Duplicate Paypal Entries

joeyb506

Hey Guys - WHenever I pay anything through PayPal it shows the expense coming out of my bank but PayPal shows up as an income. How can I prevent this double entry problem when something is actually an expense.

hbwilson

I've spent days messing with this. My end-of-year report totals were WAY off, because of Paypal transactions being reported multiple times. I found NO DOCUMENTATION on this, so here is my contribution. I hope it helps:

With PayPal connected, transactions can appear multiple times in Wave. This will skew totals in various categories and reports. This happens in two ways:

• 1. Paypal lists sub-transactions "Submitted," "Completed," "Paid," "Shipped," etc. Depending on when Wave syncs with Paypal, some or all of these can be recorded in Wave and can make a transaction totaling $10 show in categories totaling $20, $30, or more.
• 2. A transaction detailed in Paypal Account as "Adobe Software Inc [Payment, Completed]" in turn debits or credits your checking account as something like "PAYPAL TRANSFER - TRANSFER". Wave can end up tracking and adding these both into your Wave categories and reports. This problem is compounded when transactions are move from one business to another (or personal).

To resolve this,

• in Wave go to Accounting>Transactions. Set a date range. Sort by amount.
• Compare transactions where the amounts are identical and dates are within a day or two of each other. (I found it helpful to open another browser and connect to Paypal> account history in another window). When you find a duplicate, copy the description from the PayPal account transaction description into other account transaction description. For example, copy "Adobe Software Inc [Payment, Completed]" from PayPal description into checking account description to say "Paypal "Adobe Software Inc [Payment, Completed]" PAYPAL TRANSFER - TRANSFER"
• Delete the PayPal transaction from Wave once you've eliminated it's duplication.

AlexL

Hi @joeyb506 . If you have both your bank as well as PayPal set up to import transactions into Wave, you will see transactions appear every time they move in/out of your bank or in/out of your PayPal account. This can create duplicates if the same transactions are touching both accounts. If you're moving money from one account to another, you can check the Help Center article below to track this, otherwise @hbwilson 's in-depth and helpful advice above can help you sort through your transactions and delete duplicates.

https://support.waveapps.com/hc/en-us/articles/208621616-How-to-create-a-transfer-between-two-accounts-e-g-categorize-a-credit-card-payment-