Import PayPal Data to Google Sheets

In this guide, we'll pull PayPal transaction data into Google Sheets, using the API Connector add-on for Sheets.

PayPal is probably the best-known online payments system, and, founded in the late '90s, certainly the longest-running. However their APIs are a bit clunky and convoluted. This guide will sort it out!

Contents

• Before You Begin
• Part 1: Get your Paypal Credentials
• Part 2: Connect PayPal to API Connector
• Part 3: Pull PayPal Transaction Data into Sheets
• Part 4: Handle Pagination
• Part 5: API Documentation

Before You Begin

Click here to install the API Connector add-on from the Google Marketplace.

Part 1: Get Your Paypal Credentials

1. Navigate to Paypal's Apps & Credentials page (https://developer.paypal.com/developer/applications). Click Log into Dashboard if you aren't already logged into your account. You will need to sign up if you don't already have a developer account.
2. Once you're logged in, toggle to Live mode and click Create App.
   
3. Give your app a name. It can be anything, but we'll call it 'Google Sheets'. Click Create App.
   
4. You'll now see your credentials. Pay particular attention to the Client ID and the Secret as we need them next.
   
5. Scroll down and choose the features you want to access. For this tutorial you'll at least need to have Transaction Search enabled.
   
   
6. When you enable Transaction Search, it takes up to a day before the permission is actually applied to your app. So take a long break before proceeding.

Part 2: Connect PayPal to API Connector

1. Open up Google Sheets and click Extensions > API Connector > Manage Connections
2. Scroll to the bottom of the sidebar and click Add Custom OAuth
3. Fill in the Custom OAuth modal as follows:
   • OAuth Grant Type: Client Credentials
   • Name: Custom PayPal
   • Token URL: https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/oauth2/token
   • Client ID: provided by PayPal
   • Client Secret: provided by PayPal
4. Click Save

Part 3: Pull PayPal Transaction Data into Sheets

To create a request, include your full request URL in the request URL field, and select your custom PayPal connection from the dropdown OAuth menu. You can see the full list of available endpoint and parameters in the API documentation.

For this example, we'll get a list of transactions created between two dates. Note that this endpoint can only retrieve 30 days of data per request. To get more than 30 days data at a time, you can either run separate requests and append / merge them together after, or stack your requests such that they automatically run one after the other and print into the same sheet.

1. Open up Google Sheets and click Extensions > API Connector > Open > Create request.
2. In the request form enter the following:
   • Application: Custom
   • Method: GET
   • Request URL: https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/reporting/transactions?start_date=2023-10-01T00:00:00-0700&end_date=2023-10-31T23:59:59-0700&fields=transaction_info&page_size=500
   • OAuth: Custom Paypal
3. Create a new tab and click Set current to use that tab as your data destination.
4. Create a new tab, name your query, and hit Run. A moment later you'll see your transactions populate your sheet (change the date parameters if you'd like to see a different time range).

Part 4: Handle Pagination

By default, PayPal only returns 500 records at once. To get more, you can use pagination handling, like this:

• URL: enter your URL, including page_size=500
• Pagination: page parameter
• Page parameter: page
• Run until: choose when to stop fetching data
  

Part 5: API Documentation

Official API documentation: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/api/transaction-search/v1/