Wave Payments: a bank payout is not another sale

For Wave online invoice payments, the later bank payout is a transfer from Wave Payments, not another sale. If several invoice payments form one payout, compare the payout’s constituent payments before treating the bank deposit as new income.

This guide concerns Wave’s documented online-payments bookkeeping in a US business. It does not assume that every manually marked invoice or external processor deposit follows that workflow. LocalExtract can prepare CSV from a PDF source, but it cannot retrieve Wave payout composition.

Trace the invoice payment through Money in Transit

Wave’s online-payment bookkeeping guide distinguishes the invoice income in the Wave Payments Money in Transit account from the bank-side transfer. Bank transactions must be imported through a connection or statement upload for the automatic bank-side process described there.

A bank payout can summarize several invoice payments. Use the payout detail to identify the payments included, rather than expecting a separate bank row for each invoice. The invoice payment date and bank payout date are different events in that trail.

Retain the invoice-payment references, payout reference and posted bank movement. Where an Instant Payout has a separate fee record, inspect that record too. An unexplained shortfall is not proof of a fee, and the gross invoice total is not automatically the correct bank-deposit amount.

Inspect an existing payout before creating a new record

If a transfer is missing, Wave documents opening Transactions, finding the payout deposit and choosing Transfer to a Bank, Credit Card or Loan, then Wave Payments. Saving the supported categorization creates the corresponding transfer side.

Check whether that deposit and transfer pair already exist before following a creation or correction path. The same official page describes creating a bank transaction when no bank import is used; that is a different starting condition from a deposit already imported from a statement. Do not create a second deposit merely to make a transfer category visible.

Keep the payment total and payout movement distinct

The invented worksheet defines two online invoice payments, USD 170.00 and USD 230.00, and a payout detail that explicitly identifies both. In its simplified no-adjustment case, the bank receives USD 400.00. The 400.00 transfer is not an additional 400.00 sale on top of the two recorded payments.

A control case shows a USD 397.00 bank deposit without a charge or adjustment document. The 3.00 gap remains unexplained; the worksheet does not manufacture a processing charge. The synthetic payout trace checks the defined totals in Python, not Wave’s payment engine or live bookkeeping.

Use the reconciliation guide for the remaining bank/book exceptions. LocalExtract extracts one PDF locally into date,description,amount CSV. It does not mark invoices paid, create transfers or synchronize Wave. Download for PDF source preparation.

Official Wave online-payments documentation checked October 16, 2026.