Accounting Overview

Below is an overview of the key records created by the integration and how they affect the general ledger.

The integration eliminates manual accounting workflows, and provides a level of detail impossible with a home-grown or manual system.

In addition to eliminating expensive custom NetSuite development, here are the core benefits of the integration for the finance team:

  • Creating customers and invoices, creating entries for income and accounts receivable. When using subscriptions, invoice line items have revenue recognition data provided by Stripe. SuiteSync also supports connecting to invoices (or orders) created by other systems.
  • Payments and refunds are applied to the corresponding invoices and credit memos, eliminating manual cash application work.
  • The entire dispute (chargebacks) lifecycle is tied into NetSuite. The income, cash, fees, etc associated with a dispute which you win or lose is completely automated.
  • Bank reconciliation is automated on the transaction-level. Deposits are created daily containing the amount and date of the deposit from Stripe to your bank. Stripe fees are calculated and post to unique GL accounts. The deposits created by the integration will match the amount and date of the Stripe deposits to your bank, completely automating the bank reconciliation workflow

Below is an overview of the key records created by the integration and how they affect the general ledger. This overview represents the majority of integration configurations. Depending on which workflow you are using, there are slight differences.

General Ledger Impact

Stripe record When this record is created in Stripe Result in NetSuite
Invoice

An Invoice is created automatically by Stripe at the beginning of each Subscription billing period.

If you are an eCommerce company this record is not created by SuiteSync.

Invoice created

GL impact:

  • Debit: Accounts Receivable
  • Credit: Income
Charge

Charges are created through the Stripe API, or through the dashboard.

If you are using Stripe Subscriptions a, Charge is created automatically by Stripe when an Invoice is created, at the beginning of each Subscription billing period.

CustomerPayment created, applied against the relevant NetSuite Invoice. Note that CustomerDeposits will function differently.

GL impact:

  • Debit: Undeposited Funds
  • Credit: Accounts Receivable
Refund

Refunds are issued through the API the Stripe dashboard. They can also be [created from NetSuite](/docs/netsuite-refund)

  1. CreditMemo created, applied to the Invoice.

    GL impact:

    • Debit: Income
    • Credit: Accounts Receivable

  2. CustomerRefund created, applied to the CreditMemo.

    GL impact:

    • Debit: Accounts Receivable
    • Credit: Undeposited Funds
Dispute A Dispute is created automatically when submitted by your customer to their bank.

  1. CreditMemo created, applied to the Invoice.

    GL impact:

    • Debit: Income
    • Credit: Accounts Receivable

  2. CustomerRefund created, applied to the CreditMemo.

    GL impact:

    • Debit: Accounts Receivable
    • Credit: Undeposited Funds
Transfer

A Transfer is created automatically when Stripe sends funds to your bank account. The equivalent record in NetSuite is a Deposit.

Deposit created, reconciled against all transactions included in the Stripe Transfer (e.g., CustomerPayments, CustomerRefunds, Fees, etc.). All underlying transactions are marked as 'Deposited'. This deposit will automate any manual bank reconciliation work that is normally required.

GL impact:

  • Debit:
    • Checking: Net Deposit amount
    • Expenses: Stripe fees
    • Expenses: Dispute fees (if applicable)
  • Credit:
    • Undeposited Funds: Net transaction amount (payment, refunds)
    • Expenses: Stripe fee refunds
    • Expenses: Stripe dispute fee refunds

Next Steps

Here's some additional information on how the integration works:

  1. How Automatic Bank Reconciliation Works
  2. Stripe Subscriptions & NetSuite Revenue Recognition