it arrives in your bank or PayPal, is matched against it. When every payout is journalled and deposited, the clearing account returns to zero, which is the cheap proof that nothing was missed.

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.

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

It never drops them. A sale whose price, shipping and fee do not add up to its net total is journalled for the difference to an uncategorised account so the journal still equals the net, and it is listed so you can review it.

Is it safe to paste a Patreon export into a web page?

The page runs in your browser, the file is read locally and nothing is uploaded; a test in the code asserts there are no network calls. The export carries buyer emails and names; delete those columns if you would rather not have them on screen, because the page only needs the dates, prices, fees, net totals, refund flags and payout IDs.

What does this not check?

Whether the export matches your Patreon dashboard or your books, tax treatment in any jurisdiction (where Patreon collects and remits tax as merchant of record it is not in your payout and is left out; tax that is in your payout is booked to a payable account, not filed), currencies converted between sale and payout, and account names or codes that must already exist in your accounting software.