How to record crypto in QuickBooks Online: accounts, journal entries and month-end

The short answer: QuickBooks Online has no crypto account type, so you build one. Create an Other Current Asset account per token plus realized gain or loss, unrealized gain or loss and fee accounts. Book purchases, sales, crypto payments and fees as journal entries at fair value, then remeasure in-scope holdings at month-end under ASC 350-60.

Updated September 2026. QuickBooks Online help pages, FASB ASU 2023-08 and the PwC and IFRS pages linked below were checked on 2026-09-14. Not tax advice.

In a QuickBooks Community thread on crypto holdings from September 2021, an Intuit team member suggests a journal entry and tells the user to ask an accountant which accounts to use. The original poster then worked out their own system with one account per coin, quantities in the memo field and a year-end mark-to-market entry (QuickBooks Community, September 2021). That instinct was right. This guide turns it into a setup you can copy, with the account types, two worked months of entries and the point where doing it by hand stops making sense.

Why QuickBooks Online needs a workaround for crypto

In QuickBooks Online the account type decides which report an account lands on, the Balance Sheet or the Profit and Loss. Intuit calls it "the most critical selection" (Intuit, Account type and detail types in QuickBooks Online, updated August 5, 2026). None of the types is crypto. The US help page never mentions it, the UK page lists 42 asset detail types without a digital asset among them (Intuit UK, Choosing the right account types, undated), and the account enums in Intuit's own QuickBooks Online API schema contain no crypto value either.

The tempting shortcut is a Bank account. Bitwave's QuickBooks guide, for example, syncs digital assets into an account that "will appear as a 'Bank Account' type" so transactions come through the bank feed (Bitwave, undated). We would not set it up that way. The IFRS Interpretations Committee concluded that a cryptocurrency holding is not cash and not a financial asset (IFRIC agenda decision, June 2019). Under US GAAP, ASC 350-60 applies to crypto that meets the definition of an intangible asset and requires it to be presented separately from other intangibles (FASB ASU 2023-08, paragraphs 350-60-15-1 and 45-1, December 2023). A Bank account presents bitcoin as if it were cash.

Step 1: Build the crypto chart of accounts

Here is the setup we recommend. Account types use the names in Intuit's API schema. Your dropdown may label them differently by region, the UK help page for example groups them as Current Assets and Non-current Assets.

Account name	Account type	Detail type (API value)	What posts here
Digital assets: BTC (one per significant token)	Other Current Asset	OtherCurrentAssets	Tokens you expect to spend, sell or trade within a year
Digital assets: BTC long-term	Other Asset	OtherLongTermAssets	Treasury holdings you do not plan to touch this year
Digital assets: stablecoins	Other Current Asset	OtherCurrentAssets	USDC, USDT and similar
Digital assets: other	Other Asset	OtherLongTermAssets	NFTs and tokens your company issued
Realized gain or loss on digital assets	Other Income	OtherMiscellaneousIncome	The result of every disposal
Unrealized gain or loss on digital assets	Other Income	OtherMiscellaneousIncome	Month-end fair value remeasurement
Staking and DeFi income	Other Income	OtherInvestmentIncome	Rewards at fair value on receipt
Impairment loss on digital assets	Other Expense	OtherMiscellaneousExpense	Write-downs on holdings outside ASC 350-60
Crypto network and exchange fees	Expense	BankCharges	Gas and trading fees you expense

A few choices in that table deserve a reason.

One account per significant token. ASC 350-60 asks for the name, cost basis, fair value and number of units of each significant holding at every interim and annual period (paragraph 350-60-50-1). Separate accounts make the dollar side of that disclosure a report instead of a reconstruction.

Stablecoins on their own. Criterion (b) of 350-60-15-1 excludes assets that give the holder enforceable rights to or claims on underlying goods, services or other assets. Whether a given stablecoin falls outside the subtopic depends on its redemption terms, so assess each one and keep them apart from bitcoin until you have.

NFTs and self-issued tokens apart. The scope criteria require an asset to be fungible and not issued by you or a related party (350-60-15-1(e) and (f)). Those holdings are outside the fair value model, so mixing them into a remeasured account breaks the month-end entry.

