Overview
Stripe’s balance activity is anything that causes your Stripe balance to move up and down — payments, payouts, fees, chargebacks, refunds, and more.
Puzzle automatically records Stripe balance activity into the financial statements through a combination of direct journal entries and subledger journal entries, depending on your accounting settings.
To validate that all your Stripe balance activity is in Puzzle through any given point in time, there are two comparisons:
Balance comparison (through a selected end date): The Puzzle Balance Sheet (accrual basis) should equal the ending balance shown in your Stripe Balance Summary report for the same period.
Activity comparison (through a selected date range): The total count and amount of different types of activity (e.g. payments, refunds) should align to the total activity within those groupings in the Puzzle payment processor summary and/or the general ledger.
Within the Puzzle balance sheet (accrual basis view), find the ledger account that corresponds to the Stripe receivable balance.
Start by finding the Stripe balance as Puzzle sees it on the Balance Sheet.
From the Dashboard, navigate to Financial Statements and click the Balance Sheet tab.
Set the date range to you want to reconcile. This can be for a defined period (e.g. a month) or through a point in time (e.g. through today — in which case you would display the most recent month, which will have entries through today, if applicable).
Alternatively, you can see the daily (and transaction-level) balance within the General Ledger by including the full history of the account.
Open the Balance summary report in Stripe.
Now open Stripe and pull the matching Balance summary report for the same period.
Open the Stripe Dashboard (dashboard.stripe.com) and make sure you are in the correct Stripe account.
In the left navigation, click Balances → Balance summary, or go to Reports → Balance summary).
Set the date range to match the period and/or end date you are reconciling in Puzzle (e.g., Feb 1, 2026 → Feb 28, 2026). Set the timezone to match your company's timezone (e.g., America – Chicago for Central Time).
Optionally, you can export this to PDF or run a report with the full detail of all balance activity.
Note that this report in Stripe can be adjusted to any time period range you want to reconcile, including through the most recent day of full activity.
To review balances, compare and confirm the balances match.
With both numbers in hand, the reconciliation check is straightforward.
Compare Stripe's Ending balance to Puzzle's accrual basis balance for the same end date. They should match exactly.
If the numbers agree, your Stripe balance (and net activity) is fully reconciled in Puzzle for that period. No further action needed.
If there is a meaningful discrepancy, proceed to the troubleshooting section below.
To review activity, pull up the Payment Processor summary in Puzzle.
Puzzle's Payment Processor page gives you a grouped view of all Stripe activity for a period, which makes it easy to cross-check totals against Stripe.
Navigate to the Payment Processor page.
Set the date range to the same period you are reconciling.
Under the Summary tab, review the Net financial statement impact table.
Reference the Details tab as needed
Note: Payouts are displayed in the Transactions page rather than the payment processor page — use that page to reconcile payouts.
Stripe Line Item | Corresponding Puzzle Account |
Starting balance | Prior period end balance in Puzzle |
Account activity before fees | Typically corresponds to total Revenue (can be multiple accounts) |
Fees | Typically corresponds to a processor fees or similar account |
Net balance change from activity | Net change in balance |
Total payouts | Total payout transactions — in Transactions page |
Ending balance | Current period end in Puzzle |
Troubleshooting discrepancies
If Puzzle's balance does not match Stripe's ending balance, Puzzle has an exportable Excel reconciliation through each month-end for detailed troubleshooting. Note that this Excel reconciliation is only available starting the 3rd day of each month (for the prior month’s numbers).
If you want to do similar checks manually for reconciling the balance, whether for a month-end date or any date of your choice, work through the following checks.
Timing differences
If Stripe and Puzzle use different time zones as default settings or for the reports viewed, there can be differences.
On a cash basis, Puzzle uses Stripe’s available date (i.e. when the cash is available to be transferred out) — the Stripe reports may need to be adjusted for this since by default they use the transaction date (which aligns to Puzzle’s accrual basis)
For this reason, we recommend reconciling the accrual basis, which will correspond more directly with Stripe default reports.
Pending and processing transactions
Stripe may include charges or payouts that are still in transit (pending). Puzzle only records posted entries. If a payout initiated late on the last day of the month is not yet in Puzzle, it will appear in Stripe but not in the Puzzle balance.
Some items may not be pending in Stripe — they are completed — but they are still processing through Puzzle. This is especially true if you are trying to compare a balance within the past 1-2 days.
Puzzle syncs the latest Stripe activity once per day (starting overnight ~2 am in Pacific Time). Activity after that time will be visible in Stripe but not Puzzle until the next sync. To review the latest sync, view the Stripe sync status cards or the Integrations page.
Multiple Stripe accounts
If your company has more than one Stripe account connected to Puzzle, make sure you are comparing the same account in both places or adding together balances as needed.
If Puzzle balances reconcile but the nature of the activity does not reconcile, this is likely caused by categorization differences.
Uncategorized transactions
Use the Detail tab on the Payment Processor page in Puzzle to see individual transactions. Look for any that are missing a category or flagged as needing review.
Export the transaction report from Puzzle to compare line-by-line against Stripe's transaction export.