Donation bookkeeping

The Balean platform is all about funding and donations. When donations have been made on a specific project for a specific organization, then Balean will mark this donation as such and pay out accordingly. Organizations are obliged to spend the money on the project that the donation was made for.

Donations are payed on a quarterly bases over the past quarter. To keep transaction cost at bay, we only pay out when the total amount due is € 50,- or more.

When people make donations, two scenarios may apply: direct donations to Balean or a donation to a project on the platform.

For direct donations, the amount donated is directly available to Balean to pay operational cost.

With donations to a project on the platform, a single donation can consist of the following items:

  1. The actual donation to the project
  2. An optional tip for the Balean Foundation
  3. An optional reimbursement for Balean in the transaction cost.

Our bookkeeping should make it crystal clear which many is donated for what purpose.

Bookkeeping ledger accounts

To keep track on where the money goes, the following ledger accounts have been created:

  1. Bank account - for all bank transactions
  2. Stripe Clearing account - for all Stripe transactions
  3. Donations Payable balance account - For donations to which a claim is entitled
  4. Transaction cost reimbursement balance account - For reimbursement payments and the payments on transaction costs
  5. Payment Processing Costs - For all Stripe transaction fee invoices and bank account costs
  6. Revenue via Balean Platform profit/loss account - For all direct donations to Balean and the Balean tips

Booking Stripe Transactions in Bookkeeping

To make the bookkeeping as clear and concise as possible, all transactions via Stripe will be booked in our bookkeeping software.

When a donation is made to Stripe, the transaction must be booked in the following way:

  1. Enter a booking via “Afschrift/bonnetjes”
  2. Choose “Payment received” (“Geld ontvangen”) as booking type
  3. Choose the Stripe Clearing Account
  4. Select the date of the transaction and put as description: Payment ID: <Stripe payment ID> (can be found on the transaction details).
  5. Then add lines for the following entries:
    • For direct donations to Balean: add the amount and Revenue via Balean Platform ledger account. Set the description to: Direct sponsoring
    • For donations to internal projects: add the amount and Revenue via Balean Platform ledger account. Add the correct cost center for the internal project.
    • For donations to external projects: add the amount and Donations Payable ledger account. Add the correct cost center for the internal project.
    • For tips for Balean: add the amount and Revenue via Balean Platform ledger account. Set the description to: Tip for Balean
    • For transaction costs: add the amount and Transaction cost reimbursement ledger account.
  6. Save the booking

NOTE some transactions may be split into 3 different lines for the donation, tip and transaction fee.

Validate Stripe vs. Bookkeeping

To validate if all transactions in Stripe are actually booked, you can compare the following:

  1. From the Stripe dashboard, open the Transaction overview.
  2. From e-boekhouden:
    • Go to overview (Overzichten) and the Mutations (Mutaties)
    • In the search filter, select “Geld ontvangen” for booking type
    • Optionally add “Payment ID” as description
    • Check the box at “Uitgebreid zoeken” and click search.

Export donation balance sheet

We use Stripe as the platform to handle payments. We pay out donations from Stripe to our bank account before we pay them to the organizations to which the money is entitled. To keep track of the money, we need a balance sheet to back the Stripe transaction.

Download the balance sheet from Stripe:

  1. In the Stripe dashboard, go to transactions
  2. Click on Export
  3. Select a custom date range that matches the range of the previous export
  4. Select the following columns: ID, Amount, Fee, Created date (UTC), Currency
  5. After clicking Export the file is generated and then downloaded.

