Automatically queue QuickBooks Online deposits for Stripe-based LGL Forms transactions

Overview

LGL can automatically queue up deposits that you can sync to your QuickBooks Online (QBO, also "QuickBooks") account based on Stripe’s transfer reports for LGL Forms. This is a huge time-saver, and we strongly recommend turning on this feature if you use LGL Forms with Stripe as a payment processor. Stripe transfer reports are created automatically by Stripe each time they transfer your proceeds to your bank account. LGL then uses that transfer report to queue up a deposit that you can sync to QuickBooks.

What this feature offers

With this feature turned on as part of your QuickBooks integration, LGL will queue up deposits based on Stripe transfer reports. Each of those deposits will include the associated transactions as sales receipts. This upgrade will be a welcome change for anyone who has had to wade through numerous transactions in QuickBooks to find the right ones and then add up the processing fees for those transactions in order to create a deposit.

Here’s a high-level diagram showing how the Stripe transfer report, along with the associated gift records in LGL, creates a deposit for QuickBooks in addition to sales receipts for the underlying transactions:

Who should use this feature

Use this feature if all of the following apply to you:

You are already using the integration between LGL and QuickBooks or would like to start (you can begin by reading this help article on the overall integration)
You use LGL Forms for donation processing or event registrations or other payment forms
You use Stripe as a payment processor in LGL Forms

How to turn it on

To turn on this feature in your account, navigate to the new layout in the QuickBooks Integration area in LGL, and click the Deposits tab. You should see an Enable Stripe Deposits Sync button, as shown here:

If you don’t see that button in your account, an alternative way to activate the feature is to click the Deposit Settings navigation item at the bottom left (see screenshot above). There you’ll see a toggle that will allow you to turn the setting on:

Default settings and options to override them for individual deposits

In the Deposit Settings area, once you flip the toggle to enable the Stripe deposits sync, you’ll see a place to choose the chart of account entries for items that can be part of a deposit. All of these dropdown list options are pulled in from your QuickBooks account and will be your default settings for these fields. But you’ll be able to override them as needed on individual deposits prior to syncing to QuickBooks.

Here’s a description of each of these 5 line items:

Bank account - The bank account Stripe is sending your funds into. Use the dropdown to select the appropriate bank (the dropdown list is populated based on the asset accounts in your QuickBooks account)
Stripe fees account - The expense account you want to use for recording the fees that Stripe takes out of your proceeds. If you use “Class” in your QuickBooks account, also set the class here
Additional charges - The income account where you would like to record other money you have collected in your Stripe account, outside of LGL Forms. This will apply only if you use your Stripe account to process payments in software other than LGL Forms. Note that Stripe refers to this as “charges”, meaning it’s money you charged someone else, creating income to you
Other items - A miscellaneous line that can appear in some Stripe transfers. It’s not possible to predict exactly what this will be and it could be income or an expense. You can set a “best guess” default, but you will always want to review these carefully in any deposit that contains this line
Refunds - How you will record payments that you have refunded to the payer. For example, if a donor accidentally gives $1,000 but they intended to give $100, you will refund them $900 through your Stripe account. Then Stripe will show that $900 as a “Refund” in the next transfer report they create. You want to record refunds as an offset to the income where you recorded the original payment

Using the feature - A step-by-step walkthrough

Since the entirety of this feature is based on LGL Forms transactions (using Stripe), we’ll start there and then proceed to how it looks in the QuickBooks queue area.

1. In LGL Forms

Once you’ve turned on the feature, you don’t have to do much at all in LGL Forms. Just be sure you set your forms to use Stripe as the payment processor and also set your form to sync with your LGL account, so it looks something like this on your Forms page (within the list of forms):

On the mapping page for your form, you’ll notice that gifts will be automatically added to your QuickBooks sync list:

You do, of course, need to make sure that the gift section of the form mapping is set up the way you want, such as mapping the payment type, gift amount, gift category and fund name. Those fields all need to be set for your QuickBooks sync, so it's nice to get them set up automatically via the form mapping. And to clarify, the form mapping sets the value in the gift entry in your LGL account, and that, in turn, sets the corresponding value for the QuickBooks sales receipt based on your QuickBooks integration settings in LGL.

For a refresher on mapping forms, you can have a look at this help article: Integrate your LGL Forms data to flow into LGL.

2. In the LGL Forms Submission Queue

If your form mapping has the “Require review before saving?” box checked, then as submissions occur you will need to review them in your LGL Forms Submission Queue and save them to your LGL database.

If you’re new to reviewing the Forms Submissions Queue, you can read the help article Manage your LGL Forms Submission Queue to learn how it works.

