Glossary
Stripe and QuickBooks terms, defined properly
The vocabulary that decides how a Stripe payout turns into clean books. Written for the person who has to reconcile it, not for a search engine.
Undeposited Funds
Undeposited Funds is a QuickBooks holding account that keeps customer payments until you record the bank deposit that combines them, so your books match the single lump sum the bank actually shows.
Read the definitionStripe Balance Transaction
A Stripe balance transaction is Stripe’s record of a single movement of money into or out of your Stripe balance, carrying the gross amount, the fee, and the net effect on your balance.
Read the definitionAvailable vs Pending Balance
Your Stripe balance is split into pending funds, which you have earned but cannot yet pay out, and available funds, which are cleared and eligible to be sent to your bank.
Read the definitionStripe Dispute
A Stripe dispute, also called a chargeback, is a cardholder asking their bank to reverse a payment. The card network pulls the money and a fee from your Stripe balance immediately, before anyone reviews whether the claim is valid.
Read the definitionStripe Dispute Evidence
Stripe dispute evidence is the structured set of named fields you submit to challenge a chargeback. Which fields apply is decided by the cardholder’s dispute category and by what you sold, and you normally get one submission.
Read the definitionStripe Fee
A Stripe fee is an amount Stripe deducts from your balance in exchange for processing a payment or providing a service, recorded as its own balance transaction separate from the sale it relates to.
Read the definitionStripe Balance Adjustment
A Stripe balance adjustment is an addition to or deduction from your Stripe balance made outside the normal charge and refund flow, most often because a charge was disputed, a dispute was won, or a refund failed to reach the customer.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Credit Memo
A QuickBooks credit memo is a transaction that reduces what a customer owes you, either settling part of an open invoice or leaving a credit on the customer’s account, without any money leaving your bank.
Read the definitionStripe Tax
Stripe Tax is Stripe’s built-in tax engine: it calculates sales tax, VAT, and GST on your transactions based on what you sell and where your customer is, tracks when you cross registration thresholds, and produces the reports you file from.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Tax Code
A QuickBooks tax code is the label attached to a line item that tells QuickBooks which sales tax rate applies to it, which agency the tax accrues to, and how it should appear on your tax reports.
Read the definitionStripe Reserve
A Stripe reserve is a temporary hold on a portion of a business’s funds for a predetermined period, held so there is money available to cover refunds and disputes on sales that have already been paid out.
Read the definitionStripe Tax Rate
A Stripe tax rate is a stored object, identified by a `txr_` ID, that holds a fixed percentage, an inclusive or exclusive flag, and the labels shown to your customer, and that gets attached to invoice lines and subscriptions to apply tax.
Read the definitionStripe Fee Credit
A Stripe fee credit is a credit balance Stripe issues to your account, recorded as a balance transaction of type `fee_credit_funding`, that offsets Stripe fees you were previously charged.
Read the definitionStripe Credit Note
A Stripe credit note is an object that adjusts the amount of a finalized invoice downward, leaving the original invoice in place, and settles any excess as a refund, a customer balance credit, or a credit recorded outside Stripe.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Product/Service Item
A QuickBooks Product/Service item is a named entry on the Products and Services list that carries the account a transaction line posts to, so the item you choose on a sales receipt or invoice decides where the money lands in your chart of accounts.
Read the definitionStripe Payout
A Stripe payout is a batch transfer of money from your Stripe balance to your bank account, covering activity that has already happened and arriving net of fees, refunds, and disputes.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Sales Receipt
A QuickBooks sales receipt is the record for a sale where payment arrived at the same moment as the sale, so no receivable is ever created and one document closes the transaction.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Bank Deposit
A QuickBooks bank deposit is the transaction that combines payments waiting in Undeposited Funds into a single record matching the one lump sum your bank actually received.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Transfer
A QuickBooks transfer records money moving from one account you own into another account you own, with no customer, no vendor, and no effect on income or expenses.
