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Square payouts to a Xero manual journal

In short: Square's transactions CSV has one row per payment or refund with dozens of columns: gross sales, tax, tips, total collected, fees and net total, the tender used, and the deposit that paid it out. A Xero manual journal per payout records what the payout was made of: gross sales, fees and refunds on their own lines, and the payout itself on a payout clearing account, because Xero does not accept bank accounts in a manual journal. Each journal adds up to zero, debits positive and credits negative, in the layout of Xero's manual journal import template. Drop the file below. It is converted on your device and never uploaded.

Convert your file

Square to Xero manual journal

transactions-<start date>-<end date>.csv

Your file stays on this device

It is read and converted by this page, inside your browser. Nothing from the file is uploaded, and the converter keeps working offline once the page has loaded.

No file handy? or download the sample to look at it first.

The data in the sample is invented. It is converted on this device, the same way your own file would be.

One email when it ships. The address is used for nothing else. Details.

1. Export the file from Square

  1. Sign in to the Square Dashboard on a computer.
  2. Open Transactions and choose the date range.
  3. Click Export and choose Transactions CSV.
  4. Upload the downloaded file here.

Why a raw Square export fails in Xero (manual journal import)

Your bank receives Square deposits that are card sales minus refunds and processing fees, and they also carry tips and gift cards you sold, which are not sales. The export names the deposit that paid each row, so the converter writes one journal entry per deposit, with sales, tips, gift card sales, refunds and fees on their own lines and the deposit on the payout clearing line.

Xero's bank statement import puts every line into one bank account, so a payout split into sales, fees and refunds needs either a clearing account in Xero or a journal. A manual journal per payout (or per month when the export does not link sales to payouts) books gross sales, fees, refunds and payments you sent to their own accounts, and the payout amount to a payout clearing account: a current asset account that is not a bank account, because Xero does not let manual journals post to bank or credit card accounts. When the deposit arrives in your bank feed, reconcile it in Xero against that payout clearing account (Receive Money coded to it), and the clearing account goes back to zero. Xero imports the journals as drafts, and you post them after checking.

What is unusual about the Square file

  • One row per payment or refund, newest first, with Gross Sales, Tax, Tip, Total Collected, Fees and Net Total columns.
  • Amounts look like "$1,234.56" and "-$184.28"; fees are negative and Net Total is Total Collected plus Fees.
  • Sales paid in cash, by Square gift card or another non-card tender never reach a Square deposit, so they are left out; mixed payments keep only their card part. Gift card payments are not new income: the money came in when the card was sold.
  • Tips and gift card sales are not sales revenue: journal entries book them to their own accounts (Tips owed to staff, Gift card liability).
  • A non-zero Partial Refunds cell gets a warning, because it is not confirmed whether Square also lists that refund as its own row.
  • Deposit ID and Deposit Date say which deposit paid each row; rows not yet deposited have none.
  • Dates and times are in the Square account time zone and are used as written.
  • The file does not name its currency; amounts are treated as US dollars unless they show pounds or euros.

What Xero (manual journal import) requires

  • Columns as in Xero's manual journal template: Narration, Date, Description, AccountCode, TaxRate, Amount and two pairs of tracking columns.
  • Narration and Date on the first row of each journal; the rows below with both left blank belong to the same journal.
  • Dates as dd mmm yyyy (05 Mar 2026) or dd/mm/yyyy.
  • Account codes, not names (for example 200). Debits positive, credits negative; each journal adds up to zero.
  • No bank or credit card accounts: the payout is booked to a payout clearing account (a current asset), and the bank feed deposit is reconciled against it.
  • Up to 300 lines per file (we split bigger files without breaking a journal). Journals are in your base currency.