To add each account, go to All apps, then Accounting, then Chart of accounts, and select New account. Enter the name, pick the account type and detail type, tick Make this a subaccount if you are nesting wallets under a parent, and select Save. Asset accounts also ask for an opening balance and an as-of date (Intuit, Add an account to your chart of accounts, updated August 5, 2026). The same structure for Xero, with the cost basis and current versus non-current policy decisions, is in our guide to setting up a crypto balance sheet in Xero and QuickBooks.

Step 2: Record journal entries for each crypto event

Every entry below goes in as a QuickBooks Online journal entry. Select + Create, then Journal entry, pick an account on each line, enter the amount in Debits or Credits, and check that the two columns total the same before you save (Intuit, Create journal entries in QuickBooks Online, updated August 24, 2026). Put the token, the units and the transaction hash in the memo. QuickBooks holds the dollars, so the memo is where the units go.

Illustration only. The numbers below are made up and rounded so the arithmetic is easy to follow. The company is a US GAAP filer that has adopted ASC 350-60 and expenses trading fees.

January 5: buy 1 BTC for $60,000 with a $60 exchange fee

Account	Debit	Credit
Digital assets: BTC	60,000
Crypto network and exchange fees	60
Bank		60,060

Capitalizing the fee instead is also acceptable. The FASB "decided not to provide guidance on how to recognize or present transaction costs to acquire crypto assets", noting that fair value remeasurement gives the same period result either way (ASU 2023-08, paragraphs BC35 and BC36). Pick one and write it into your accounting policy.

January 31: month-end remeasurement, BTC closes at $64,000

Account	Debit	Credit
Digital assets: BTC	4,000
Unrealized gain or loss on digital assets		4,000

The carrying value is now $64,000. More on this entry in Step 3.

February 10: a customer pays a $5,000 invoice with 5,000 USDC

The invoice already booked revenue and a receivable. The payment clears the receivable.

Account	Debit	Credit
Digital assets: stablecoins	5,000
Accounts receivable (customer name)		5,000

Revenue stays at the invoiced $5,000. PwC's view is that crypto received for goods or services is noncash consideration measured at fair value at contract inception, and later changes in its value are not reflected in revenue (PwC Viewpoint 3.1, 31 August 2025). If the USDC had arrived at $0.999, the $5 gap would be a realized loss, not a revenue adjustment.

The journal entry does not close the invoice on its own. To close it, select + Create, then Receive payment, choose the customer, then select both the open invoice and the matching journal entry so they clear against each other (Intuit, Record invoice payments, updated August 3, 2026, and the flow shown in Breezing's QuickBooks docs). The alternative is to park crypto receipts in a clearing account and match them later, which leaves one more account to explain at every close. Our guide to closing a crypto invoice in QuickBooks and Xero with USDC or USDT walks through both routes.

February 20: sell 0.25 BTC at $66,000, exchange withholds a $20 fee

The 0.25 BTC carries $16,000 (a quarter of $64,000). Proceeds are $16,500.

Account	Debit	Credit
Bank	16,480
Crypto network and exchange fees	20
Digital assets: BTC		16,000
Realized gain or loss on digital assets		500

Under a cost model with no remeasurement, the credit to the asset would be $15,000 and the realized gain $1,500. Which units leave the wallet is a policy choice. ASC 350-60 asks you to disclose the cost basis method, naming first-in first-out, specific identification and average cost as examples (paragraph 350-60-50-2). Our cost basis guide compares them.

February 24: pay a $3,000 contractor bill with 3,000 USDC, plus network gas

Account	Debit	Credit
Accounts payable (vendor name)	3,000
Digital assets: stablecoins		3,000

Apply the entry to the open bill the same way you applied the customer credit. Gas is where manual books usually go wrong, because paying it spends a sliver of a token you hold. Say the transfer cost ETH worth $4.00 that the books carried at $3.50:

Account	Debit	Credit
Crypto network and exchange fees	4.00
Digital assets: ETH		3.50
Realized gain or loss on digital assets		0.50

Skip it and the ETH account stops matching the wallet. The journal entries guide covers swaps, staking rewards and the IFRS versions.

February 28: month-end remeasurement, BTC closes at $62,000

The 0.75 BTC left carries $48,000 and is now worth $46,500.

