February 20, 2026 · OPERIUM
How to Export Your Stripe Transactions to Your Accounting Software in 3 Steps
Every freelancer, independent contractor, and small business owner using Stripe for payments eventually faces the same moment: month-end arrives, the accountant sends a request for the monthly transaction summary, and you open Stripe&39;s dashboard t...
Every freelancer, independent contractor, and small business owner using Stripe for payments eventually faces the same moment: month-end arrives, the accountant sends a request for the monthly transaction summary, and you open Stripe's dashboard to export your data. What Stripe gives you is a raw CSV file with dozens of technical columns — transaction IDs, metadata fields, internal reference codes — none of which your accountant asked for, and most of which require hours of manual reformatting before they become usable in any accounting software.
The problem is not that Stripe does not offer data export. It does. The problem is that Stripe's native export is designed for developers and technical teams, not for accountants. The gap between "what Stripe exports" and "what your accountant needs" is exactly where most freelancers lose two to three hours every month — manually filtering columns, calculating VAT, separating Stripe fees from revenue, and reformatting spreadsheets into something a Cegid, Sage, QuickBooks, or Pennylane installation can actually import.
ExportCompta eliminates that gap entirely. Connect your Stripe account once via secure OAuth, select the month, and download a ZIP containing three accountant-ready documents — a payment journal, a monthly VAT summary, and a Stripe fees report — in CSV, Excel, and PDF simultaneously. No configuration required. No accounting knowledge needed. No reformatting.
This guide covers exactly how the export process works, what the output documents contain, and why the three-step workflow saves two to three hours per month compared to Stripe's native export.
What Stripe's Native Export Actually Gives You
Understanding the value of ExportCompta requires understanding the limitations of Stripe's built-in export functionality.
According to Stripe's official export documentation, Stripe allows you to export transaction and payout data from the Balance tab in the dashboard. The export is comprehensive from a technical perspective — it captures every event, every metadata field, every internal reference. That comprehensiveness is precisely the problem for accounting purposes.
A raw Stripe export contains:
- Transaction IDs and internal reference codes (irrelevant for accounting)
- Multiple timestamp formats for the same event (confusing for period attribution)
- Gross amounts, fees, and net amounts in the same row without clear labeling for accounting journals
- Refunds mixed with payments without systematic categorization
- Multi-currency amounts without converted equivalents in a consistent base currency
- No VAT calculation or breakdown
Xero's documentation on connecting Stripe describes the complexity involved even when using a purpose-built connector: transaction matching, fee reconciliation, and VAT assignment all require configuration and ongoing maintenance. For accounting software without a native Stripe connector, the raw export requires complete manual transformation before it can be used.
The Coupler.io export automation guide confirms that for most freelancers and small business owners, automated export to accounting software typically requires either a paid connector tool, significant manual processing time, or both.
How ExportCompta Works: Three Steps to an Accountant-Ready Pack
The ExportCompta workflow eliminates the technical complexity in three steps, each taking under sixty seconds.
Step 1: Connect Stripe via Secure OAuth
Click "Connect Stripe" and authorize the connection via Stripe's standard OAuth flow. ExportCompta requests read-only permissions — it cannot move money, create charges, or modify any Stripe data. The permission scope is displayed explicitly before you authorize, and you can revoke the connection from your Stripe dashboard at any time.
The OAuth connection is a one-time step. Once authorized, your Stripe account remains connected for all future monthly exports without any reconfiguration.
Step 2: Select the Period
Choose the month (or custom date range) you want to export. The default selection is the previous calendar month — the most common use case for monthly accounting submissions. The period selector supports:
- Individual month selection (January, February, etc.)
- Quarter selection (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4)
- Full year selection
- Custom date range (from/to specific dates)
Pro plan users also have access to an annual summary document that aggregates all twelve monthly journals into a single annual recap — useful for year-end declarations and tax filings.
Step 3: Download the ZIP Pack
Click "Generate Export" and download the ZIP file. The pack is generated in seconds and contains six files — each of the three documents in CSV, Excel (.xlsx), and PDF format simultaneously:
Document 1 — Payment Journal (Journal des encaissements) Every transaction in the selected period, automatically categorized: sales, refunds, disputes, transfers. Each transaction line includes the date, amount (gross and net), transaction reference, customer name where available, currency (original and EUR equivalent), and category tag. This is the primary document your accountant needs for journal entry recording.
Document 2 — Monthly VAT Summary (Résumé TVA mensuel) A breakdown of all transactions by VAT rate. The default rate is 20% (standard French rate), configurable by the user to 10%, 5.5%, 2.1%, 0% (exempt), or "non-taxable" for micro-enterprises below the VAT threshold. The summary shows taxable base, VAT amount collected, and total per rate — exactly what your accountant needs for VAT declaration preparation.