Read the definitionStripe Authorization Hold
A Stripe authorization hold reserves funds on a customer's payment method without transferring them, so the money is unavailable to the customer but has not yet moved to you and is not yet a transaction in your books.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Refund Receipt
A QuickBooks refund receipt is a transaction that returns money to a customer, recording the cash leaving a bank account you select and reversing the items or services being refunded.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Payment
A QuickBooks payment, recorded through the Receive payment form, is the transaction that applies money from a customer against an invoice they already owe, reducing accounts receivable and increasing cash without recognizing any new income.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Expense
A QuickBooks expense is the transaction that records a business cost you have already paid, combining the cost and the payment into one document so no accounts payable balance is ever created.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Journal Entry
A QuickBooks journal entry is a manual transaction that posts debits and credits straight to accounts, without a business document like an invoice or a bill behind it.
Read the definitionStripe Financial Account
A Stripe financial account is a bank-like balance held inside your Stripe account, separate from the payments balance, that stores funds you can spend, transfer, or convert.
Read the definitionHolding Account
A holding account is the QuickBooks account that stands in for your Stripe balance: every synced sale is deposited into it, and every payout moves money out of it into your real bank account.
Read the definitionAccounts Receivable
Accounts Receivable is the QuickBooks account holding what your customers owe you for sales you have already recorded as revenue, and it exists only because the sale and the payment happened at different moments.
Read the definitionBank Feed
A bank feed is the stream of transactions QuickBooks downloads from a connected bank account, and for a business running on Stripe it shows the payout and nothing else, never the individual sales behind it.
Read the definitionDeferred Revenue
Deferred revenue is money a customer has already paid you for goods or services you have not delivered yet, which makes it a liability on your balance sheet rather than income on your profit and loss statement.
Read the definitionStripe PaymentIntent
A Stripe PaymentIntent is the object that tracks a single attempt to collect a specific amount from a customer, through every state that attempt passes through, from requiring a payment method to succeeding or being canceled.
Read the definitionStripe Checkout Session
A Stripe Checkout Session is a single, expiring instance of Stripe’s hosted payment page, created for one customer and one basket of line items, which may or may not go on to collect any money.
Read the definitionStripe SetupIntent
A Stripe SetupIntent is the object that collects and validates a customer’s payment method without charging it, so the card is ready for a payment you intend to take later.
Read the definitionStripe PaymentMethod
A Stripe PaymentMethod is the stored representation of how a customer pays, the card or bank account or wallet itself, as distinct from any single attempt to collect money with it.
Read the definitionStripe Charge
A Stripe charge is the record of a single attempt to collect a specific amount from a specific payment method, which may have succeeded, may still be settling, or may have failed.
Read the definitionStripe Refund
A Stripe refund is a separate object that returns some or all of a charge to the original payment method, carrying its own status, its own balance transaction, and its own ability to fail.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Invoice
A QuickBooks invoice is a sales form recording goods or services a customer has agreed to pay for later, which books the income now and leaves the amount owed sitting in Accounts Receivable until a separate payment record settles it.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Class Tracking
Class tracking is a QuickBooks Online feature that lets you tag transactions, or individual lines on them, with a label such as a department or product line, so the same chart of accounts can report profitability by segment.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Location Tracking
Location tracking is a QuickBooks Online feature that tags an entire transaction with a place, such as an office, region, or outlet, so a single company file can report profit and loss by site instead of being split into separate books.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Project
A QuickBooks project is a container that collects the income and costs belonging to one discrete piece of work for one customer, so you can measure whether that individual job made money.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Closing Date
The QuickBooks closing date is the cutoff you set to protect finished periods, after which changing a transaction dated on or before it requires either dismissing a warning or entering a password, depending on how you configured it.
Read the definitionStripe Invoice Line Item
A Stripe invoice line item is the individual billed unit on an invoice, an object with its own amount, quantity, pricing block and service period, which means an invoice is a collection of separately priced and separately dated items rather than one charge with a total.
Read the definitionStripe Proration
A Stripe proration is an adjustment line created when a subscription changes mid-cycle, crediting the unused part of what was already billed and debiting the remaining part at the new price, so the customer pays for what they actually used rather than for the plan they started the period on.
Read the definitionStripe Invoice Status
A Stripe invoice status is the stage an invoice has reached in its lifecycle, one of draft, open, paid, void or uncollectible, and it determines both what you are still allowed to change and what your accounting system is told to record.
Read the definitionStripe Shipping Rate
A Stripe shipping rate is a standalone, reusable object that prices delivery, carrying its own name, fixed amount, tax behaviour and tax code, which an invoice or Checkout Session then points at rather than storing the charge as one of its line items.
