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Workflow · Merchant payouts

One deposit, every sale behind it, booked right.

Stripe, Square and Helcim payouts get split into sales, refunds and fees, matched to the deposit on the bank line, and settled against open invoices where they belong.

For the bookkeeper whose clients take cards, and who spends hours each month turning one-line deposits back into the sales, refunds and fees they came from.

A single bank deposit is broken into sales, refunds and fees, and the sales are settled against open invoices before one plan goes to review.

The job today

A client takes cards. Every few days a deposit lands in the bank: “STRIPE TRANSFER 1,842.17.” That number is not revenue. It is gross sales, minus refunds, minus the processor’s fees, minus a dispute from last month, plus a sales tax and tip component if it came from Square. Booking it as one deposit to Sales overstates nothing on a good day and understates fees all year.

So you open the processor’s dashboard in another tab, find the payout, export the transactions, and rebuild the deposit in QuickBooks: a line for sales, a negative line for refunds, a negative line for fees, maybe sales tax payable and tips. Then you do it again for the next payout. For a busy café that is twenty a month. For a client on three locations it is more.

It gets harder when the client invoices. A card charge might be payment on an invoice that is already open in QuickBooks, or a payment someone already recorded by hand. Book that charge as a sale and income is counted twice. And some processors do not deposit what they batch: Helcim settles card batches days later, sometimes several in one deposit, and takes its fees as separate debits. Nobody notices the clearing account drifting until the balance sheet looks wrong at year-end.

With Zeno

A person connects the processor to the client on the Connections page in Zeno: Stripe and Square by signing in, Helcim with an API token. Then Zeno reads the payouts itself.

For Stripe and Square, each payout becomes a deposit split into its parts. Stripe: sales, refunds, disputes, fees and adjustments. Square adds sales tax, tips and loan repayments, across every location. Each deposit is matched to the bank line it caused, so the bank line and the payout post as one entry instead of two.

Charges are settled before they become sales. By default, Zeno checks each charge against the books: an existing undeposited payment is linked to the deposit; an open invoice gets a payment applied to it, then deposited; anything else is a sale. When a charge could be one of several invoices, it stays a sale with a note naming the candidates. Zeno does not guess. Your AI sees every transaction and what Zeno proposed for it, and can direct an ambiguous one to the right invoice. A client whose charges are all retail sales can be set to skip the invoice matching.

For Helcim, Zeno books through a clearing account, because that is how the money actually moves. Each card batch goes into clearing as a deposit. Each Helcim transfer on the bank comes out of clearing, matched to the run of batches it carried. Helcim’s fee debits go to fees as they come off the bank, except one that looks too large against recent sales, which is held for you to look at. When it is all posted, the clearing account sits at what is still in transit, which is the number it should show.

Everything arrives as a plan. You read it, trim it, and approve it; nothing posts before that. And the built-in merchant clearing check tells you, for any client, which clearing accounts have not washed to zero.

What your AI brings from elsewhere

The processor’s own data reaches Zeno directly. What your AI can add comes from the other things it is connected to.

Those come through your AI and its connectors, not through Zeno. Zeno reads Stripe, Square and Helcim, and the bank.

Where it stops

Zeno never moves money and never touches the processor account. A Helcim payout is not sent to Zeno on Windows; its clearing model is cloud only for now. And a charge Zeno cannot settle with confidence stays a sale with a note until a person decides.

What to ask

Start with one of these.

You ask“Book Harbor Coffee's Square payouts for October.”

You getEach payout split into sales, sales tax, tips, refunds and fees, matched to the deposit on the bank line, as one plan to review.

You ask“Show me what's inside Northwind's Stripe payout from the 12th, and which charges paid open invoices.”

You getEvery transaction in the payout with the settlement Zeno proposes for each, an existing payment, an open invoice or a sale, and why. Ambiguous ones say which candidates they could be.

You ask“Plan Lakeside Dental's Helcim batches and the transfers on the bank for September.”

You getBatches booked into the clearing account, each bank transfer matched to the run of batches it carried, and Helcim's fee debits to fees, all in one plan.

You ask“Is the merchant clearing account washing to zero?”

You getThe check reads every Square, Stripe, Shopify and similar clearing account and shows the ones carrying a balance, with the transactions behind it.

What stays yours

The judgment doesn’t move.

Zeno prepares, checks and records. These stay with the person whose name is on the work.

  • Whether a client's card charges are sales or invoice payments
  • Which invoice an ambiguous charge actually paid
  • What to do with a disputed charge or an unusual fee
  • Approving the plan before anything posts
Other workflows

The rest of the month.

Bank and card codingFamiliar vendors coded by confirmed rules, existing entries matched, transfers paired, and the unclear lines held back with a question.Bills and payablesBills read from the inbox, vendors matched, duplicates flagged, statements checked against open bills, and a list of what is due, ready to pay.Receipts and expense claimsMatch receipts to card charges, let cardholders explain their own spending, and approve claims and postings in batches.CollectionsA live aging, the payments that never got applied, and reminder drafts in your own voice, before anyone gets chased for money they already paid.Month-end closeThe same checks and written steps for every client, fixes as plans you approve, and a log of what is still open.BudgetingDraft the budget from live actuals plus the hires, leases and price changes already in the client’s files, then track the year against it.Job costingCosts tagged to the right project and class as they are coded, so a job's numbers are right while there is still time to act on them.Stock countsThe count sheet becomes one reviewed inventory adjustment, with every difference worked out and every odd line flagged before it posts.Catch-up and cleanupBehind or badly kept books brought current: a check-up first, missing months from statements, corrections in reversible batches.Client questionsQuestions drafted from the books, sent by a person, answered by link or email reply, and filed beside the line they were about.Year-end packageThe package the tax preparer asks for, from live reports, with assets, loans, draws and 1099 vendors checked before it goes.

Stripe in the docs → · Square in the docs → · Helcim in the docs → · How bank lines arrive →

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