Reporting

PayPal’s report server is a secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) server that enables business partners and large merchants to fetch PayPal processing results. You can communicate with the server through the command line or any SFTP client of your choice, such as WinSCP, Cyberduck, or FileZilla. See PayPal Secure FTP Server Specification for more information about communicating with the server after you've set up your account.

Know before you code

• It can take up to 48 hours to create an SFTP server user account. PayPal sends an email message to your primary email address when the server is ready.
• The PayPal account user interface recently changed. If you're having trouble finding the Secure FTP Users item after your account has been enabled, refer to Secure SFTP Server Users. Contact us to have your PayPal account enabled for report access before you can create an SFTP user account.

Create SFTP account

1. Log in to your PayPal account.
2. Click the settings icon in the upper right-hand corner of the page and then click Account Settings.
3. On the Account access page, click Update next to the Secure FTP Users item.
4. Follow the instructions on the screen until you complete the user account setup and the final screen displays the new user information.

Reports available

• Search payouts transactions
• View transaction activities
• Get Settlement and Transaction Details reports 

Download reports

Download your reports from PayPal’s live or sandbox environment.

To use command-line SFTP to retrieve reports:

1. Open a Terminal window.

   • To access reports on sandbox:

     1$ sftp <sftp_account_username>@reports.sandbox.paypal.com

   • To access reports on live:

     1$ sftp <sftp_account_username>@reports.paypal.com

2. Enter your SFTP account password.

3. Change directory to your outgoing reports:

   1$ cd ppreports/outgoing

4. List the files in this directory:

   1$ ls

5. Download report files:

   1$ Get <filename>

6. Log off the reporting server:

   1$ `exit`

See also

For more information about retrieving reports by using an SFTP client such as WinSCP for Windows, go to PayPal's Merchant Technical Support website.