Your Stripe payout isn’t your revenue: reconciling Stripe to the books

01Gross, not net#

Revenue is what the customer paid for the product, in full. Stripe’s processing fee is your expense, not a discount the customer got, so it goes to its own account. Refunds reduce revenue in the month they happen. Disputes take the funds back and add a fee. The payout is what’s left, and it’s the only one of those figures your bank ever sees.

The clean way to book it is a clearing account: a balance sheet account that stands in for your Stripe balance. Charges go in at their gross amount, fees, refunds and disputes come out, and each payout moves the remainder to the bank. When the books are right, the clearing account matches the balance Stripe shows you on the same date.

02One payout, booked#

Take a payout made of 100 card charges of $100 each, at Stripe’s standard US online card rate of 2.9% plus 30 cents, and one of those customers refunded in full. Each charge costs $3.20 in fees, so the fees are $320. Stripe keeps the processing fee on a refunded charge, so the refund takes back the full $100. The payout is $10,000 less $320 less $100: $9,580.

Four entries take it from charges to the bank. The charges: debit the Stripe clearing account $10,000, credit revenue $10,000. The fees: debit payment processing fees $320, credit clearing $320. The refund: debit refunds, a contra-revenue account, $100, credit clearing $100. The payout: debit cash $9,580, credit clearing $9,580. Clearing goes back to zero, revenue shows $10,000 less a visible $100 refund, the fees sit in their own account, and the only entry the bank ever sees is the last one. Your own rate may differ; the shape doesn’t.

03Tying it out each month#

Stripe’s payout reconciliation report lists which charges, refunds and fees went into each payout. That’s the bridge between your bank statement and your revenue. The month is reconciled when four things hold:

• Every Stripe deposit in the bank feed matches one payout in Stripe, to the cent.
• The month’s charges, fees, refunds and disputes tie to Stripe’s own reports, not to a sum of deposits.
• The clearing account at month end ties to the Stripe balance on the same date, including payouts in transit.
• Sales tax collected is booked as a liability, not revenue, and ties to what you’ll file.

04Subscriptions add a second layer#

If you bill annual plans through Stripe, the cash arrives up front but the revenue doesn’t. The charge goes to deferred revenue, and a schedule releases it month by month. Stripe moves the money; it doesn’t decide when you’ve earned it.

The MRR in the Stripe dashboard is a billing metric, not recognized revenue. The two should be explainable against each other, line by line, not equal. When a board deck quotes one and the P&L shows the other, that explanation is the first thing an investor asks for.