Shopify payout close guide
Shopify Payments Balance transactions versus Orders exports
The two exports answer different questions. Balance transactions explain money moving through Shopify Payments. Orders provide the sales-side detail needed to classify ordinary order activity. Neither file proves the bank deposit by itself.
Reviewed September 17, 2026
What the Balance transactions export contributes
Shopify documents transaction date, type, order reference, payout status and date, amount, fee, and net fields in the merchant export. Those rows are the payment-processor activity source: they support fee totals, payout groupings, and the movement through a Shopify Payments clearing account.
The export does not establish that a deposit reached the bank. It also should not be treated as a complete accounting policy: refunds, disputes, reserves, and other exception types still need the source-specific review that their evidence supports.
What the Orders export contributes
The Orders export supplies order-side sales detail such as order identity and customer-facing totals. A close uses that evidence to connect ordinary Shopify Payments activity to the sales, shipping, discount, and tax roles represented in the journal draft.
Orders can include payment methods or situations outside the narrow Shopify Payments scope. Filter by evidence, not by assumption, and do not force unmatched rows into a convenient payout.
Why both still need controls
A reviewable month compares source-derived activity with the activity report, payout details, the opening and closing Shopify Payments balances, and exact bank evidence. This catches missing rows, wrong periods, unresolved transfers, and offsetting errors that a single total can hide.
- Export both CSVs for the same store and reporting month.
- Record the activity-report totals and opening/closing balances from the reviewed Shopify view.
- Record each settled payout detail and its transfer reference where available.
- Tie each bank receipt to an independently observed bank line before calling it verified.
What Shopify Payout Close does
The browser tool preserves the two sources separately, applies exact-cent controls, shows source references and exceptions, and prepares a QBO Canada journal draft only after blocking evidence issues are resolved. It does not log in to Shopify, inspect your ledger, choose tax policy, post to QBO, or certify that the month is complete.