Connect Zettle to your Starling account

A Starling business bank account helps you save time and money with easy mobile or desktop access. Connect your accounting software, get instant payment alerts, automate your expenses and more.

We’ve teamed up so that you can now accept Zettle payments connected to your Starling business bank account. 

How to get started 

Simply go to the Marketplace section of your Starling app, click on Browse and then select Zettle from the Payments section of the menu. Click on Add and select Existing Customer to link your new account to your Starling app and consent to your Zettle data being shared with Starling.

Frequently asked questions

If I change my mind, can I stop sharing my Zettle data with Starling?
You can disconnect your Starling app from your Zettle account at any time. To stop Zettle data being shared with Starling, simply log in to your Zettle web account, select ‘Integrations’, select ‘Connected’, select the Starling Bank integration and open that option, and click ‘Disconnect’.

To remove the Zettle tile from your Starling Marketplace, log into Starling, head to the Marketplace section of the app, click on your Zettle tile and select ‘Remove’. 

What features can I expect from this integration?
The Zettle and Starling integration has three main features:

  • View a summary of Zettle payments in the Starling app
  • View a breakdown of the payments that make up each payout to your account
  • See Zettle payments in the bookkeeping section of the Starling Business Toolkit

What information can I see in Starling after integrating with Zettle?
Once you’ve successfully connected your Zettle account to your Starling app, a Zettle tile will appear. Tapping on your Zettle tile will allow you to view the following information:

  • The number of transactions processed using your Zettle account in the last 7 days
  • The value of transactions processed using your Zettle account in the last 7 days
  • The most popular product sold using your Zettle account in the last 7 days. 

From this screen, you can also manage the data that is shared between Zettle and Starling and remove the integration.

The data displayed from Zettle are the amounts after tax but before fees have been deducted. Please note, transactions will also appear on this tile after Zettle has processed the transaction. This usually takes a few hours but depends on the payment method the customer uses. 

What additional information will I see in the transaction feed after integrating with Zettle?
With the Zettle and Starling integration, we are bringing more information into your Starling app. When you select a payment from Zettle on your transaction feed, you’ll find information about the payout including:

  • The number of transactions in that payout
  • The number of products sold in those transactions
  • Further sales information such as tips, fees and VAT details for the transactions in that payout. If multiple VAT levels are involved in a payout these will be listed separately. 

This can be broken down further into a daily summary for each day of transactions, simply click ‘view daily summary’ at the bottom of the payout receipt.

How does automated bookkeeping work?
The Zettle and Starling integration will also connect to Starling’s Business Toolkit, streamlining your Zettle bookkeeping. The Toolkit is available exclusively in Online Banking - a bookkeeping tool for freelancers, self-employed and small businesses which encompasses a range of invoicing, expenses and tax tools. To access the Toolkit you will need to subscribe, which you can do by navigating to the subscription section in the Starling app, and from there selecting the Business Toolkit.

How will the Zettle integration work with the Business Toolkit?
Using the Business Toolkit and Zettle integration together means that you can correctly account for your revenue processed via Zettle and any Zettle fees. The Toolkit automatically captures the VAT on Zettle transactions, which feeds into your VAT calculations for submission to HMRC.

As the Toolkit supports cash accounting, for each day that you have transactions processed through Zettle (whether that’s card payments, refunds or invoice payments), the integration with Starling will automatically surface these as ‘external transactions’ in the Bookkeeping section of the Toolkit.

The Toolkit groups and summates the day’s transactions based on the Zettle transaction type (see transaction mapping below). For any sales, the Toolkit will create ‘external transactions’, per VAT rate, per day. All of these ‘external transactions’ will be marked as Zettle transactions and we recommend that these aren’t deleted to ensure accurate bookkeeping. 

When you receive your payout from Zettle, we will mark the incoming payment as a ‘transfer’ and not ‘revenue’ if you have an active Zettle integration. This is to avoid duplicate revenue entries as the external transactions that are automatically created each day will be marked as ‘revenue’ for accurate bookkeeping. We recommend that the category of the Zettle payout transaction is not changed, to prevent double counting.

How will Zettle transactions map to the categories in the Starling Business Toolkit?
Here’s how your various Zettle transactions will be classified in the Starling Business Toolkit:

Zettle transaction

Starling transaction category

PAYOUT,
BANK ACCOUNT VERIFICATION

TRANSFER

CARD AND INVOICE PAYMENTS

REVENUE

CARD REFUND

CLIENT REFUND

CARD PAYMENT FEES,
INVOICE PAYMENT FEES,
SUBSCRIPTION CHARGE,
CASHBACK PAYOUT

ADVANCE FEES

ADMIN

ADVANCE & DOWN PAYMENTS

LOAN PRINCIPAL (IN & OUT)

FRIEND REFERRAL PAYMENT

OTHER INCOME


When will these transactions show in the Starling Business Toolkit? 
We will post these transactions to the toolkit at around midnight on each day that there is a Zettle transaction to show.

Will the itemised receipts show up for these manual transactions?
Not currently but we hope to offer this functionality in the future.

Will I be able to backdate the integration so all my previous Zettle transactions can be recorded this way?
No, currently we will only apply our implementation to any Zettle transactions that have taken place since your last payout when you connect Zettle to your Starling account (and subscribe to Toolkit if you hadn’t already). We hope to explore back-dating in future iterations. 

How can I see which external transactions link to a Zettle payout?
In Bookkeeping, if you search for ‘Zettle’ in the search bar and filter for a specific period covered by a Zettle Payout, you should be able to view the external transactions in relation to that payout. 

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