Found a better way to import PayPal transactions to Wave
ARTBAR_Trish
Member Posts: 14
Our PayPal link kept failing and I was having to manually import PayPal transactions to Wave using Google Sheets, which was very labor intensive to prep the import file.
I just discovered the other day that you can go to Zapier.com and create a Zap (for free) that will import your PayPal transactions and fees LIVE as they happen. Set it up with the parameters you want and turn it on. Pick your categories. It'll even separate payment/donation amount and PayPal fee and categorize them when it imports. Works like a charm.
Oddly, no one in Wave customer support thought of mentioning this idea to me...despite the fact that there's already a few Zaps set up in Wave (under Integrations). So I thought I'd mention it here in case anyone else is having problems with PayPal imports.
Comments
Thanks @ARTBAR_Trish! Also my apologies none of us mentioned this integration before. It is a relatively new one for us, but it definitely is a solid workaround for PayPal!
If anyone is interested in seeing what other connections you can pull off via Zapier (other than the ones we've pre-constructed in Integrations) you can check this out here: https://zapier.com/apps/wave/integrations
I have this issue; the paypal integration keeps breaking. Just looked at Zapier; it appears the only relevant zap i can make is when a successful sale happens in Paypal, record a sale in Wave. How will this handle paypal fees, refunds, transfers, etc.?
Related; what's the best way to deal with the 4 PayPal accounts for the same account, all with transactions, now in my Chart of Accounts?
It separates the fee and income into two separate categories when it imports. Refunds just work as a negative against income. Set up two accounts for income: one in income, one in expenses. Refunds will go to the Income expenses account because it's a negative financial transaction. Refunded PayPal fees come in as a positive cash flow, so you need to do the same thing: PayPal Fees category in Income and Expenses. Set up an account on Zapier and you can set up the Zap from scratch to meet your needs.
As for the multiple PayPal accounts, sadly you have to manually transfer all transactions into one account and mark the others for not in use. NOT fun, but Wave doesn't have a way to fix it. I asked. I begged. I complained. I nagged. LOL I even wrote to the CEO (no response from him yet) about fixing the PayPal import. All I kept getting was it needs work and here's how to manually move your transactions over. There's not even a batch feature to switch transactions to a different account. So get down to slogging through those to move them over. BUT once you're done and your Zap is set up, it'll cover 99% of PayPal imports correctly. Oh, and it does it LIVE as the transactions happen, not once a day. Wave gets the PayPal transaction within seconds via Zapier.
The only thing I haven't figured out yet is transfers to bank, but it's not a big deal to import those manually since I probably only do one or two transfers to bank per week. Helluva lot better than the current nightmare of a consistently failing Wave PayPal import. (Sorry Wave people, but it is what it is. Broken. And clearly not on the programming high priority list to be fixed. It must suck for you tech support people to have to keep telling your customers "it needs work" and "here's how to manually move your transactions into one PayPal account". Thanks for your patience in dealing with a very frustrated me as I worked my way through that problem!).
OH, AND I ALSO SET UP A ZAP TO ADD A NEW CUSTOMER WITH EVERY PAYPAL TRANSACTION (IF THE CUSTOMER IS NOT ALREADY EXISTING). PLUS ANOTHER ONE FOR IMPORTING NEW CUSTOMERS (IN OUR CASE DONORS SINCE WE ARE A NON-PROFIT) INTO MAILCHIMP. Yes caps here are intentional to draw other Wave customers' attention to those additional Zaps. I'm now a HUGE fan of Zapier. Still loving Wave too.
Awesome thx, this sounds like a workable workaround. Wave is so good in so many other ways.
With the 4 accounts, which cover half each of 2018/19, i'm mainly concerned that it doesn't screw up the bookkeeping numbers to do taxes, etc. It looks like there are no duplicate transactions, but with each new import, Wave added a starting balance for the new account.
I'd figure I could just delete the figures for the three newer accounts, but they all show a different starting balance, even though they say it was on the same date; is the solution as simple as deleting the starting balance?
What's the simplest way to make sure the accounting is correct?
