# How to use a Righthand with PayPal

Prepare a PayPal transaction reconciliation from an approved report, preserving transaction references, date windows, currencies, and exceptions.

By Righthand Team · 2026-10-10

Source: https://www.righthand.ai/blog/how-to-use-righthand-with-paypal

## Start with a transaction report and a comparison source

Use Righthand with PayPal to prepare a transaction reconciliation worksheet for the bookkeeper. The useful result matches approved provider records to order or invoice references and identifies unresolved differences. It should not treat every incoming transaction as revenue or every refund-looking entry as an error.

PayPal's [Transaction Search reference](https://developer.paypal.com/api/transaction-search/v1/search-get) provides a reporting route for transactions within a defined interval. Preserve account context, date filters, and the available transaction references. A transaction report and an account balance summary should not be used interchangeably.

## Define the report before matching records

Give the approved account, date interval and time zone, currencies, report snapshot, and comparison file. For an illustrative ecommerce reconciliation, supply a selected order ledger with order reference, expected gross amount, and the owner's treatment of refunds and fees.

Inspect PayPal's available tools through [integrations](/integrations). If transaction reporting is unavailable, use an owner-supplied report or scoped browser review. This first task does not need payment, refund, or dispute-management authority, and the guide does not assume those actions are native.

## A complete worked brief

> At 11 AM America/Los_Angeles on Monday, review the approved PayPal transaction report for the stated prior-week interval and the supplied order ledger. Return a private reconciliation worksheet with provider transaction reference, order reference when explicitly supplied, event or transaction type, status, currency, source amounts and fees where present, and matching result. Do not issue refunds, send money, or change disputes. Deliver to me for bookkeeper review. Reconcile report pages, row counts, and currency totals to the original sources.

This example is illustrative. The bookkeeper supplies accounting classifications and the policy for handling adjustments. The assistant should preserve the raw entries and show unresolved matches.

## Define the expected worksheet

An example row might say: “Provider reference matched to order; gross amount supplied; fee represented separately; ledger expects net value; comparison rule needs bookkeeper confirmation.” The assistant should not silently subtract a fee to force the records to agree.

An order can have more than one payment or adjustment. Keep each transaction reference and its relationship rather than merging rows by customer name. A missing order reference should remain unmatched unless another owner-approved matching rule is available.

## Reconcile late and overlapping records

Repeated report windows can overlap. Deduplicate using the provider's supplied identity and account context while preserving separate adjustments. A late status change should update the existing worksheet entry, not create a second apparent payment.

Permissions, incomplete pages, and stale reports can hide records. State partial coverage and avoid presenting a balance as reconciled when the transaction window is incomplete. Any later financial action requires explicit authority and an independent result check.

Set access through [Righthand connection permissions](https://docs.righthand.ai/guides/add-a-connection). Check [pricing](/pricing) for recurring bookkeeping preparation, and retain the bookkeeper as the owner of financial interpretation.