Manual journal entries are the last hand-keyed step in most eCommerce and payments finance functions. A payout lands in the bank, someone opens the provider’s statement, works out which orders it covers, splits out the fees and refunds, and types the result into the ledger. Journal entry automation removes that step.
How journal entry automation works
Automation starts from the money that actually moved. Equali reads the payouts you received, links each one back to the individual sales, fees, refunds and other events the payment provider handled, and creates the categorised journal entries that describe them. Those entries are then reconciled back to your orders, so every posting has a traceable origin.
That ordering matters. Building entries from orders and hoping they match the bank produces differences nobody can explain. Building them from the payout means the entry and the cash agree by construction, and anything that does not reconcile is surfaced as an exception rather than absorbed silently.
What gets posted, and where
Entries post directly into the accounting system you already use. Equali connects to Xero, QuickBooks, Sage and FreeAgent, and reads sales and payment data from Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Stripe.
Where a source has no API, data can arrive another way: file upload directly to the
dashboard or SFTP transfer, in .csv, .xls, .xlsx or .txt. Bespoke formats are
common in this space and are not a blocker.
What changes at month end
The work shifts from producing entries to reviewing exceptions.
- Postings are already in the ledger, categorised, rather than waiting to be written.
- Each one traces back to the orders and settlement that produced it.
- Differences are raised with a reason attached instead of being found by scanning.
- Period close becomes a review of what did not reconcile, not a reconstruction of what did.
What it does not do
Automation does not decide your accounting treatment. Mapping revenue, fees, refunds and tax to the right accounts is a judgement your finance team owns, and a system that guessed at it would produce confident, wrong numbers.
Nor does it remove exceptions. A payout that does not match its orders is a real event: usually a timing difference, a chargeback or a provider adjustment. The value is that it arrives as a short list with reasons, rather than as an unexplained variance at the end of the month.
How long setup takes
Most merchants connect their systems in under 30 minutes with no development work. Firms with more complex requirements (multiple entities, bespoke formats, or regulatory reporting) typically take from a few days to a few weeks, supported by onboarding calls and a dedicated Slack or Microsoft Teams channel.
Automate journal entries with Equali
If you are looking to eliminate manual spreadsheet posting and accelerate your month-end close, explore Equali Journal Entry Automation or learn how our automated ledger posting pipeline synchronises continuous transaction batches directly to your general ledger. Equali connects directly to your payment providers and accounting platforms (including Xero, FreeAgent, and QuickBooks) to post categorised, fully reconciled journal entries automatically with end-to-end audit trails.
Journal entry automation and CASS 15
For FCA-regulated firms, the same machinery underpins safeguarding reconciliation and reporting. CASS 15 has applied since 7 May 2026, and the first monthly safeguarding return was due in July 2026, covering June 2026. Reconciliations that are already automated and traceable are considerably easier to evidence than ones assembled by hand each period.
If that deadline applies to you, explore our dedicated blueprint for reconciliations for regulated firms.
