Guide

The church Stripe payout playbook for QuickBooks

Online giving platforms — Planning Center Giving among them — process cards and bank transfers through Stripe, which pools a couple of days of gifts and deposits the net every business day or two. An active church sees forty or more deposits a month, none of which equals what anyone gave. This playbook is how church bookkeepers keep that tied out, with the fund accounting intact.

First, the three amounts

Every payout has a gross (what donors gave), a fee (what the processor kept — typically about 2.15% + $0.30 per card gift on Planning Center), and a net (what reached your bank). The cardinal rule: book gross income and fee expense separately. Churches that record only the net understate both giving and expenses — donor-facing totals drift from the books, and the finance committee eventually asks why.

Funds, income accounts, and Classes

Keep the structure simple and consistent: an income account per fund (Contributions — General, Missions, Building…), a processing-fee expense account, and — if you're multi-campus or track ministries — QuickBooks Classes on the income lines. Donor-level detail belongs in your giving platform, not the ledger: track people in Planning Center, post summary entries in QuickBooks. Your donor statements and your general ledger will both be cleaner for it.

Method 1 — one entry per payout (recommended)

For each deposit: read its payout breakdown, then post one balanced entry — credit each fund its gross, debit the fee expense, debit the bank the net. The entry equals the deposit to the penny, so the bank feed matches it in one click and month-end reconciliation is a checklist, not an investigation. The step-by-step version is here.

Method 2 — the clearing account

Post giving as it happens (daily or weekly summaries, gross by fund, fees as expense) with the net side going to a clearing account — a holding bucket for money in transit. As each Stripe deposit arrives, categorize it as a transfer from clearing to checking. The clearing account should trend to zero; a lingering balance means something didn't arrive or didn't get booked. This keeps your books ahead of the bank, at the cost of one more account to watch.

The complications to expect

• Donor-covered fees: the donor's charge includes the fee; the fund gets the full gross and the fee is still an expense.
• Refunds: a refund inside a payout reduces the deposit — book a contra line against the refunded fund so the entry still nets out.
• Split gifts: one donation across several funds must be allocated per fund, fee included.
• Event income: registrations and giving settle into the same payouts; the non-giving remainder books to event income, not contributions.
• Checks and cash: physical gifts never ride Stripe payouts — they arrive as your own counted deposits and should match your batch totals.
• Year-end straddle: gifts given December 30 deposit in January. Decide with your accountant how year-end in-transit giving is recognized, and be consistent.

The month-end checklist

• Every Stripe deposit on the statement is explained by exactly one entry (or clears the clearing account).
• The clearing account (if used) is at or near zero, and you can name why it isn't.
• Fee expense for the month is consistent with your blended rate.
• Fund totals in QuickBooks agree with your giving platform's fund report for the month.

More guides: how to record Planning Center deposits, step by step · every Planning Center + QuickBooks option compared