Tracking Square Transaction Amounts, Fees, Tips and Sales Tax via Zapier Integration

seanmsmitty

I'm currently building out a Zap in Zapier to import transaction amounts, fees, tips, and sales tax from Square into Wave.

In Wave, I've created a "Square Clearing Account" under the "Money In Transit" category of our chart of accounts to account for the transactions processed in Square.

My plan is to have Zapier enter the Square transaction into the "Square Clearing Account" and split/assign the fees, Tips, and Sales Tax in Wave, then categorize the bank deposit as a transfer from the "Square Clearing Account" when it deposits into our bank account so as to not show double the revenue in our P&L and Balance Sheet reports.

In Zapier, when setting up the Zap I can set up the "Income Category", "Processing Fee", and "Sales Tax" (although Square does not appear to send sales tax data with the transaction data).

Square does send "Tip" data, but there is no option to add or track tips in Wave that I can see when setting up the Zap.

My question is this, how can I set up the integration with Square and Wave so I can successfully and accurately track the transaction amounts, processing fees, tips, and sales tax for accurate accounting and bookkeeping purposes?

PaulC

Hi @seanmsmitty,

What you are suggesting with regards to having a Square Clearing Account and then recording the square Payout as a transfer is exactly correct.

Our Record Sale Zapier action is designed to capture simple totals and, as you observe, does not split out tips, fees etc. The only options I can suggest are:

1. If Zapier lets you apply two actions on a Square payment, can you write the Sales Income and Tip Income in two transactions?, or
2. If you have some development skills, or can find a developer to do this for you, you could consider using a Zapier Code Step to directly target Wave's API. Using the MoneyTransactionCreate endpoint, you would be able to split in deposit across multiple Income categories as you are suggesting.

I hope one of those options is feasible for you.

seanmsmitty

Hi @PaulC, Thanks for your reply.

Zapier does allow me to create multiple actions in any manner I want. The issue with doing so that I can see is that I can't split the transaction using multiple actions in Zapier before creating it in Wave.

For example, I can create a multi-action Zap that pulls the data from Square, which only sends the sale amount, processing fee, and tip amount along with the customer details, then create the transaction in Wave.

But that wouldn't work since the sale amount sent to Wave from Square is the total for the transaction from Square that includes the subtotal and tip, so writing multiple transactions is not an option as the Tip money would be counted twice.

The only option is to code it as you suggested. I am a developer and could get it done, but I'm faced with another issue...

For accurate accounting and tax purposes, I need to track the service amount, retail product amount, tip amount, and sales tax (which it appears Square does not send).

I'll have to have a closer look at both the Wave API and Square API to see if I can code something.

PaulC

Hi @seanmsmitty,
In most industries, the Tip is non-taxable. Therefore, you would send to Wave:

• Transaction amount: the actual charge amount, assigned to the 'Money in Transit' account;
• Service amount as a line item, with the tax associated to that line item;
• Tip as a line item, with no tax.
  Does that work in your application?

seanmsmitty

@PaulC thanks for the steps. That is what I have done, but the Zap editor only allows me to add one Income Category. It'd be nice if I could click a "+" to add another line item to the Income Category field in the Zap editor.

I've sent a support request to Zapier to see if they can help me get further on it.

I've got the Zap somewhat working. As it is now, it creates the transaction in the "Money in Transit" account I've set up with the Transaction amount categorized as a Service and Square Fees assigned to the Merchant Account Fee category.

For now, I have to manually edit the transaction to add the Tip Income and retail product amounts to it if any to ensure all income is accounted for properly. At least until I can get something coded to handle it all.

PaulC

You're right @seanmsmitty . Only the single income line is possible using standard Zapier Record Sale action. With a code step, however, you can break this down as much as you want.