Account	Debit	Credit
Unrealized gain or loss on digital assets	1,500
Digital assets: BTC		1,500

Where the illustration ends up

Account	Balance at February 28
Digital assets: BTC	46,500 (0.75 BTC at $62,000)
Digital assets: stablecoins	2,000
Realized gain or loss on digital assets	500.50 gain
Unrealized gain or loss on digital assets	2,500 net gain
Crypto network and exchange fees	84 expense

The BTC account equals units times the closing price, which is the check to run every month. The ETH account is not shown because the illustration only tracks the gas line.

Step 3: Remeasure to fair value at month-end under ASC 350-60

Paragraph 350-60-35-1 requires crypto assets in scope to be measured at fair value on the balance sheet, with remeasurement gains and losses included in net income. It applies to all entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2024, including interim periods, and early adoption is permitted (350-60-65-1). Gains and losses have to be presented separately from changes in other intangible assets (350-60-45-2), which is why the unrealized account in Step 1 sits on its own line.

In QuickBooks Online the remeasurement is one journal entry per token account. Pull the closing price from one documented source at one fixed time, multiply by the units on hand, and post the difference from the current balance. On first adoption, the difference between the old carrying amount and fair value goes to opening retained earnings, not through the Profit and Loss (350-60-65-1(b)). Our ASC 350-60 guide covers scope and disclosures.

The annual disclosures also include a rollforward of crypto balances showing additions, dispositions, gains and losses (350-60-50-3). QuickBooks gives you the dollar movements. The units and lots behind them come from a wallet rollforward kept outside the ledger.

Per-transaction or summarized journal entries

This is the decision that shapes your QuickBooks file more than any other.

	One entry per transaction	Daily or monthly summary entries
Audit trail in QuickBooks	Each entry points to one on-chain transaction	Each entry points to a subledger report
Ledger size	Grows with every reward, fee and transfer	A few entries per token per period
Correcting a classification	Edit one entry	Rebuild or update the summary
Invoice and bill matching	Straightforward, one payment per entry	Payments to customers or vendors still need their own entries
Where it fits	A few dozen transactions a month	Staking rewards, mining payouts, high-frequency wallets

A mix usually works best. Customer and vendor payments go in individually so they can be applied to invoices and bills, and high-volume inbound rewards go in as one entry per day or month. Whichever you pick, the summary only works if the detail behind it reconciles, which is what a transaction-level crypto reconciliation proves each month.

Where manual entry stops working

The illustration has seven entries. Real books have hundreds of transfers, gas on every one of them, several wallets, and a price feed to pull every month-end. The work that goes wrong first is lot tracking and gas, and it goes wrong quietly, because QuickBooks balances in dollars even when the units behind them are wrong.

A crypto subledger does the unit-level work and sends QuickBooks the entries. This is how Breezing handles QuickBooks Online, per its own documentation:

• Accounts come from your file. After you connect, Sync Chart of Accounts pulls your QuickBooks accounts into Breezing so each transaction category maps to an account you already have, and you set the fee, net gain and net loss accounts once in company settings (Breezing docs, QuickBooks Online and Chart of Accounts).
• Corrections update the entry you already posted. Change the account on a transaction or rerun the gain and loss calculation, sync again, and Breezing finds the existing journal entry in QuickBooks and overwrites it with the new numbers. You do not delete anything first.
• Crypto payments close invoices and bills without a clearing account. Map a wallet contact to a QuickBooks customer or vendor, set the transaction to accounts receivable or payable, and Breezing pushes the entry against that name. You then clear it against the open invoice or bill in Receive payment or Pay bill, the same flow as above.
• Summaries when you want them. Roll up selected transactions into one entry per day or per month, optionally grouped by contact, and switch between a detailed journal that splits principal, fee and gain or loss and a compressed one (Breezing docs, Roll up transactions and Detailed vs. Compressed Journals).
• Classes carry over. Assign a QuickBooks Class to a transaction in Breezing and the journal entry keeps it.

Cost basis runs as FIFO, LIFO, HIFO or weighted average, per wallet or across all of them, and the homepage lists 58 blockchains and 17 exchanges (breezing.io). The QuickBooks integration is included in every tier, and pricing starts at $29 a month billed yearly, with unlimited wallets and unlimited users on every plan.

Quick answers

How do I record cryptocurrency in QuickBooks Online?