Document 3 — Stripe Fees Report (Rapport frais Stripe) A dedicated document separating all Stripe platform costs from revenue: processing fees by transaction, refund fees, dispute charges, and any other deductions. This separation is critical for accurate profit calculation and is the most time-consuming element to extract manually from a raw Stripe export.
flowchart LR
A[Stripe Account] -->|OAuth Read-Only| B[ExportCompta]
B --> C[Select Month]
C --> D[Generate ZIP Pack]
D --> E[Journal des encaissements]
D --> F[Resume TVA mensuel]
D --> G[Rapport frais Stripe]
E --> H[CSV plus Excel plus PDF]
F --> H
G --> H
H --> I[Send to Accountant]
style B fill:#c9a962,color:#0c0e14
style D fill:#10b981,color:#fff
What the Output Documents Are — and What They Are Not
This is the most important distinction to understand before using ExportCompta: the documents generated are preparatory accounting documents to be validated by your accountant. They are not official tax filings, not certified FEC files in the regulatory sense, and not a replacement for professional accounting review.
What they are: structured, categorized, VAT-annotated documents that arrive at your accountant's desk in the format they actually need, rather than as a raw Stripe data dump. The CSV format is aligned with standard accounting journal structures for easy import into Sage, Cegid, QuickBooks, Pennylane, Indy, Tiime, Freebe, and other common accounting platforms — your accountant imports the file, reviews the entries, and validates. The preparatory work is done.
According to Trucdecomptable's guide on recovering Stripe data for accounting, the manual process of extracting clean payment data from Stripe — filtering the relevant columns, converting amounts, separating fees — is precisely the friction point that leads most freelancers to either delay their accounting submissions or pay their accountant for data processing time that could be eliminated.
Zapier's Stripe to QuickBooks integration guide illustrates the complexity of the alternative approaches: even purpose-built integrations require configuration, field mapping, and ongoing maintenance. ExportCompta requires none of this — it outputs a universally compatible format that any accounting professional can work with immediately.
Comparison: Stripe Native Export vs. ExportCompta
| Feature | Stripe Native Export | ExportCompta Free | ExportCompta Starter | ExportCompta Pro |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Format | Raw CSV only | CSV + Excel + PDF | CSV + Excel + PDF | CSV + Excel + PDF |
| VAT calculation | None (manual) | Automatic (20% default) | Automatic (configurable) | Automatic (configurable) |
| Fee separation | Mixed in data | Dedicated report | Dedicated report | Dedicated report |
| Refund categorization | Mixed in data | Auto-tagged | Auto-tagged | Auto-tagged |
| Multi-currency | Raw amounts | Original + EUR conversion | Original + EUR conversion | Original + EUR conversion |
| Accountant-ready | No (requires reformatting) | Yes (1 export) | Yes (10 exports/month) | Yes (unlimited) |
| Annual summary | No | No | No | Included |
| Price | Free | Free | €9/month or €90/year | €29/month or €290/year |
The Multi-Currency Case
For freelancers and small businesses billing international clients, multi-currency transaction management is a common complication in Stripe accounting. ExportCompta handles this automatically: each transaction in the payment journal displays both the original transaction currency and the EUR equivalent at the Stripe conversion rate applied at the time of the transaction.
This dual-currency display is critical for accounting accuracy — recording a $1,200 USD transaction at today's exchange rate rather than the rate applied by Stripe at transaction time creates reconciliation discrepancies that compound over time. ExportCompta captures the actual Stripe rate for each transaction, eliminating this source of accounting error.
Pricing: Three Plans for Every Scale
ExportCompta is designed for the full range of Stripe-using freelancers and small businesses, from someone testing the tool with a single month's data to a high-volume business with transactions across multiple months requiring ongoing export automation.
Free plan (€0/month): One export to test the full workflow. Generates the complete ZIP pack — payment journal, VAT summary, fees report — for a single selected period. No time limit, no expiry. The free export is a full-quality test, not a reduced preview.
Starter plan (€9/month or €90/year): Ten exports per month. Suitable for freelancers submitting monthly to their accountant plus occasional additional exports for quarterly declarations or custom date ranges. Annual plan saves €18/year compared to monthly billing.
Pro plan (€29/month or €290/year): Unlimited exports. Includes the annual summary document (year-end recap across all twelve months), priority support, and API access for automated export workflows. Annual plan saves €58/year compared to monthly billing.
An important clarification on export counting: re-downloading a previously generated export for the same period costs zero additional exports — the file is stored and available for free re-download from your export history at any time. Only generating a new export for a new period consumes one export from your monthly count.
