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Guide · Alipay / WeChat Pay · tax draft

How to turn Alipay / WeChat Pay CSVs into bookkeeping-ready tables

Updated 2026-10-21 · ~8 min · freelancers, side income, small studios

At tax time the bottleneck is rarely the tax math. It is turning messy Alipay, WeChat Pay, and bank export CSVs into one clean table you (or your accountant) can actually use. This walkthrough covers export, cleanup, and monthly rollups, plus a tool that automates the grind.

Why raw exports are painful

Alipay “bill details” and WeChat “transaction details” CSVs usually trip you up with:

• Encoding: GBK vs UTF-8; Excel double-click often garbles Chinese headers.
• Header offset: account notes and dashed lines sit above the real header row.
• Column names: “交易时间 / 交易日期”, “金额 / 金额(元)”, “收/支 / 收支” mixed across apps.
• Sign vs direction: some files use a direction column, others use signed amounts - easy to invert when you merge sources.

If you freelance or run a side gig, a tax draft usually needs monthly income/expense totals, main counterparties, and categories. Raw exports almost never give you that.

Step 1: Export Alipay bill CSV

1. Alipay app → Me → Bills.
2. Top-right ··· → “issue transaction proof” or “download bills” (wording varies by version).
3. Pick a date range (calendar month or filing period), request Excel/CSV to your email.
4. Open in a text editor first; confirm you see columns like 交易时间, 金额, 收/支 before importing into Excel.

Step 2: Export WeChat Pay bills

1. WeChat → Me → Services → Wallet → Bills.
2. Top-right FAQ or ··· → Download bills.
3. Choose a personal reconciliation option, pick dates, email the zip, unzip to CSV.

WeChat headers differ from Alipay (e.g. 交易类型, 交易对方, 金额(元)). Normalize column names before merging.

Step 3: Normalize to bookkeeping-friendly fields

Whether you do it by hand or with a script, aim for this target schema:

Field	Meaning
date	YYYY-MM-DD
amount	Signed: income positive, expense negative
direction	in / out
counterparty	Who you paid or who paid you
category	Food / transport / client income / etc.
note	Item description or memo
source	alipay / wechat / bank

With that schema you can stably sum monthly income, group client payments by counterparty, and filter explainable costs by category.

Step 4: How freelancers use this for tax drafts

• Income: filter labor fees / project payments / client transfers; roll up by month; cross-check contracts and invoices.
• Expense: tag office, software, travel for year-end explanations (deductibility follows local rules and your accountant).
• Reconciliation: same client, multiple deposits - match counterparty + note so nothing is missed.

This is bookkeeping hygiene, not tax or legal advice. File with a licensed accountant or the tax authority.

Too slow by hand? BillFold cleans in one pass

BillFold targets Alipay / WeChat / bank export CSVs: auto-detect source and encoding, emit a clean CSV, plus monthly Markdown reports. Try a sample in the browser (data stays local). Buy the Pro pack for the full CLI and source.

python -m billfold run alipay-export.csv -o out/
# → clean.csv + monthly.md

Built for freelancers who refuse to babysit Excel headers every month.

FAQ

Will merging Alipay and WeChat double-count?

Yes - e.g. paying a WeChat merchant via Alipay, or balance transfers. After cleanup, dedupe by order id or amount+time, or keep only the side where cash finally settled.

Should bank statements be included?

If large receipts hit a card or corporate account, export those detail CSVs too and merge into the same schema. BillFold Pro includes a generic bank template you can extend from real headers.

I only want a monthly glance

Read income / expense / net from the monthly report; export full clean.csv for your accountant at filing time.