Create a digital asset account per token, plus accounts for realized gains and losses, unrealized gains and losses, and fees. Record each purchase, sale, crypto payment and fee as a journal entry at fair value in dollars. Keep units and cost basis lots outside QuickBooks, in a spreadsheet or a crypto subledger.

What account type should crypto be in QuickBooks?

Use Other Current Asset for crypto you expect to spend or sell within a year and Other Asset for long-term holdings. QuickBooks Online offers no crypto or digital asset detail type, so pick a general one such as other current assets and name the account after the token it holds.

Can I set up crypto as a bank account in QuickBooks?

You can, and some tools do it so transactions flow through the bank feed. It misstates what the asset is, though. The IFRS Interpretations Committee concluded crypto is not cash, and ASC 350-60 treats in-scope crypto as an intangible asset presented separately from other intangibles. An asset account keeps the balance sheet honest.

How do I record a crypto sale in QuickBooks?

Post a journal entry that debits bank for the cash received, credits the digital asset account for the carrying value of the units sold, and books the difference to realized gain or loss. If the exchange withheld a fee, debit the fee account for it and debit bank only for the net cash.

How do I record a customer payment in crypto in QuickBooks?

Debit the digital asset account at fair value and credit accounts receivable for that customer, then apply the credit to the open invoice in Receive payment. Revenue stays what you invoiced. Under ASC 606, value changes after contract inception do not change revenue, so any price gap is a gain or loss on the asset.

How do I record crypto transaction fees in QuickBooks?

Exchange fees on a purchase can be capitalized into the asset or expensed, because ASU 2023-08 gives no rule on transaction costs. Network fees paid in a token are a small disposal. Debit the fee account at fair value, credit the asset at carrying value, and book any difference to realized gain or loss.

How do I record unrealized gains on crypto in QuickBooks?

Under ASC 350-60, remeasure in-scope crypto to fair value at each reporting date with a journal entry. A price rise debits the digital asset account and credits unrealized gain or loss. A fall does the reverse. Gains and losses go through net income. The rule applies to fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2024.

Should I post every crypto transaction to QuickBooks or summarize?

Summarize once volume grows. Per-transaction entries give a direct audit trail but bury the ledger when a wallet receives thousands of small rewards. Daily or monthly summary entries keep QuickBooks readable, as long as the subledger holds the transaction detail and ties to the summary total every close.

Does QuickBooks Online support cryptocurrency natively?

Not as an asset class. QuickBooks Online has no crypto account type or detail type, and its journal entries record amounts in debit and credit columns, not token units or cost basis lots. You build the accounts yourself and post journal entries by hand or through a connected crypto subledger.

Do I need crypto accounting software for QuickBooks?

Not for a handful of transactions a month, where a spreadsheet and manual journal entries work. Once you track lots across several wallets, remeasure monthly and receive crypto payments, a subledger that syncs entries into QuickBooks Online and updates them in place saves more close time than it costs.

Bottom line

QuickBooks Online can carry crypto properly once you give it the accounts it lacks. Keep tokens out of Bank accounts, give each significant token and the stablecoins their own asset account, and book every outflow, gas included, as a disposal with a realized result. Remeasure at month-end if ASC 350-60 applies. The entries are ordinary. Tracking the units behind them by hand is the part worth handing to a subledger.

