Exclusion examples

Unless stated otherwise, these exclusion examples assume that revenue recognition takes place on a per-day basis.

Exclude transactions

Transactions behave differently when excluded, depending on whether they have been paid or not. If a transaction is paid in cash, Stripe debits the cash account and credits the exclusion account after exclusion. If it’s paid by CustomerBalance, Stripe debits the customer balance account and credits the customer balance adjustments account after exclusion. Stripe doesn’t generate journal entries for unpaid transactions; they behave as if the transaction never occurred.

If you exclude transactions in a closed accounting period, it incurs corrections for transactions that have already been paid. Learn more about corrections.

Exclude paid transactions

This example uses the following assumptions:

• On January 5, 2022, at 09:00:00 UTC, you create a one-time payment of 10 USD using either the Dashboard, the Charges APIs, or the Payment Intents APIs.
• By default, revenue recognition immediately recognizes the revenue from this one-time payment.
• On February 5, 2022, you exclude the payment.
• The accounting periods for January 2022 are either closed or open.

After you exclude the payment:

• The revenue account clears to 0 USD because the payment doesn’t generate revenue.
• The cash account remains at 10 USD, acknowledging the received payment.
• An amount of 10 USD is added to the exclusion account.

At the end of February, your summary might reflect the following:

Exclude unpaid transactions

This example uses the following assumptions:

• On January 1, 2022, at 00:00:00 UTC, a customer initiates a one-month subscription (from January 1 to Jan 31) that costs 31 USD.
• The subscription generates an invoice.
• The invoice finalizes, but the customer doesn’t make a payment.
• On February 1, 2022, you exclude the payment.
• The accounting periods are open for January 2022.

If you exclude a finalized invoice during an open accounting period, it leaves no trace of activity related to the invoice. Stripe removes all of the account activities, excluding the cash and customer balance account that isn’t involved in this case, and don’t generate journal entries from the finalization and exclusion of the invoice.