PayPal bookkeeping: book the sales and the fees, not just the withdrawals
Money leaves PayPal in a lump transfer to your bank, after PayPal has taken its fee from each payment. Book only the transfer and you never see what you sold or what PayPal cost you. The activity CSV has the detail.
Worked example: two payments, one withdrawal
The tool ships a synthetic PayPal activity CSV for March 2026 (fixtures/paypal-activity.csv): a $100.00 payment with a $3.20 fee, a $50.00 payment with a $1.75 fee, a further payment still pending, and a $145.05 withdrawal to the bank. The payout command matched the withdrawal to its bank line and split it into $150.00 of sales and $4.95 of fees.
| March 2026 | Booked from deposits | Booked from the report |
|---|---|---|
| Sales | $145.05 | $150.00 |
| PayPal fees | $0.00 | −$4.95 |
| Net profit | $145.05 | $145.05 |
The profit is the same, but one set of books shows your real sales, which is what you compare with a 1099-K, and a fee line you can watch.
How to book it
- Download the activity CSV from PayPal and your bank statement for the same dates.
- Import the bank statement in AI Bookkeeper, then run
payouts paypal-activity.csv. Each withdrawal is matched to its bank line and shown as a plan; add--applyto post the splits. - Read the leftovers. A withdrawal whose payments do not add up to it is reported under problems.
- Run it again next month. A withdrawal already split is reported as done and nothing posts twice.
The layout was checked against one hand-written file in PayPal's documented column order; no real PayPal export has been tried, so check the totals against your own statement.
Questions
Should I book PayPal withdrawals or PayPal sales as income?
Book the gross payments as sales and PayPal's fees as an expense. The withdrawal to your bank is only a transfer of what is left, so booking it alone hides both the sales and what PayPal charged.
Which PayPal report do I need?
The activity (transaction) CSV from the PayPal Reports page, with the Gross, Fee and Net columns, for the same dates as your bank statement.
Why was my withdrawal not split?
PayPal's CSV has no payout id, so the tool adds up completed payments since the last withdrawal. If they do not add up to the withdrawal, a balance was carried over from before the report, and the tool lists it instead of guessing. Download from an earlier start date.
Is it free?
Yes. It is open source (MIT), runs in your browser or as a command line tool, and nothing is uploaded.
Open AI Bookkeeper and import your bank statement and report.