I'm fine with having the annoyance of 4 duplicate accounts in the past history - or will that be a problem for some reason? I can figure out cloud apps, but don't know much about bookkeeping...
I think every "starting balance" it adds messes with your accounting (extra cash on hand). I'm not sure if deleting a starting balance will have another negative impact in some way (i.e., throw that account into a negative balance perhaps?). I wasn't able to figure that out, so I opted for slogging them all into one account so I could hide the others, make my monthly balances match with my statements, and simplify my accounts screen.
Another option that Wave tech support recommended was deleting all the transactions in an account (in your case 3 extra PayPal accounts) and then export from PayPal to CSV, then use the Google Sheets integration to re-import the data into the correct account. That was also labor intensive because I had to manually insert a row for each PayPal fee, which created more room for user error. I did try it a couple of times but it was just a lot of work, so that's what prompted me to look around for better ways to manage PayPal...which led me to the Integrations screen which is where I discovered Zapier.
To make sure the accounting is correct, do the reconciliations against your monthly PayPal statements. Problem is...if there's multiple PayPal accounts each with transactions in them, and they don't start with the first day of the month, then the reconcile feature won't work because the starting/ending balances won't match.
Thanks much for all the input! I can see the light...
Am i doing something wrong here? it tells me that Paypal is a premium app and no longer free on Zapier. I'd like to be able to just import my credit card sales only from Paypal to Wave. I use the account for other things as well and it's just easier to not import those. is there a way to do this with the built in sync on Wave?
Did you do it from inside Wave or inside Zapier? I set it up inside Zapier. I ended up going an upgraded level of Zapier because it also allows me to connect with other apps that are useful to us. Plus we were doing too many transactions per month for the free version.
@HuskyLogic Not sure if you've seen @ARTBAR_Trish reply about, but they seem to have quite the handle on the Zapier integration with PayPal and to be quite frank... more than me for sure. One thing you can do as I've mentioned in other posts you've made is to add PayPal in the integrations section, then (in this case) deleted any unwanted transactions that import into Wave.
Ok, I just wrote a lengthy response and now it's disappeared. Was it deleted by Wave staff? @HuskyLogic you can email me at artbar.trish@gmail.com if you want to chat. I can help you with getting PayPal into Wave.
DO NOT use the PayPal integration inside Wave. It's broken.
@ARTBAR_Trish Super strange, I was just reading the post you made as well.. which I found interesting that it disappeared. I'm the only active admin currently and definitely did not delete the post. In terms of sharing PII via our forum thread, could you please send a DM to @HuskyLogic directly? Just so you don't have your email publicly shown in case of future spam.
I'm not worried about people spamming me. LOL Don't stress over it. Too bad you didn't take a screen shot of that comment @JamieD. Hey could you update the help pages to recommend Zapier instead of PayPal integration? It really would save people a lot of stress and headache to skip the PayPal integration until it's been reprogrammed.
And it would save the tech support staff a lot of time because you'd get a lot fewer emails about the PayPal integration.
@ARTBAR_Trish Hey I'm trying to do this but it says a connection to PayPal is a Premium feature and as such I would have to pay?? How did you get this for free? Thanks for your help...
@Jarman yeah you're the second person to say that. I'm not sure. Maybe I just happened onto it before they flipped it to premium? Did you sign up for the try free service? https://zapier.com/pricing
We ended up going to the premium service anyway because Zapier can help us automate so many things that it's well worth it for the paid version. Plus we had too many transactions in PayPal to qualify for the forever free version. We're now using Zapier for PayPal import, setting up new customers in Wave triggered off PayPal transactions, adding them to our MailChimp list triggered off PayPal transactions, and I'm also working next on getting the MailChimp weekly newsletter link to go out to Twitter. All using Zaps. I've also asked Venmo to get set up with Zapier so we can automate that import into Wave as well.
@ARTBAR_Trish For those of us who are tech challenged - is this a simple thing to do? I too rely primarily on paypal as i am an ebay resaler. I need the paypal sales to go into my waves. Im afraid to download a bunch of info that I dont do correctly and then have to manually remove it all (insert crying face here).