Why ExportCompta Instead of a Full Accounting Platform
The most common alternative framing is: "why not use Indy, Pennylane, Tiime, or another complete accounting SaaS?"
The answer is positioning. ExportCompta is not an accounting platform. It is a bridge between your Stripe account and your existing accountant. It does not replace your accountant, does not manage your plan comptable, does not handle your annual declaration, and does not provide tax advisory.
What it does: it eliminates the two to three hours per month that freelancers currently spend manually extracting, cleaning, and reformatting Stripe data before sending it to the accountant who handles everything else. At €9/month for the Starter plan, it costs less than fifteen minutes of accountant billing time — while saving two to three hours of your own time every month.
Complete accounting platforms at €20–60/month add significant value, but they also add learning curve, migration complexity, and the assumption that you want to manage your own accounting rather than maintain a working relationship with a professional accountant. ExportCompta assumes you keep your accountant — it just makes every monthly submission a three-step, sixty-second process instead of a two-hour formatting exercise.
Explore the full OPERIUM product ecosystem for additional automation tools for freelancers and small businesses.
FAQ — Frequently Asked Questions
What exactly does ExportCompta export from Stripe?
ExportCompta connects to your Stripe account via read-only OAuth and exports all transactions for the selected period: payments, refunds, disputes, transfers, and Stripe fees. Each transaction is automatically categorized and distributed across three documents — payment journal, VAT summary, and fees report — delivered simultaneously in CSV, Excel, and PDF in a single ZIP file.
How much does ExportCompta cost?
Three plans: Free (1 export, no time limit), Starter (€9/month or €90/year, 10 exports/month), and Pro (€29/month or €290/year, unlimited exports with annual summary and API access). All prices are identical in EUR, USD, and GBP.
Is ExportCompta safe to connect to my Stripe account?
Yes. The connection uses Stripe's standard OAuth protocol with read-only permissions. ExportCompta cannot initiate payments, create charges, or modify any data in your Stripe account. You can view the exact permission scope before authorizing and revoke the connection from your Stripe dashboard at any time.
Does ExportCompta generate an official FEC file?
ExportCompta generates preparatory accounting documents with a structure compatible with standard accounting software import formats. These are documents to be validated by your accountant — they are not self-certified official FEC filings. Your accountant reviews and validates the entries before any official submission.
Which accounting software is ExportCompta compatible with?
ExportCompta outputs universal CSV and Excel formats importable in all major accounting platforms used in France and internationally: Sage, Cegid, QuickBooks, Pennylane, Indy, Tiime, Freebe, ACD, and others. There is no proprietary format or integration requirement.
How is VAT handled in the export?
The default VAT rate is 20% (standard French rate). Users can configure any applicable rate: 10%, 5.5%, 2.1%, or 0% (exempt). Micro-enterprises below the VAT threshold can select "non-taxable." The VAT summary document shows taxable base, VAT collected, and total by rate — ready for your accountant's VAT declaration work.
What is the difference between Starter and Pro plans?
The primary differences are export volume (10/month on Starter, unlimited on Pro) and the annual summary document (Pro only). Pro also includes priority support and API access for automated export workflows.
What counts as one "export"?
Generating a new export for a new period consumes one export from your monthly count. Re-downloading a previously generated export — the same month, the same ZIP file — is free and does not count against your limit. Your full export history is stored and available for re-download at any time.
Can I export multiple months at once?
Yes. The period selector supports individual months, quarters, full years, and custom date ranges. Each selection generates one export from your monthly count. The annual summary (Pro plan) aggregates all twelve monthly journals into a single year-end document without consuming additional exports.
Does ExportCompta work for Belgian and Swiss businesses?
Yes. The VAT configuration covers Belgian rates (21%, 12%, 6%, 0%) and Swiss rates (8.1%, 3.8%, 2.5%, 0%) in addition to French rates. The multi-currency handling supports EUR, CHF, and all major currencies billed through Stripe. The preparatory document format is compatible with Belgian and Swiss accounting practice.
Conclusion
Exporting Stripe transactions for accounting purposes should not take two hours of manual reformatting every month. ExportCompta reduces that workflow to three steps — connect, select, download — and delivers an accountant-ready ZIP pack with payment journal, VAT summary, and fees report in CSV, Excel, and PDF simultaneously.
The free plan delivers one complete test export at no cost. The Starter plan at €9/month covers monthly accounting submissions for the typical freelancer. The Pro plan at €29/month handles unlimited exports for higher-volume operations. Start with the free export today and send your accountant a clean ZIP file instead of a raw Stripe CSV dump.
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