3. In the QBO Gift Queue

Your transactions will first land in your QuickBooks Sales Receipts area, within the Gift Queue. Note that these transactions are still unprocessed, meaning that they have not yet been synced to QuickBooks.

In the screenshot above showing Sales Receipts > Gift Queue, note the following:

A toggle lets you control whether you see transactions from Stripe. Enable this if you want to see your Stripe transactions. The reason you might not want to see them is that you won’t be able to sync them from here; you’ll do that from the Deposits queue
The transaction at the bottom came in via an LGL form (using Stripe). The queue is showing it because the toggle is set to show these, but there is no “Sync” option available. This sales receipt will be created instead when you sync the deposit

After Stripe transfers the proceeds to your bank and creates the transfer report, LGL creates a deposit. This deposit associates the underlying gifts, which will become Sales Receipts in your QuickBooks account when you sync the deposit:

4. In the QBO Deposits queue

Before Stripe transfers the funds to your bank, transactions that came in via LGL Forms will be listed in the Transactions on hold section, as indicated in the screenshot below. This is a holding area as we await the transfer from Stripe. You can click on that area to see the transactions that are on hold.

When Stripe transfers funds to your bank, there will be a Stripe Transfer Report. This is what LGL uses to queue a deposit. LGL is checking for transfer reports on a nightly basis, so you should see a matching deposit in the queue the day after Stripe has sent the transfer.

5. Deposit examples

A single gift transaction and the deposit is in the queue

Here’s an example of a deposit, which has a single transaction underlying it:

In the screenshot above:

The amount being deposited is $23.97, which you can see prominently in the top line that summarizes the deposit. You can also see the deposit date, which is the date Stripe transferred the funds to your bank, and the bank account the money got deposited into
The gift that underlies this deposit is a $25 gift from Helen Fielding. If you need to edit the selections for Product/Service, Class, or Payment method, you can do that here by clicking on the value
The Stripe processing fee on this transaction was $1.03, which is getting subtracted from the gift amount, for a net deposit of $23.97

The amount and date of the deposit come from the Stripe transfer report, and the “Deposit to” bank account comes from your default settings (and can be edited here if needed).

For this example, all of the required fields for both the deposit and the underlying sales receipt are complete, so this deposit is ready to sync.

Complex example and the deposit has been processed

This example comes from the “Processed deposits” queue. It looks very similar to a deposit before it’s synced to QuickBooks, but note that this one includes the Deposit ID, which in this case is 519. You can use this ID to quickly find the deposit in your QuickBooks account. The URL syntax for that is:

https://qbo.intuit.com/app/deposit?txnId=519

In addition to the usual line for "Processing Fees", this deposit includes two other line items in the section at the bottom:

$99 was received into this Stripe account outside of LGL Forms but included in the transfer that Stripe sent to the bank, and LGL is accounting for that here as an additional charge (funds received). The account and class will be set based on your Deposit Settings for your QuickBooks integration, but they can be edited when you’re reviewing your deposit prior to syncing
$37.08 was refunded in Stripe to a donor, which is showing as a negative entry to the “Donation” account

After we sync this deposit to our QuickBooks account, we can see how those Additional Line items appear in the area where you can use the “Add funds to this deposit” function:

Troubleshooting

Below are several solutions to common troubleshooting issues and questions.

Why isn’t my LGL forms transaction showing up in the QuickBooks area?
- Check to make sure your form is set to sync to your LGL database (in your Forms area, within the list of forms, check the LGL Status column).
- If your form is set to sync automatically, is the transaction waiting in your LGL Forms Submission Queue? Note that in this case submissions will need to be saved there before they’ll show up in the QuickBooks area.
I want to create deposits for checks and cash entries I’m making directly in Little Green Light, but I don’t see how to do that.
- The only deposit-creation feature LGL offers is for transactions coming through LGL Forms where Stripe was the payment processor.
I don’t see how to add a new value for Bank Account, Product Service, or other fields I need in my QuickBooks account.
- For fields in your QuickBooks account such as Bank Account, Product Service, Class, and Payment Method, you need to add/edit values in your QuickBooks account and then use the Settings area in LGL to map to that new value. If you recently added a new value in your QuickBooks account, you can use the Refresh button to pull in the latest values from QuickBooks.
How can I see a list of gifts that have been synced to QuickBooks?
- In the Fundraising > Giving area of your Little Green Light account, you can search for gifts by their QuickBooks status:

32-minute video showing what this QuickBooks update is all about

Key sections in the video:

1:17 How the original QuickBooks integration works
7:33 How the new process works
19:05 Deposit Settings
21:00 Demo in live account
29:20 Getting Started