Venmo, Cash App and PayPal
Payments that go through an app confuse everyone once. The app is the road, not the destination: what the money was for decides the label.
Your workbook may look different. If there is no brown band of buttons along the top, use the Money Mastery menu in the menu bar above your workbook. The names are a little different there: Categorize is Categorize Transactions, Reports is Clarity AI & Reports, Dashboard is Open Dashboard, and Start Here is Getting Started.
Watch
Read the transcript
Welcome in. Today the payments that go through an app: Venmo, Cash App, PayPal. They confuse everyone once, and the rule is simple.
Your bank file shows a row that says Venmo, forty dollars out. The bank does not know what it was for. You do.
It was your half of dinner. Click the label box and choose Dining, like any restaurant row. Click Desire.
The next Venmo row, two hundred in. A friend paid you back for concert tickets. That is not income; it is a refund of something you paid. Click the label box and choose the same label you gave the tickets, Fun. The amount comes off that category.
The next one, you moved money from PayPal into your checking. That is your own money moving. Click the label box, open the list, and under Special Transactions choose Deposit on the checking side. If you track PayPal as an account, choose Withdrawal on the PayPal side.
If an app row has no description at all, click the memo box and type what it was.
If you take business payments through an app, a sale is business income: click t.
The app is the road, not the destination. What the money was for decides the label, not the name of the app it travelled through.
The memo you type on a Venmo row is searchable, so next year, when the bank file again says only Venmo, searching the friend's name finds every one.
Label the reason, not the app. And a move between your own accounts is a transfer. See you next time.
Welcome in. Today the payments that go through an app: Venmo, Cash App, PayPal. They confuse everyone once, and the rule is simple.
Step by step
-
Your bank file shows a row that says Venmo, forty dollars outThe bank does not know what it was for. You do.
-
It was your half of dinnerClick the label box and choose Dining, like any restaurant row. Click Desire.
-
The next Venmo row, two hundred inA friend paid you back for concert tickets. That is not income; it is a refund of something you paid. Click the label box and choose the same label you gave the tickets, Fun. The amount comes off that category.
-
The next one, you moved money from PayPal into your checkingThat is your own money moving. Click the label box, open the list, and under Special Transactions choose Deposit on the checking side. If you track PayPal as an account, choose Withdrawal on the PayPal side.
-
If an app row has no description at all, click the memo box and type what it was
-
If you take business payments through an app, a sale is business income: click t