I am spending lots of time editing PayPal CSV files and wondered if any users may be able to offer any tips.
This picture shows how the PayPal CSV is presented when downloaded. As you can see and probably already know the transaction are duplicated. IE: 2 lines for one transaction. I have to copy the PayPal Fee diagonally down to my amount column and have to do this 100’s of times now. For the life of me i cannot figure out a quicker way to copy and paste multiple PayPal fees to the amount column without messing things up, so have to copy and paste them all manually. If there is a way to avoid this i would really appreciate someone sharing.
I have not been using spreadsheets for too long and i am probably missing a simple command or something like that. I just don’t know what to search for to find an answer and hoped one of you could help? Seems so simple yet driving me crazy lol
Have you thought of using the column already present with PayPal’s fee deducted? (Column G in your example.)
You have not said what the origin of the transactions are, but it seems doubtful you are attempting to satisfy an account receivable. So you are really receiving the reduced amount.
You should also search the forum on this topic. There were some discussions (probably a couple years ago now) about importing PayPal fees.
Sorry for not explaining properly Tut, my bad. Yes i am receiving the reduce amount, will search again for more info on the forum also.
I normally in the past have kept the paypal fees with the transaction associated. To be honest, thinking a bit more about it after reading your reply, this does seem a little pointless. Still getting my head around CSV’s and keeping my own accounts.
So i could copy over column G, delete all the duplicate rows and then total the PayPal Fee column and enter it as one amount at the end of the month? Would that be correct/ok to do like that?
The only issue i could think of doing it this way is tracking down mistakes. With paypal fees entered separately and in the correct order i can always compare my running balance in manager with that in paypal and is the reason i have done this in the past. However the more i work in CSV files the less mistakes there are to track so would be much better entering it as one amount. and would also speed up the editing just like i wanted.
There is no single correct way to handle imports from payment processors like PayPal. It all depends on what information you are trying to preserve in your records versus what you have available in PayPal’s records. Summary entries are certainly valid if they meet your needs.
Also, why are you importing in CSV format rather than QIF, which is also available from PayPal? CSV is the most troublesome import format. If memory serves, the fee handling discussion I mentioned before included abilities of Manager to parse fees automatically.
Thanks for reply tut, i have only really recently stated working with CSV files as things have got busy. I have not tried QIF but will give that a try on my next import. I am also reading all the posts i can find so I’m hoping next month goes a lot smoother.
I ended up just totaling the pay-pal fees and adding them as a single entry at the end of the month. Worked out much faster. As always thanks for your input.
In the mean time if anyone does come across this post and knows how to copy the cells as requested above i would still like to know. This is because i like having the pay-pal fee right next to the associated transaction in manager. It allows for easy tracking of mistakes as the running balance will always match that in pay-pal.
Insert a new line at row one, so row one is blank.
Select the blank cells in row one for all columns except column F.
Right click on the selected cells and select Delete and you should get a dialog panel like
Select - Shift cells up
This will return all data back to their original position except for column F.
