Treat PayPal like a bank account and record the payments when you receive them in PayPal - not when you withdraw them. (aside from being more easy - you should probably do it like that anyway from a legal/accounting perspective)
On your bank account treat paypal withdrawals like transfers between bank accounts. --- On Fri, 11/12/10, Alex Balashov <[email protected]> wrote: > From: Alex Balashov <[email protected]> > Subject: [asterisk-biz] OT: Correlation of Paypal transactions > To: "Commercial and Business-Oriented Asterisk Discussion" > <[email protected]> > Date: Friday, November 12, 2010, 8:16 PM > Greetings, > > I apologise in advance that this is a bit off-topic. > However, I know > that many of you who run service providers take a high > volume of > individual Paypal payments, many of them recurring. > > My question is this: When withdrawing Paypal payments > into a bank > account, how do you correlate them on the bank statement to > the relevant > Paypal payment activity, and therefore the right > customer/invoice/etc, > from an accounting perspective? > > When there is a manageably small number of payments > involved, it can be > done chronologically. And likewise, if the amounts > are highly specific > to each customer, that is also useful as a > correlator. However, I have > found nothing embedded in the transaction ID or other > identifiers that > show up in the online banking interface from which a > reference to an > original Paypal transaction can be reconstructed. It > seems to me that > the process of withdrawing money to a bank is a separate > transaction > from receiving payment via Paypal anyway, since Paypal > gives you the > ability to specify how much of your balance in its account > you want to > withdraw. > > I suppose the easiest thing to do - and I imagine, the norm > - is to just > record the incoming payments against open invoices at the > moment they > are received, and put them in an asset account, less the > transaction > fees. When Paypal payments clear into the bank, just > move the funds > from one asset account to the other and be done with it, > without > attempting to establish whose payment it was that > cleared. The invoices > are paid either way, and the ultimate deposit destination > of that money > is just an asset transfer technicality. > > Still, I am curious if there are any more advanced options > available or > other handy tricks of the trade that anyone would be > willing to share on > how to reconcile high volumes of individual Paypal > transactions. > > Thanks! > > -- Alex > > P.S. I am referring to plain old Paypal here, not > Paypal web payments, > merchant account services, > etc. > > -- > Alex Balashov - Principal > Evariste Systems LLC > 1170 Peachtree Street NE > 12th Floor, Suite 1200 > Atlanta, GA 30309 > Tel: +1-678-954-0670 > Fax: +1-404-961-1892 > Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/ > > -- > _____________________________________________________________________ > -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- > > asterisk-biz mailing list > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz > -- _____________________________________________________________________ -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