Sources

• Accounting for Cryptocurrency Holdings within QuickBooks, QuickBooks Community (Intuit), posts dated September 10 and 15, 2021, checked 2026-09-14: supports the intro's account of the Intuit team reply (use a journal entry, consult an accountant on accounts) and the poster's own approach (one account per coin, quantities in the memo, year-end mark-to-market).
• Account type and detail types in QuickBooks Online, Intuit QuickBooks, updated August 5, 2026, checked 2026-09-14: supports that the account type decides whether an account appears on the Balance Sheet or Profit and Loss, the "most critical selection" quote, and that the page does not mention crypto or digital assets.
• Choosing the right account types in QuickBooks, Intuit QuickBooks UK, undated (the page shows "updated 4 months ago"), checked 2026-09-14: supports the full asset detail type lists (42 detail types under Debtors, Cash at Bank and in Hand, Current Assets, Tangible Assets and Non-current Assets) with no crypto or digital asset detail type.
• QuickBooks V3 Java SDK, Finance.xsd, Intuit (GitHub, develop branch), undated, checked 2026-09-14: supports the AccountTypeEnum values used in the Step 1 table (Other Current Asset, Other Asset, Other Income, Other Expense, Expense, Bank), the AccountSubTypeEnum values used as detail types (OtherCurrentAssets, OtherLongTermAssets, OtherMiscellaneousIncome, OtherInvestmentIncome, OtherMiscellaneousExpense, BankCharges), and the absence of any crypto or digital asset value.
• Add an account to your chart of accounts in QuickBooks Online, Intuit QuickBooks, updated August 5, 2026, checked 2026-09-14: supports the navigation path (All apps, Accounting, Chart of accounts, New account), the account type and detail type dropdowns, the Make this a subaccount option, and the opening balance and as-of date for asset accounts.
• Create journal entries in QuickBooks Online and Intuit Enterprise Suite, Intuit QuickBooks, updated August 24, 2026, checked 2026-09-14: supports the + Create then Journal entry steps, the Debits and Credits columns, the Memo field, and the rule that total debits must equal total credits.
• Record invoice payments in QuickBooks Online, Intuit QuickBooks, updated August 3, 2026, checked 2026-09-14: supports the + Create then Receive payment flow, choosing the customer, and selecting the invoice being paid.
• How to Categorize Crypto in QuickBooks, Bitwave, undated, checked 2026-09-14: supports the quote that Bitwave's digital assets account "will appear as a 'Bank Account' type" and syncs transactions through the bank feed.
• Holdings of Cryptocurrencies, IFRS Interpretations Committee, IFRS Foundation, June 2019, checked 2026-09-14: supports the conclusions that a holding of cryptocurrency is not cash and is not a financial asset.
• Accounting Standards Update No. 2023-08, Intangibles-Goodwill and Other-Crypto Assets (Subtopic 350-60), FASB, issued December 13, 2023, checked 2026-09-14: supports the six scope criteria including (a) intangible asset, (b) no enforceable claims on underlying assets, (e) fungible and (f) not issued by the entity or related parties (350-60-15-1), fair value measurement with remeasurement in net income (350-60-35-1), separate presentation (350-60-45-1 and 45-2), the per-holding disclosures at interim and annual periods (350-60-50-1), the cost basis method disclosure with its examples (350-60-50-2), the annual rollforward (350-60-50-3), the effective date, early adoption and retained earnings transition (350-60-65-1), and the Board's decision not to prescribe transaction cost accounting (BC35 and BC36).
• 3.1 Receipt of crypto for goods and services, PwC Viewpoint, 31 August 2025, checked 2026-09-14: supports that crypto received from a customer is noncash consideration measured at fair value at contract inception and that later value changes are not reflected in revenue.
• QuickBooks Online integration docs, Breezing, undated, checked 2026-09-14: supports Sync Chart of Accounts, updating an already-synced journal entry in place without deleting it after changing the account or rerunning the gain and loss calculation, mapping contacts to QuickBooks customers and vendors, closing invoices and bills without a clearing account through accounts receivable or payable entries that are cleared in Receive payment or Pay bill by selecting both the open invoice and the matching journal entry, and carrying QuickBooks Classes onto journal entries.
• Chart of Accounts docs, Breezing, undated, checked 2026-09-14: supports mapping the Company Fee, Company Net Gain and Company Net Loss accounts in settings.
• Roll Up Transactions docs, Breezing, undated, checked 2026-09-14: supports rolling selected transactions into one entry per day or per month, optionally grouped by contact.
• Detailed vs. Compressed Journals docs, Breezing, undated, checked 2026-09-14: supports the detailed journal format that splits principal, network fee and realized gain or loss, and the compressed alternative.
• QuickBooks integration page, Breezing, dated March 9, 2026, checked 2026-09-14: supports that the QuickBooks integration is included in all tiers.
• Breezing homepage, Breezing, undated, checked 2026-09-14: supports the 58 blockchains and 17 exchanges figures and the FIFO, LIFO, HIFO and weighted average cost basis methods per wallet or universal.
• Pricing, Breezing, undated, checked 2026-09-14: supports the $29 per month Basic plan ($350 billed yearly) and unlimited wallets and unlimited users on every plan.