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PayPal integration

DavidKDavidK Member Posts: 1

I have connected my PayPal account to wave with no hassle, but expense list was imported to Wave and no incomes. Why is that? Thank you.

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edited August 30, 2018 in Bank Connections

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    AlexiaAlexia Member Posts: 3,314 ✭✭✭✭

    Hi @DavidK.

    There are few reasons why your Paypal transactions might be missing:

    • Paypal operates like many other major financial institutions, and only allows for transactions of the past 30-90 days to be imported. If you set up your Paypal integration recently, transactions older than 90 days won't appear.
    • Recurring payments, like subscriptions, won't be imported into wave. This is due to how Wave's integration system works.
    • New transactions after your Paypal integration is set up may take a few days to show up. Anything extremely recent might just not have been processed yet.
    • You can only ever import a Paypal transaction once. If, for example, all your Paypal transactions were deleted manually, and you disabled your Paypal integration, past transactions would not be re-imported if you reactivated your Paypal integration.

    If none of these reasons fit the bill, I'll have to investigate a little further.

    In the meantime, you can export your Paypal transactions as a CSV file and upload that file to Wave. You can find out how to do that here. If you decide to go that route, be mindful of the guidelines posted here. You will also have to remove any column other than Date, Description and Amount, as Wave cannot read those. Having those columns remain in the file will stop you from importing it.

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    canwaacanwaa Member Posts: 2

    Hi @Alexia

    My tax accountant and I just noticed that when I pay for something using my PayPal account (that is linked to Wave), it registers as an income. Is there a way to change that so that when I pay with PayPal it will register as an expense?

    edited February 28, 2018
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    AlexiaAlexia Member Posts: 3,314 ✭✭✭✭

    Hi @canwaa,

    This is because your PayPal account is essentially considered a separate bank account, from an accounting perspective. So when you pay for something using PayPal, the transactions should look like this:

    • A transfer from your bank account(expense) to your PayPal account(income) for the price of the item.
    • An expense from your Paypal account.

    As mentioned above, there's a handful of reasons the PayPal integration could miss one of those three elements. We are working on making that integration better, but for now, the most reliable way to do it is to either enter your PayPal transactions manually, or to follow the instructions in my last post to upload your PayPal statements as CSV files.

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    WaveUserWaveUser Member Posts: 1

    @Alexia If the account and PayPal integration have been deleted, why can't I download past transactions again if I set up the integration again?

    Several months ago, I noticed my PayPal transactions weren't updating, so I deleted the account and integration, then set them up again, and all the old transactions came back, plus all the new ones that hadn't been there.

    I just did this again the other day because my transactions weren't updating (again), and now none of the old transactions will download at all. I've tried uploading statements, but now the balances are all off. This is so frustrating. I tried emailing Wave and was just advised to load statements. Why can't Wave just fix this instead of forcing people into an awkward workaround? I'm seriously thinking of dumping Wave for another accounting service at this point.

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    AlexiaAlexia Member Posts: 3,314 ✭✭✭✭

    Hi @WaveUser.

    This is a known quirk of the PayPal integration. We are working on improving the PayPal integration and on better communicating its limitations, but it isn't a simple fix.

    Our priority when it comes to changing integrations like this one is always to make sure the integrity of your data won't be compromised. We recommend that workaround because it's the fastest and safest way to import PayPal transactions that couldn't be uploaded automatically. If there was a simpler alternative we could offer at this time, we would.

    I understand how frustrating and inconvenient this can be, and I can assure you we want nothing more than to provide you with better, more effective tools to run your business.

    To upload your Paypal statement as CSV, you'll have to follow the instructions found here. You'll have to modify the file manually for it to conform to the format, but this shouldn't be too time-consuming. The first step will be to download your PayPal history here and then format the .csv file so that it fits the format below:

    01/01/2018, Description 1, -250
    01/02/2018, Description 2, 550.50
    01/02/2018, Description 3, -120.75

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