2. Before and after

Before: the Square transactions CSV as downloaded

Date,Time,Time Zone,Gross Sales,Discounts,Service Charges,Net Sales,Gift Card Sales,Tax,Tip,Partial Refunds,Total Collected,Source,Card,Card Entry ...
2024-08-24,15:20:01,Pacific Time (US & Canada),$19.05,$0.00,$0.00,$19.05,$0.00,$0.95,$0.00,$0.00,$20.00,Point of Sale,$20.00,Tapped,$0.00,$0.00,$0....
2024-08-24,12:00:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),$15.00,$0.00,$0.00,$15.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$15.00,Point of Sale,$0.00,N/A,$15.00,$0.00,$0.00,...
2024-08-23,18:30:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),$50.00,$0.00,$0.00,$50.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$50.00,Point of Sale,$30.00,Keyed,$20.00,$0.00,$0....
2024-08-23,10:00:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),-$35.00,$0.00,$0.00,-$35.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,-$35.00,Point of Sale,-$35.00,Tapped,$0.00,$0.00...
2024-08-22,09:15:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),"$1,234.56",$0.00,$0.00,"$1,234.56",$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,"$1,234.56",Point of Sale,"$1,234.56",Ke...
2024-08-21,08:00:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,Point of Sale,$0.00,,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,,,$0.00...

After: what Xero (manual journal import) receives

After: square-xero-manual-journal-payout-2024-08-23-to-2024-08-24.csv
*Narration*DateDescription*AccountCode*TaxRate*AmountTrackingName1TrackingOption1TrackingName2TrackingOption2
Square payout DEPSQ0 (2024-08-23, BR-20240823-1)23 Aug 2024Gross sales - Square payout DEPSQ0-1234.56
Fees - Square payout DEPSQ032.72
Deposit - Square payout DEPSQ01201.84
Square activity not yet paid out (2024-08-24, BR-20240824-1)24 Aug 2024Gross sales - Square activity not yet paid out-20.00
Fees - Square activity not yet paid out0.53
Kept in Square balance - Square activity not yet paid out19.47

Synthetic sample data that follows the real export layout, not a real account. The "after" output was produced from it by the same converter this page runs.

3. Import the converted file into Xero (manual journal import)

  1. Make sure every account code in the file exists in your Xero chart of accounts (enter your codes in the options before downloading). The payout clearing code must be a current asset account, not a bank or credit card account: Xero does not accept those in a manual journal.
  2. In Xero, in the Accounting menu, select Manual journals.
  3. Click Import, then Browse, and select this CSV.
  4. Click Import, review the message, then click Complete Import. The journals arrive as drafts.
  5. Open the Draft tab and check each journal: add a tax rate to each line if the file has none, and tick "Show journal on cash basis reports" if you report on a cash basis (the template has no column for it). Then select the journals and click Post.
  6. When the deposit (or the net pay withdrawal) appears in your bank feed, reconcile it against the payout clearing account (Receive Money or Spend Money coded to that account), not against sales.

Questions

What happens to cash sales in the Square export?
Cash, Square gift card and other non-card payments never pass through your Square balance or a Square deposit, so the converter leaves them out and gives the total for each kind. When a sale was paid partly by card, only the card part is kept. Record cash with your cash takings. A gift card payment is not new money: it came in when the card was sold, so move it from your gift card liability account to sales instead of recording it again.
How does the payout reach my bank account in Xero?
Xero does not accept bank or credit card accounts in a manual journal, and a journal line cannot be reconciled against a bank feed line anyway. So each journal books the payout to a payout clearing account, a current asset account you create (for example Payouts in transit), not a bank account. When the deposit appears in your bank feed, reconcile it against that clearing account (Receive Money coded to it). Do not code the deposit to sales: the journal has already booked the sales, so that would count them twice.
Is the sales tax in the Square export my income?
Sales tax you collect through Square is part of the totals in the export. The converter keeps it inside the sale amount and tells you how much it is, so you can move it to a sales tax account. How to treat it is a question for whoever prepares your return.
What is not confirmed yet?
Xero's template download needs a Xero login, so we have not compared the exact header text (including the asterisks Xero puts on required columns) with a freshly downloaded template; the column names follow Xero's help page. We have also not confirmed Xero's default account codes, which tax rate names exist in each country, or whether imported journals arrive with "Show journal on cash basis reports" ticked. We have not imported the result into a real Xero organisation. Check the first journal before importing many.

Other ways to convert Square

Other exports to Xero manual journal