Ecommerce Bookkeeping Services for DTC Brands
Payouts reconciled by channel, inventory and COGS, sales tax by state and a monthly close you can use.
Ecommerce bookkeeping services
Ecommerce bookkeeping services keep the books for a brand that sells across its own store, marketplaces and wholesale: inventory and cost of goods sold recorded properly, sales tax tracked by state and by channel, every payout reconciled to the orders, fees and refunds behind it, and a monthly close you can make decisions from. Atidiv does this for US consumer and direct-to-consumer brands in QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite. It starts with a review of your current books, and it is priced hourly, as a monthly retainer, or as a project for a one-time clean-up.
Why generic bookkeeping breaks on ecommerce
Generic bookkeeping breaks on ecommerce for one reason. The money that reaches your bank is never the same as the sales you made. Every deposit is net of fees, refunds, chargebacks, reserves and sometimes tax, and it covers orders from several days. Book the deposit as revenue and the profit and loss statement is wrong in a way nobody notices until a lender, a buyer or the IRS asks.
Books kept from bank deposits? We rebuild them from each channel's reports.
What we do for ecommerce brands
Each sales channel reports money differently, and each needs its own treatment.
- Shopify Payments: The Shopify Payments activity report shows starting balance, gross activity, fees, payouts and ending balance for a date range. Shopify says the report is not a revenue statement, and it leaves out third-party processors such as Afterpay.
- Amazon: Date Range reports list each order, refund and fee, with separate columns for selling fees, FBA fees and marketplace withheld tax. Amazon notes that settlement reports follow payout timing while Date Range reports follow activity timing, so the two will not match.
- Stripe: Automatic payouts can include funds from many transactions, and the payout reconciliation report shows which ones. For manual payouts, Stripe cannot say which transactions were included, so the reconciliation is yours.
- PayPal: Activity and fee detail from the PayPal account. Fees and holds come out before the transfer reaches the bank. We gross each payout back up to sales, record the fees, refunds, chargebacks and reserves as what they are, and tie the net to the bank deposit. The result is revenue by channel you can compare month to month, and fees you can see instead of losing inside a deposit.
For most product brands, inventory is the largest asset on the balance sheet and COGS is the largest expense. The IRS explains in Publication 538 that a business which keeps an inventory generally has to use an accrual method and value that inventory each year to work out cost of goods sold. The same publication sets out an exception for small business taxpayers. Which applies to you is a decision for your tax adviser. Our job is to keep the records that make either one work.
In practice, that means:
- Recording purchase orders, landed costs and freight so unit cost is right
- Tracking stock held at your warehouse, a 3PL and Amazon’s fulfillment centers
- Posting COGS as units sell, not when inventory is bought
- Recording write-offs, shrinkage and reimbursements for lost or damaged stock
- Reconciling the inventory system to the general ledger at each close
Since the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, a state can require an online seller with no physical presence there to collect its sales tax. The South Dakota law the Court reviewed applied to sellers that delivered more than $100,000 of goods or services into the state, or made 200 or more separate sales into it, in a year. Other states set their own thresholds, and they differ.
Marketplaces change the picture. Amazon says every US state with a sales tax has a marketplace facilitator law as of January 1, 2023, so Amazon collects and remits the tax on those sales. Amazon also says sellers may still have a reporting obligation for those sales. Your own storefront is different: on Shopify sales, collecting where you have nexus is your responsibility.
We track sales by state and by channel each month, flag when a state is approaching a threshold, and keep marketplace-collected tax separate from tax you collected yourself. Registration and filing positions stay with your tax adviser, and we give them clean numbers to work from.
Payment platforms report what they paid you on Form 1099-K. The IRS says that under the One, Big, Beautiful Bill, a platform does not have to file one unless payments to you exceed $20,000 and the number of transactions exceeds 200. A 1099-K shows gross payments, not profit. We reconcile each form you receive to your books, so the gross figure the IRS sees can be explained line by line.
How it starts
All of this sits within our bookkeeping services, and the wider finance and accounting team can add forecasting and CFO support as you grow.
We look at your current books, channels, apps and bank accounts, and list what is missing or miscoded.
We agree a chart of accounts built for ecommerce, with revenue, fees and COGS by channel, and connect the reports each channel provides.
If past months are behind or were booked from deposits, we rebuild them first so the history is usable.
From then on, we reconcile, close and report every month, and review the numbers with you.
The monthly close
Each month you get reconciled bank, card, loan and payout accounts, a profit and loss statement by channel, a balance sheet, and gross margin by channel. Where it helps, we add a cash flow view and a short note on what moved. For deeper reporting, see our financial reporting services.
How pricing works
Price depends on the number of channels, monthly transaction volume, entities, and how far behind the books are. There are three ways to engage. Hourly support suits smaller volumes or seasonal help. A fixed monthly retainer covers full or part-time bookkeeping, based on volume, entities and complexity. A project covers a one-time clean-up, a migration between accounting systems, a software set-up or a backlog. Every plan includes transaction processing, reconciliations, financial statements, dashboard reporting and monthly review meetings, and the proposal follows the review, once we know what the books need.
Frequently asked questions about ecommerce bookkeeping
QuickBooks, Xero and NetSuite. We work in your file, so your accountant and your team keep their access.
Yes. Books kept from deposits are a common problem for ecommerce brands, because the deposit looks like revenue. We rebuild revenue, fees and refunds from each channel’s reports for the months affected, then carry on monthly.
We keep the records a filing needs: sales by state and channel, marketplace-collected tax separated out, and alerts when a state nears a threshold. Registration and filing decisions stay with your tax adviser, who can file from our numbers.
Yes. We track units at Amazon alongside your own warehouse and 3PL, record FBA fees separately from selling fees, and book reimbursements for lost or damaged stock.
Monthly, after the close, with a review meeting. Dashboard reporting is included in every plan, so you can check the numbers between closes.
No. We keep tax preparation-ready records through the year, so your CPA can work from clean books. The return itself is prepared and signed by your tax adviser.