HomeIndustriesEcommerce Brands
Accounting for Ecommerce Brands

Know your true margin, by SKU and by channel

Bookkeeping for ecommerce built for product businesses that sell across Shopify, Amazon, and more. As your ecommerce accountant we reconcile every payout, get inventory and COGS onto the books correctly, keep sales tax in order, and show you what each product and channel actually earns, so revenue growth turns into profit you can see.

Want clean books you can trust?

What's your revenue?

The ecommerce problem

Top-line growth that hides thin margins

Ecommerce is deceptively hard to keep clean. Money flows through Shopify, Amazon, Stripe, PayPal, and your bank on different schedules, each netting out fees, refunds, and reserves before it lands. Standard bookkeeping treats the deposit as revenue and misses everything underneath.

The payout trap

A payout is not your sales number

A Shopify payout is gross sales minus processing fees, minus refunds and chargebacks, sometimes minus a rolling reserve, often spanning two settlement periods. Amazon is worse: FBA fees, storage, advertising, and returns all come out before the disbursement hits your account. Booked as one line of revenue, your gross sales, fees, and refunds are all wrong, and so is everything calculated from them. We reconcile each channel to its settlement detail so revenue, fees, and returns land in the right accounts every month.

The inventory trap

Stock is an asset, not an expense

Cash spent on stock is not an expense, it is an asset that becomes cost of goods sold only when the product sells. Get this wrong and a heavy purchasing month looks unprofitable while a sell-through month looks artificially rich. We carry inventory on the balance sheet and recognize COGS against sales, including freight, duties, and landed cost, so gross margin is real. From there we can break profitability down by SKU and by channel, which is usually where the surprising answers live.

What's covered

What we handle for ecommerce brands

Scope is agreed before we start. Most brands use the full range below; not every store needs every item from day one.

Inventory

Inventory & COGS accounting

Inventory carried as an asset and recognized as COGS when product sells, including freight, duties, and landed cost, so gross margin reflects what you actually earn.

Reconciliation

Multi-channel payout reconciliation

Shopify, Amazon, Stripe, and PayPal payouts reconciled to settlement detail, fees, refunds, chargebacks, and reserves split out instead of buried in a net deposit.

Compliance

Sales tax tracking

Sales tax liability tracked across the jurisdictions where you have nexus, with collected tax reconciled and records kept filing-ready for you or your tax provider.

Profitability

Margin by SKU & channel

Contribution margin broken out by product and by sales channel, so you can see which SKUs and which marketplaces actually make money after fees and ad spend.

Cash

Cash flow & purchasing

Cash flow visibility built around inventory cycles, so you can time reorders and supplier payments without getting caught short between a buy and a sell-through.

Close

Monthly close, owned end to end

Every channel and account reconciled, every entry reviewed by a senior before sign-off, delivered on a predictable monthly schedule.

Who it's for

Built for DTC and ecommerce operators

DTC brands on Shopify that have outgrown spreadsheet bookkeeping
Sellers running multiple channels, Shopify, Amazon, wholesale, who need it all reconciled in one place
Operators whose revenue is up but who cannot tell which products are actually profitable
Brands carrying real inventory that need COGS and landed cost done right
Founders unsure whether they are collecting and tracking sales tax correctly across states
Teams that want bookkeeping, controller, and CFO support from one team as they scale
Why founders trust us

No lock-in. No surprises. Clean multi-channel books, handled.

Fixed monthly fee
No hourly billing and no surprise invoices, so you always know exactly what you pay.
Month-to-month
No long-term contracts or lock-in. Stay because it works, not because you're stuck.
Your data stays yours
Full ownership and admin access to every account and system, always.
Same or next business day
Reach your team in Slack, email, or a quick call, no ticket queue.
Works in the tools you already use
Questions

Ecommerce accounting FAQ

How do you handle inventory and COGS?

We treat inventory as an asset on the balance sheet, not an expense when you buy it. Cost of goods sold is recognized when the product actually sells, and we fold in freight, duties, and other landed costs so each unit carries its true cost. That way a big purchasing month does not crater your P&L and a strong sell-through month is not overstated. The result is a gross margin you can trust and inventory balances that tie to what is on the shelf.

Can you reconcile Shopify, Amazon, and Stripe payouts?

Yes, this is core to what we do. A payout is never just revenue: it nets out processing fees, refunds, chargebacks, marketplace commissions, advertising, and sometimes a rolling reserve. We reconcile each channel to its settlement detail and post gross sales, fees, and returns to the correct accounts, so the deposit in your bank reconciles cleanly to what actually happened in the store.

Do you manage sales tax?

We track the sales tax you collect and your liability across the states where you have nexus, and we keep the records reconciled and filing-ready. We work alongside a sales tax platform such as Avalara or TaxJar, or your tax provider, who handles the actual registrations and filings. We are not a licensed tax firm, but we make sure the numbers behind your filings are clean and the collected tax is accounted for correctly.

Can you show profitability by SKU and by channel?

Yes. Once COGS, fees, and channel-level costs are clean, we break contribution margin out by product and by sales channel. This is often where the real story emerges, a hero product that is barely profitable after fees, or a marketplace that loses money once advertising is allocated. With that visibility you can cut, reprice, or reallocate spend with actual numbers behind the decision.

What accounting and ecommerce tools do you work with?

We work in QuickBooks Online or Xero and connect them to Shopify, Amazon, Stripe, PayPal, and inventory or sync tools like A2X. We adapt to the stack you already run, or recommend a cleaner setup if your current tools are creating reconciliation problems. Either way, the goal is data flowing in correctly so margins are accurate without manual re-keying.

What does an ecommerce accountant cost?

We charge a fixed monthly fee instead of an hourly rate, so there are no surprise invoices as your order volume climbs. Pricing is driven mainly by revenue and transaction volume, plus complexity like the number of sales channels, inventory, and the states where you have sales tax nexus, so a single-store brand pays less than a multi-channel one. Use the estimator above for a quick number, then we confirm a tailored quote on a short call. Engagements stay month-to-month.

Do you work remotely, or do you need to be on-site?

We are remote-first and work with ecommerce brands across the US through secure cloud accounting. Your store, payment, and accounting platforms connect directly, so we reconcile payouts, manage inventory and COGS, and run the monthly close online, with no on-site visit needed. You stay in the loop through a shared workspace, email, and regular calls, wherever your business is based.

See what every product really earns

Get clean multi-channel books, real margins, and a monthly close built for product businesses. We reply the same day, or by the next business day.

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