Read the definitionStripe Transfer
A Stripe transfer is a movement of funds from a Connect platform’s own Stripe balance into a connected account’s Stripe balance, recorded as its own object with its own balance transaction, and involving no bank account on either side.
Read the definitionStripe Mandate
A Stripe mandate is the record of a customer’s permission to debit their bank account, stored as its own object with its own status, separate from the payment method the permission applies to.
Read the definitionStripe on_behalf_of
on_behalf_of is the Stripe field that names which connected account a charge or invoice payment is really for, making that account the settlement merchant and business of record even when the platform is the one processing the payment.
Read the definitionStripe Invoice Item
A Stripe invoice item is a charge recorded against a customer before any invoice exists to carry it, holding its own amount, period and pricing until the next invoice for that customer sweeps it up and turns it into a line.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Estimate
A QuickBooks estimate is a non-posting record of a quote, bid or proposal you have given a customer, holding the customer, lines and amounts without touching the general ledger until you convert it into an invoice.
Read the definitionStripe Invoice Payment
A Stripe InvoicePayment is the object that records the mapping between a payment, such as a PaymentIntent, and the invoice it was applied to, including how much of that payment was allocated to that particular invoice.
Read the definitionStripe Invoice Payment Settings
Payment settings is the block on a Stripe invoice that decides which payment methods the customer is offered, and how the payment attempt behaves once they pick one.
Read the definitionStripe Billing Meter
A billing meter is the Stripe object that defines what usage gets counted and how those events are aggregated into the single quantity that appears on an invoice line.
Read the definitionStripe Invoice Template
An invoice rendering template is a reusable Stripe object that stores default memo, footer and custom field values, plus line item grouping rules, and applies them to every invoice it is attached to.
Read the definitionStripe Price
A Stripe Price is the object that holds the amount, currency and billing scheme for a product, and it is the rule that converts a quantity into the amount charged on an invoice line.
Read the definitionStripe Subscription Schedule
A Stripe subscription schedule is an object that automates changes to a subscription over time, holding an ordered list of phases that each set the price, quantity and billing configuration the subscription switches to when that phase begins.
Read the definitionStripe Subscription Item
A Stripe subscription item is the join between a subscription and a price, carrying its own quantity, tax rates, discounts and billing period, which makes it the object every subscription change is actually made against.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Recurring Transaction
A QuickBooks recurring transaction is a saved template that QuickBooks uses to create the same transaction again on a schedule, on a reminder, or on demand, so repeat billing and repeat entries do not have to be typed twice.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Sub-Customer
A QuickBooks sub-customer is a customer record nested under another customer, so a group of related entities can each keep their own transactions and balance while still rolling up to one relationship.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Audit Log
The QuickBooks audit log is the file-wide record of changes made in your company file, capturing who made each change, what changed and when, including changes written by connected apps rather than by people.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Bank Rule
A QuickBooks bank rule is a saved instruction that watches transactions arriving from your bank feed and, when one meets the conditions you set, fills in the category, payee and other details for you, or posts the transaction outright if you tell it to.
Read the definitionStripe Subscription Status
A Stripe subscription status is the field that says whether Stripe still intends to bill a customer, running from incomplete through active, past_due and unpaid to canceled, and it changes independently of whether any particular invoice has been paid.
Read the definitionStripe Mixed Interval Subscription
A Stripe mixed interval subscription is one subscription whose items carry prices with different recurring intervals, so each item keeps its own billing period and the subscription no longer has a single cycle.
Read the definitionStripe Trial Settings
Stripe trial settings are the subscription fields that decide what happens when a free trial ends, and the one that does the work is trial_settings.end_behavior.missing_payment_method, which chooses between creating an invoice, pausing the subscription, and canceling it when no payment method was ever attached.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Payment Terms
Payment terms in QuickBooks are named records on the Terms list, each holding a rule for when payment is due, and selecting one on an invoice is what produces that invoice’s due date.
