Square Sales to Xero and QuickBooks Journal

Turn a Square export into a Xero or QuickBooks journal

Paste or drop the Transactions CSV from the Square Dashboard. Every payment is checked (Total Collected plus Fees equals Net Total), split into gross sales, discounts, sales tax and tips (liabilities, not income), refunds and Square fees, and written as a balanced journal per month to a Square clearing account — for Xero, QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop (IIF) or plain CSV. Each Deposit ID is totalled so you can match it to your bank feed.

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

1. Your Square Transactions export

The CSV from Reports > Sales > Transactions. Several months in one file are fine: each month becomes its own journal.

Choose a Square export …or paste the export text

Dates written as slashes

Xero tax rate

Month Net Total (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

Month check

Month	Last row	You typed	Net Total adds up to	Agrees

Deposit IDs — match these to your bank feed

Deposit ID	Payments dated	Payments	Net Total

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 in your bank feed to the Deposit ID totals above.

The model, and what it leaves out

Rows: each row is one Square payment with Gross Sales, Discounts, Net Sales, Tax, Tip, Partial Refunds, Total Collected, Fees and Net Total. Amounts like $25.00, -$1.63 and ($3.00) are read to cents, and every row must satisfy Total Collected plus Fees equals Net Total or it is flagged. Rows are grouped by calendar month.
Categories: gross sales (income), discounts (contra-income), service charges, gift card sales, sales tax and tips (liabilities you owe on, not revenue), refunds, and Square fees. Any part of Total Collected the other columns do not explain goes to an uncategorised account and is listed.
Month check: type the month's Net Total from your Square report summary into the box and the page says whether the payments add up to it, and by how much they are off if not. Do not post a journal that disagrees.
Deposits: the Net Total of each Deposit ID is shown so you can match it to the bank feed. The journal balances to Square clearing, which should return to zero once every deposit is matched.
Not checked: that the export agrees with your Square account or your books, sales tax treatment anywhere, tips owed to staff, chargebacks and instant-transfer fees reported outside this export, and that the accounts exist in your software.

Common questions

How do I turn a Square export into a journal entry?

In the Square Dashboard open Reports > Sales > Transactions (or Payments), pick the dates and export the CSV, paste it here and press Read, check and build journals. The page checks every payment, books gross sales, discounts, sales tax, tips, refunds and Square fees separately, and writes one journal per month that balances to a Square clearing account.

Why not book the Square deposit as income?

Square deposits are net of processing fees, refunds and include tips and sales tax that are not your income. Booking the deposit as sales understates fees, overstates revenue by the tax and tips, and breaks your sales tax and payroll tip records. This page books each piece to its own account in the month it happened.

What is the Deposit ID table for?

Square pays out batches of payments under one Deposit ID. The page totals the Net Total of each Deposit ID so you can match that figure to the deposit in your bank feed. A Deposit ID that spans two months is still booked month by month, and the bank deposit clears the Square clearing account.

What does a row with money no rule explains mean?

Square's Total Collected should equal net sales plus tax, tips, gift card sales and service charges less refunds. Any remainder (for example a gift card redemption or an unusual refund column) is journalled to an uncategorised account so the journal still equals the Net Total, and it is listed for you to review. Nothing is dropped.

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. Rename the accounts for each category before downloading so they match your chart of accounts.

Is it safe to paste a Square 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. Remove customer name and card columns if you would rather not have them on screen: only dates, amounts, IDs and the deposit ID are used.

What does this not check?

Whether the export matches your Square account or your books, sales tax treatment in any jurisdiction (tax is shown only as Square reports it), tips owed to staff, payouts that include chargebacks or instant-transfer fees reported elsewhere, and account names or codes that must already exist in your accounting software.