Load it into Google Sheets:

  1. Open the finance spreadsheet
  2. Create a new tab
  3. Rename the new tab to have the date of the recent export.
  4. Import the data from the exported stripe csv in the current sheet
  5. Add the following columns based on the Payload backend:
    • Donation - Main amount donated
    • Balean projects - Copy from previous column if it was a Balean internal project
    • Balean donation - Main amount donated directly to Balean
    • Tip - Tip for Balean
    • Transaction_cost - Transaction cost reimbursement donation
    • Total - The sum of the colums Donation, Balean donation, Tip and Transaction_cost
    • Project - The name of the project as listed in Payload
  6. For each of the following columns, add a “SUM” row at the bottom: Amount, Fee, Donation, Balean projects, Balean donation, Tip, Transaction_costandTotal`.
  7. Copy the 9 rows below the balance sheet table (the totals and calculation fields) to the new sheet and adjust the calculations as follows:
    • Donations Payable: Total of Donation -/- Total of Balean projects
    • Balean direct sponsoring: Total of Balean donation + Total of Tip
    • Balean project sponsoring: Total of Balean projects
    • Transaction cost: -(Total of Fee)
    • Transaction cost reimbursements: Total of Transaction_cost
    • Revenue via Balean Platform: Total of Balean projects + Total of Balean donation+ Total ofTip`
    • Amount on bankaccount: Total of Amount -/- Total of Fee
    • The list of projects are calculated based on the Project column and the Donation column with the formula SUMIF(Project_range; "="&prev_cell;Donation_range)
  8. Checks to perform on the sheet:
    • The Transaction cost line should be a negative number and the total of all Stripe invoices of the same period.
    • The total of the Stripe payout (Amount on bankaccount) is Donations Payable + Transaction cost + Transaction cost reimbursements + Revenue via Balean Platform.
    • The total Amount from Stripe export should equal: Donations Payable + Transaction cost reimbursements + Revenue via Balean Platform
    • The Revenue via Balean Platform should equal: Balean direct sponsoring + Balean project sponsoring
  9. Save the sheet as PDF to use in bookkeeping.

Booking the Stripe payout in Bookkeeping

When you create a payout from Stripe to the bank account, the transaction must be booked into the books. When Stripe pays out an amount, it means that the money transfers from the Stripe Clearing Account to the Bank Account. This is not a direct booking but needs to go through cross-entries. See this manual for instructions.

Transaction costs

Stripe deducts transaction fees from the payouts. Stripe then sends an invoice for these fees. Apart from the Stripe fees for each payment via the platform, the bank also charges fees for each transaction we pay.

To properly book this, do the following:

  1. Book the Stripe invoice as a regular invoice. Book the fees under Payment Processing Costs
  2. To book the open invoice, go to “Afschift/bonnetjes” and choose “Invoice payment sent” as the booking type. Then book the Stripe invoice against the Stripe Clearing Account, since the fees are paid directly from that account.
  3. When bank costs are deducted from the bank account, book that transaction also under Payment Processing Costs.
  4. When costs have been booked, book a memorial booking from Transaction cost reimbursement to Payment Processing Costs to balance out the costs and reimburse it.

Payout donations

When paying donations to the account receivable, a donation overview document must be created and attached to the transaction. Donations are not booked against Accounts Receivable but are booked directly against Donations Payable.

Creating a donation overview document via e-boekhouden

  1. Each transaction is booked on a cost center. To create a donation overview document, go to the cost center for the project, select the period and download the CSV.
  2. Import the CSV file into the “Cost centre export” tab of this spreadsheet.
    • Make sure that the project and organisation details are properly filled in on the “Projects” tab. This will then automatically fill in the correct data in the “Receipt” tab.
  3. Transfer the money by bank to the organization. Use the project name for which the donation was made and the reference number from the spreadsheet above. Link the payment to the cost center of the project.
    • The reference number is the combination of the Relation ID in e-boekhouden and a counter that is increased by one after each payout.
  4. When all details are correct, download the receipt PDF via File -> Download.
    1. Sent the receipt PDF to the organisation that receives the donation.
    2. Link the exported receipt to the transaction in bookkeeping (See next step).
    3. Increase the “Transaction ID” field on the “Projects” tab in the spreadsheet by one.
  5. When the bank transaction is visible in the bookkeeping software, book it as follows:
    • Select Money spend (Geld uitgegeven) as the type
    • Use the receipt reference number for the booking description
    • Book the entire amount against Donations Payable

Last modified June 16, 2026: Resolve "Balean finance donation loggin" (a3577e2)