Read the definitionStripe Pending Update
A Stripe pending update is a subscription change that has been requested but not applied, parked in a pending_update hash on the subscription until the invoice it generated is paid, and discarded if that payment never succeeds.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Tags
Tags are customizable tracking labels in QuickBooks Online that let you monitor areas of your business without affecting the general ledger, and Intuit is retiring them in favour of custom fields, with reporting on existing tags ending in May 2028.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Credit Card Credit
A QuickBooks credit card credit is the transaction you enter when a vendor refunds a purchase directly to a credit card you own, reversing the original expense and reducing the balance on that card account.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Vendor Credit
A QuickBooks vendor credit records an amount a vendor owes back to you when you track expenses using bills, reducing your accounts payable balance immediately and reducing cash only later, when you apply it to a bill payment.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Bill
A QuickBooks bill is the purchase form that records what you owe a vendor before you pay them, creating an accounts payable balance that stays on your books until a separate bill payment settles it.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Delayed Charge
A QuickBooks delayed charge is a non-posting record of something you intend to bill a customer later, holding the customer, lines and amounts without touching your books until you pull it onto an invoice.
Read the definitionStripe Billing Mode
Billing mode is a per-subscription setting, either classic or flexible, that controls how Stripe calculates prorations, usage and invoices for that subscription.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Billable Expense
A QuickBooks billable expense is a cost you record against a customer and flag for recharge, so that the amount waits until someone builds that customer an invoice and pulls it on.
Read the definitionStripe Customer Cash Balance
A Stripe customer cash balance holds real money a customer has sent you by bank transfer that has not yet been matched to an invoice or a PaymentIntent, and which you can either apply to a future payment or return to their bank.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Purchase Order
A QuickBooks purchase order is a record of what you have committed to buy from a vendor, holding the vendor, items and quantities without changing any account balance until you receive the goods and turn it into a bill or an expense.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Opening Balance
An opening balance is the amount an account held on the day you started tracking it in QuickBooks, recorded as a transaction dated to that day with the offsetting side posted to Opening Balance Equity.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Account Type
Account type is the field that tells QuickBooks how to track an account and which financial statement it belongs on; detail type is a sub-category under it that Intuit says does not affect the accounting.
Read the definitionQuickBooks Sales Tax Center
The Sales Tax Center is the module in QuickBooks Online that holds your sales tax rates, tells you what each agency is owed, and records the payments you make against those returns.
Read the definitionStripe Webhook
A Stripe webhook is an HTTPS endpoint you register with Stripe so that Stripe can POST an Event object to it whenever something changes in your account, which is how any accounting integration learns that a charge, refund, or payout happened without polling for it.
Read the definitionStripe Metadata
Stripe metadata is a set of key-value pairs you can attach to most Stripe objects to carry your own information, such as an internal order ID or a product category, which Stripe stores and returns but never acts on itself.
Read the definitionStripe Outbound Payment
A Stripe outbound payment is a disbursement of funds from your Stripe financial account to an external recipient such as a vendor, contractor or affiliate, without the recipient needing a Stripe account of their own.
Read the definitionStripe Received Credit
A Stripe received credit is an object representing funds arriving in your Stripe financial account balance from an external source, most often a bank transfer over rails such as ACH, wire or RTP.
Read the definitionStripe Outbound Transfer
A Stripe outbound transfer is a movement of funds from your Stripe financial account balance to an external bank account or financial institution owned by the same Stripe account holder, which means the money stays yours and simply changes location.
Read the definitionStripe Inbound Transfer
A Stripe inbound transfer moves money from an external bank account you own into your Stripe financial account by debiting that bank account over the ACH network, which funds the balance rather than earning it.
Read the definitionStripe Received Debit
A Stripe received debit is a record of money being pulled out of your Stripe financial account by a process you did not send, most often a purchase on a Stripe-issued card, but also an ACH debit or a top-up into your payments balance.
Read the definitionStripe Payout Method
A Stripe payout method is the destination an outbound movement of money is sent to. The phrase covers two different things in Stripe’s API: a field on the classic payout object that holds the ID of a financial account, and a separate PayoutMethod object in Stripe’s money management API that represents a bank account, card or crypto wallet.
Read the definitionStripe Financial Account Transaction
A financial account transaction is the ledger row Stripe writes for every movement of money into or out of a financial account, recording how much the balance changed, which sub-balance it changed, and whether the movement has settled.
Read the definitionStripe Financial Address
A financial address is the set of banking credentials attached to a Stripe financial account, such as an account number and routing number, that lets someone outside Stripe send money into that account.
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