What happens to cash sales in the Square export?

Cash, Square gift card and other non-card payments never pass through your Square balance or a Square deposit, so the converter leaves them out and gives the total for each kind. When a sale was paid partly by card, only the card part is kept. Record cash with your cash takings. A gift card payment is not new money: it came in when the card was sold, so move it from your gift card liability account to sales instead of recording it again.

Should I choose 3 columns or 4 columns?

Both import the same transactions. The 3-column file has one signed Amount, negative for money out. The 4-column file splits money in (Credit) and money out (Debit) and leaves the unused side blank, which is what Intuit asks for. Use 3 columns unless your accountant prefers the other; switch "To" in the converter to get the 4-column file.

Is the sales tax in the Square export my income?

Sales tax you collect through Square is part of the totals in the export. The converter keeps it inside the sale amount and tells you how much it is, so you can move it to a sales tax account. How to treat it is a question for whoever prepares your return.

Why does QuickBooks reject my file as too large?

Intuit documents a limit of 350 KB and 1,000 lines per manual upload in QuickBooks Online. When your converted file is bigger, the converter also gives you numbered parts that each fit; upload them one after another.

Convert a Square transactions CSV to QuickBooks Online

In short: Square's transactions CSV has one row per payment or refund with dozens of columns: gross sales, tax, tips, total collected, fees and net total, the tender used, and the deposit that paid it out. QuickBooks Online imports bank CSV files with exactly 3 columns (Date, Description, Amount) or 4 columns (Date, Description, Credit, Debit), one header row and one date format throughout. Drop the file below. It is converted on your device and never uploaded.

Convert your file

Square to QuickBooks Online (CSV)

Choose file

transactions-<start date>-<end date>.csv

Your file stays on this device

It is read and converted by this page, inside your browser. Nothing from the file is uploaded, and the converter keeps working offline once the page has loaded.

1. Export the file from Square

Sign in to the Square Dashboard on a computer.
Open Transactions and choose the date range.
Click Export and choose Transactions CSV.
Upload the downloaded file here.

Why a raw Square export fails in QuickBooks Online

Imported raw, QuickBooks Online has to be told which of the money columns is the amount, cash sales that never reached a Square deposit come in as if they had, and amounts written like "$1,234.56" are not plain numbers.

QuickBooks Online maps the first row as column names and expects every following row to be a transaction. Extra header lines, balance and total rows, currency symbols, and cells that contain only zero are common reasons an upload fails or imports wrong amounts.

What is unusual about the Square file

One row per payment or refund, newest first, with Gross Sales, Tax, Tip, Total Collected, Fees and Net Total columns.
Amounts look like "$1,234.56" and "-$184.28"; fees are negative and Net Total is Total Collected plus Fees.
Sales paid in cash, by Square gift card or another non-card tender never reach a Square deposit, so they are left out; mixed payments keep only their card part. Gift card payments are not new income: the money came in when the card was sold.
Tips and gift card sales are not sales revenue: journal entries book them to their own accounts (Tips owed to staff, Gift card liability).
A non-zero Partial Refunds cell gets a warning, because it is not confirmed whether Square also lists that refund as its own row.
Deposit ID and Deposit Date say which deposit paid each row; rows not yet deposited have none.
Dates and times are in the Square account time zone and are used as written.
The file does not name its currency; amounts are treated as US dollars unless they show pounds or euros.

What QuickBooks Online requires

Columns exactly Date, Description, Amount.
Money in is positive, money out is negative; no currency symbols or thousands separators.
One date format for the whole file.
Up to 1,000 rows and 350 KB per upload (we split bigger files).

2. Before and after

Before: the Square transactions CSV as downloaded

Date,Time,Time Zone,Gross Sales,Discounts,Service Charges,Net Sales,Gift Card Sales,Tax,Tip,Partial Refunds,Total Collected,Source,Card,Card Entry ...
2024-08-24,15:20:01,Pacific Time (US & Canada),$19.05,$0.00,$0.00,$19.05,$0.00,$0.95,$0.00,$0.00,$20.00,Point of Sale,$20.00,Tapped,$0.00,$0.00,$0....
2024-08-24,12:00:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),$15.00,$0.00,$0.00,$15.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$15.00,Point of Sale,$0.00,N/A,$15.00,$0.00,$0.00,...
2024-08-23,18:30:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),$50.00,$0.00,$0.00,$50.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$50.00,Point of Sale,$30.00,Keyed,$20.00,$0.00,$0....
2024-08-23,10:00:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),-$35.00,$0.00,$0.00,-$35.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,-$35.00,Point of Sale,-$35.00,Tapped,$0.00,$0.00...
2024-08-22,09:15:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),"$1,234.56",$0.00,$0.00,"$1,234.56",$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,"$1,234.56",Point of Sale,"$1,234.56",Ke...
2024-08-21,08:00:00,Pacific Time (US & Canada),$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,Point of Sale,$0.00,,$0.00,$0.00,$0.00,,,$0.00...

After: what QuickBooks Online receives

After: square-2024-08-22-to-2024-08-24-quickbooks-3col.csv
Date	Description	Amount
08/22/2024	HYPERLINK("http://example.invalid") - Table, oak	1234.56
08/22/2024	Fee: HYPERLINK("http://example.invalid") - Table, oak	-32.72
08/23/2024	Scarf	-35.00
08/23/2024	Lamp	30.00
08/23/2024	Fee: Lamp	-0.80
08/24/2024	Ana Placeholder - Brooch	20.00

Synthetic sample data that follows the real export layout, not a real account. The "after" output was produced from it by the same converter this page runs.

3. Import the converted file into QuickBooks Online

Go to Transactions > Bank transactions > Link account (or Update) > Upload from file.
Choose this CSV and the account to put it in.
Map the columns: Date to Date, Description to Description, Amount to Amount (one column).
Pick the date format MM/dd/yyyy (or the one you chose here) and confirm that the first row is a header.
Review the transactions under For review.

Questions

What happens to cash sales in the Square export?: Cash, Square gift card and other non-card payments never pass through your Square balance or a Square deposit, so the converter leaves them out and gives the total for each kind. When a sale was paid partly by card, only the card part is kept. Record cash with your cash takings. A gift card payment is not new money: it came in when the card was sold, so move it from your gift card liability account to sales instead of recording it again.
Should I choose 3 columns or 4 columns?: Both import the same transactions. The 3-column file has one signed Amount, negative for money out. The 4-column file splits money in (Credit) and money out (Debit) and leaves the unused side blank, which is what Intuit asks for. Use 3 columns unless your accountant prefers the other; switch "To" in the converter to get the 4-column file.
Is the sales tax in the Square export my income?: Sales tax you collect through Square is part of the totals in the export. The converter keeps it inside the sale amount and tells you how much it is, so you can move it to a sales tax account. How to treat it is a question for whoever prepares your return.
Why does QuickBooks reject my file as too large?: Intuit documents a limit of 350 KB and 1,000 lines per manual upload in QuickBooks Online. When your converted file is bigger, the converter also gives you numbered parts that each fit; upload them one after another.

Convert a Square transactions CSV to QuickBooks Online

Convert your file

Your file

1. Export the file from Square

Why a raw Square export fails in QuickBooks Online

What is unusual about the Square file

What QuickBooks Online requires

2. Before and after

Before: the Square transactions CSV as downloaded

After: what QuickBooks Online receives

3. Import the converted file into QuickBooks Online

Questions

Other ways to convert Square

Other exports to QuickBooks Online (CSV)

Common import problems