If you accept online payments through Stripe and use QuickBooks for accounting, ensuring that your Stripe revenue and expenses are correctly reflected in QuickBooks is crucial to your business’s financial success. Syncing Stripe data to QuickBooks Online accurately is essential for several reasons:
- Accurate Financial Reporting
Syncing Stripe data to QuickBooks online that reflects revenue, fees, and other expenses accurately will give you the full view of your gross and net income and expenses.
If you rely solely on the Stripe payout, you won't have a true reflection of your revenue. The amounts deposited by Stripe payouts into your QuickBooks Bank Feed are net of fees.
- Streamlined Accounting Processes
Automatically syncing your Stripe data to QuickBooks saves you time and energy. It also reduces the risk of human error by reducing the manual entry of transactions, fees, and payouts.
Automated syncing also allows for more efficient reconciliation of your bank statements with your Stripe transactions. Reconciliation is more straightforward and takes less time.
- Improved Accuracy
Automated syncing reduces the likelihood of errors that can occur with manual data entry, keeping financial records accurate and up-to-date. Automated syncing also simplifies tax preparation and compliance, ensuring that all income and expenses are correctly recorded.
- Better Cash Flow Management
With automatically synced data, you can see which payments have been processed and when they’re reflected in your QuickBooks account.
- Enhanced Financial Control
Automatic integrations help maintain detailed records of all financial transactions, giving you better control over your finances. In this post, we’ll discuss two integrations, Acodei and Zapier, their pros and cons, and why one may work better for you than the other.
Acodei Overview
Acodei is an accounting automation tool designed to connect Stripe data with QuickBooks Online. It allows users to have their Stripe data synced into QuickBooks while accounting for Stripe fees and expenses.
As of this writing, Acodei only syncs data from Stripe to QuickBooks Online. When there is a sale in Stripe, Acodei will create a sales receipt in QuickBooks. When you receive a payout from Stripe, Acodei will create a Deposit in QuickBooks that automatically selects all sales belonging on the payout. This Deposit will show as a match in the Bank Feed. Acodei also accounts for Stripe fees as expenses and syncs customer data.
Acodei offers premium features on paid plans, including Invoice Sync (creation of invoices + payment receipts in QuickBooks), Multiple Product Mapping (mapping different products from Stripe to different products/accounts in QuickBooks), Sales Tax, and Class Tracking. Paid plans also have access to features that map for Stripe Connect, Stripe Climate contributions, and Stripe Capital Financing. Paid plans can add authorized users to the account as well.
Acodei offers help documents and email support within 48 hours to customers on the Free plan. Customers on paid plans have access to email support within 24 hours and Zoom support.
The Free plan includes up to 30 transactions per month. Acodei defines a transaction as, “Each Stripe sale, refund, payout, invoice, and payment on an invoice counts as one transaction each.” The Starter plan is $11.99/month, syncs up to 100 transactions/month, and has access to all premium features. The Scale plan starts at $17.99/month for up to 250 transactions (plus all premium features). Once you go over 250 transactions, you are charged for each transaction.
Zapier Overview
Zapier is an automation tool designed to connect different web applications (not just Stripe and QuickBooks) and automate workflow. It allows users to set up automated tasks, called "Zaps," which can trigger actions across various apps without needing to write code.
Zapier connects with over 6,000 apps, including popular tools like Gmail, Slack, Google Sheets, QuickBooks, Trello, and many more. Users create "Zaps" by defining a trigger (an event in one app) and an action (a response in another app). For example, a new sale in Stripe could trigger an action to create a sales receipt in QuickBooks.
While you can build complex workflows with multiple steps and conditional logic, you must know exactly what action you want to take and the trigger that causes it. Zapier does not automatically sync data or include basic Zaps in your plan. The user must understand and create all “Zaps” and understand each Zap’s consequences.
Zapier offers chatbox support, access to help documents and a Community where you can ask questions. It also offers email support on its Professional and Team plans.
Zapier offers a free plan for up to 100 Tasks/month. According to Zapier, “A task is an action your automated workflow successfully completes. For example, if your Zap has an action to create new Google Contacts, each contact Zapier creates will count as one task.” The free plan also includes unlimited Zaps and 2-step Zaps.
The Professional plan starts at $19.99/month and includes up to 750 tasks/month. The Team plan starts at $69/month and includes up to 2000 tasks. If you exceed your task limit, you will be charged separately per task.
Pros and Cons
Acodei
Pros:
- Onboarding - Acodei offers a step-by-step onboarding process that guides customers through setting up their Acodei integration the way they want it. They even sync 3 test transactions during onboarding so customers can check and ensure everything is set up correctly.
- Direct Integration - Acodei directly syncs all Stripe Data to QuickBooks online. Customers don’t need to decide how or what transactions and fees are synced. Acodei automatically creates sales receipts/ invoices and then creates Deposits/Transfers to match on the Bank Feed for your Stripe payout. Fees are accounted for, and you can sync customer data as well.
- Specialized Functionality - Because Acodei is focused only on the Stripe to QuickBooks integration, they have high functioning features for multiple types of Stripe transactions - sales, invoices, payments, Stripe Connect, Stripe Climate, Stripe Capital, Stripe Fees, Subscription Fees, Disputes, etc. Acodei stays updated with changes made by Stripe and QuickBooks to ensure Acodei is ready for new features and upcoming changes.
- Cost—Acodei offers three different plans, ranging in price from $0 to $17.99+/month, based on your transaction usage.
- Customer support—Acodei offers email support within 48 hours to customers on free plans and within 24 hours to customers on paid plans. It also offers Zoom support to customers on paid plans.
Cons:
- Limited Integrations—Acodei only integrates Stripe with QuickBooks Online. It doesn’t sync with any other payment or accounting platforms. However, it does offer integrations for Kajabi, Thinkific, and Amelia.
- Custom workflows not included - Acodei offers set workflow syncing on each plan. Paid plans include optional Premium Features for Multiple Product Mapping, Class Tracking, Invoice Sync, and Stripe Tax. However, you can’t create your own trigger and action using Acodei (like you can with Zapier). Acodei does offer the creation of custom features for your account, so if there is a workflow you need that is not currently available, you can pay for a custom feature to be built out for your account.
Zapier
Pros:
- Integration Options - Zapier can create integrations between over 6,000 applications, not just Stripe and QuickBooks.
- Flexibility - Zapier allows customers to create their own custom workflows, so you can decide what triggers an action in QuickBooks and exactly what that action is.
- Pre-built Templates—Zapier offers some pre-built templates to help customers avoid figuring out all workflows on their own.
Cons:
- Latency - Customers on free and lower-tier plans may experience some delay in syncing data, which can be a drawback for real-time needs.
- Expectations for Self-Sufficiency - Zapier expects customers to know and understand what they want to happen in their workflows and the consequences of the Zaps they set up. There are no automatic Zaps set up for customers.
- General integration (not specific to Stripe/QuickBooks) - Because Zapier integrates a large number of apps, it may not be as current with Stripe and QuickBooks updates or have information specific to QuickBooks and Stripe workflows.
- Customer Support - While Zapier does offer access to help documentation and access to the Zapier community, they only offer email support to customers on paid plans and no access to Zoom support.
Summary
Choose Zapier If you are looking for a versatile tool that can be used with a wide range of applications and if you are comfortable setting up your own workflow and syncs.
If you are looking for a Stripe to QuickBooks integration with a concierge onboarding system that provides syncing and mapping for Stripe accounts and offers features to correlate with Stripe updates, then Acodei is the best option.
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