Square bookkeeping for sellers who run POS and online together
Square nets its fees before the money lands, deducts loan repayments off the top, and blends your counter sales with your website. We keep all three straight, in your own QuickBooks file.
Square is the rare platform that runs a retail counter, an online store, invoices and a lending product through one account, which is convenient everywhere except your books. The deposit that hits your bank has already absorbed processing fees, instant-transfer charges and a slice of your Square loan, and no bank feed will ever untangle that for you.
We rebuild Square activity from its transaction and transfer reports: gross sales by channel, fees broken out, loan repayments split correctly, cash sales reconciled to actual deposits. If you've searched for Square bookkeeping services or an accountant who actually understands Square Loans, that's the specific service on this page, monthly, in a QuickBooks file you own.
Whether you searched for an accountant for Square sellers, outsourced Square bookkeeping, or online bookkeeping that reconciles POS and web sales together, this is that practice.
The Square-specific accounting traps
Fees netted before deposit
Square takes roughly 2.6% plus 10 cents on card-present sales and 2.9% plus 30 cents online, deducted before payout. Book deposits as revenue and you understate sales by your entire processing cost, which on $60,000 a month is around $1,700 of invisible expense, every month.
Instant transfers scrambling reconciliation
Instant and same-day transfers carry their own fee and break the tidy one-deposit-per-day pattern: three partial transfers on a busy Saturday, each net of different activity. Books that match deposits to days stop reconciling. Books built from Square's transfer reports don't care.
Square loan repayments hiding in payouts
Square Loans collects a fixed percentage of daily card sales before you're paid. Sellers routinely book the reduced deposits as revenue, which understates sales and hides the repayment entirely. Worse, the repayment isn't an expense: principal reduces the loan liability and only the fixed fee portion is a financing cost. Booked wrong, both your P&L and your balance sheet lie.
One 'Square' number hiding two businesses
A retail counter doing $45,000 a month and an online store doing $15,000 have different margins, different fees and different growth stories. Blended into one income line, you can't see that one is funding the other. We split POS from online so each channel shows its own P&L.
What we do every month
- Square transfers rebuilt to gross sales, fees and adjustments
- Processing fees broken out by channel and card type
- Instant-transfer fees tracked separately
- Square Loans split: principal to liability, fees to financing cost
- POS vs online channel P&L
- Cash sales reconciled from drawer to deposit
- Sales tax collected kept out of revenue
- Books closed by the 10th business day in your own QuickBooks
Square Capital and Square Loans, booked right
The loan is where Square books most often go wrong. Proceeds arrive and get booked as income; repayments vanish inside reduced payouts; a year later the P&L shows phantom revenue and no financing cost, and the balance sheet shows no loan at all. The correct pattern is simple once set up: proceeds credit a loan liability, each day's withholding splits between principal and the fixed fee, and your books always show exactly what you still owe. That number matters, because Square's repayment eats your daily cash flow and lenders will ask about it.
Cash sales, the part software can't see
Retail Square sellers take cash, and cash recorded in the POS never appears in a Square deposit. If nobody reconciles the drawer to the bank, cash sales drift: recorded but never deposited, deposited but never recorded, or quietly spent on supplies. We reconcile POS-recorded cash against actual bank deposits monthly, which keeps revenue complete and keeps the IRS conversation boring. For a business with real cash volume, this is the control that matters most.
Closed by day 10, or 50% off
Your prior month is reconciled and delivered by the 10th business day, guaranteed in writing. Miss it and that month's fee is half price. No competitor guarantees anything.
You own your books
We work inside your QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite file, not ours. Leave any time and everything stays with you, diligence history included.
Exit-grade, always
Accrual books with landed-cost COGS and a maintained addback schedule. If a buyer or lender called tomorrow, your books would be ready.
Published pricing, no lock-in
Our full rate card is on the website and engagements run month-to-month. Every ecommerce-exclusive competitor hides pricing behind a sales call. We don't.
Square bookkeeping FAQs
Does Square integrate with QuickBooks?
There's an official connector, and like most per-transaction syncs it posts noisy data that's hard to reconcile, especially with instant transfers and loan withholding in the mix. We post summary-level entries from Square's own reports instead: cleaner file, penny-perfect reconciliation, and the loan handled correctly.
How should Square loan repayments be recorded?
Proceeds as a loan liability, never income. Daily withholding splits between principal (reducing the liability) and the fixed fee (a financing cost). Your books then show true revenue, true financing cost and the real remaining balance, which is what a lender or buyer will want to see.
Can you split my retail location from my online store?
Yes, that's standard setup: POS and online each get their own revenue and fee tracking, so you see each channel's real margin. Multiple locations work the same way.
My Square deposits never match my sales reports. Why?
Because deposits are net of processing fees, instant-transfer fees, refunds, chargebacks and any loan withholding, and transfer timing crosses days. The fix isn't staring harder at the bank feed; it's books built from Square's transfer and transaction reports, where every deposit ties out to the penny.
How much does Square bookkeeping cost?
From $1,250/mo at the $100K-$250K monthly revenue tier, with the rate card public on our pricing page, month-to-month. That covers the full Square rebuild: fees broken out, loans split correctly, POS and online separated, cash reconciled. Smaller sellers can start on our Books Lite tier at $149 to $249 a month.
Do I need a bookkeeper for my Square business?
If you run POS plus online, take cash, or have a Square loan outstanding, yes. Each of those is a place where deposits-as-revenue bookkeeping fails silently, and a loan booked wrong misstates the P&L and the balance sheet at the same time. A bookkeeper who rebuilds from Square's reports keeps all three honest.
Does Square send a 1099-K?
Yes, reporting gross card sales, while your deposits arrive net of processing fees, instant-transfer charges, refunds and any loan withholding. Cash sales add a second gap, since they never touch a Square deposit at all. Books rebuilt from Square's reports tie the 1099-K, the POS and the bank together, which is the January you want.
How do I record Square sales in QuickBooks?
Summarized entries from Square's transfer reports: gross sales by channel, fees, refunds, loan withholding split between principal and financing cost, with deposits clearing the balance. The official connector posts per-transaction noise that breaks down once instant transfers and loans enter the picture, so we post from the reports instead.
Can you catch up my Square books?
Yes. Square's transaction and transfer history covers everything a rebuild needs, including historical loan withholding, which is usually where DIY books went wrong first. Flat quote, one to three weeks for most projects, and if there's a loan involved we reconstruct the liability so it finally matches what Square says you owe.
Cash or accrual for a Square seller?
Accrual if you carry inventory, which most retail Square sellers do, and it handles the loan correctly: withholding splits between liability and financing cost instead of vanishing into net deposits. A pure service business on Square can defensibly run cash-basis. We'll tell you which fits, not just default to habit.
We'll do last month's books free, and show you what your bookkeeper missed
The free Ecommerce Books Audit: connect read-only access and within 3 business days you get a clean month of books plus a 10-minute recorded teardown of every margin leak, COGS error and sales-tax risk we found. Keep it all, even if you never hire us.
- ✓ Books closed by day 10, guaranteed in writing
- ✓ Everything stays in your QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite file
- ✓ Published pricing, month-to-month, no lock-in