Part of Bookkeeping

Ecommerce bookkeeping services

Bookkeeping for Shopify, Amazon and marketplace sellers: A2X settlement summaries, a clearing account per channel, inventory and COGS tracked monthly, GST right on overseas sales.

Book a free call Settlements reconciled weekly, inventory and COGS monthly

Why ecommerce books go wrong, and how we keep them right

An online store generates more transactions in a week than a trade business does in a quarter, and almost none of them hit the bank account one at a time. Shopify pays out in batches net of fees and refunds, Amazon settles fortnightly with a dozen fee types inside each deposit, PayPal and Afterpay each hold their own balance, and the stock that was sold was bought months earlier from a supplier overseas. Reconciling the bank feed to “Shopify payout” tells you nothing about what you sold or what it cost.

Our ecommerce bookkeeping is built around that reality: every channel reconciled through a settlement tool, a clearing account for every gateway, inventory and cost of goods tracked monthly, and GST treated correctly across domestic, export and imported sales. It is the specialist version of our bookkeeping service, and it sits inside the firm that does the tax and advisory work for ecommerce businesses.

How the file is set up

Settlement reconciliation

A2X (or the equivalent for your platform) breaks each payout into sales, refunds, fees, shipping income and GST, posts it to Xero and matches it to the deposit. Marketplace fees become a cost line you can see, not a leak in revenue.

A clearing account per channel

Shopify Payments, PayPal, Afterpay, Stripe, Amazon and eBay each get a clearing account, so money in transit is visible and a missing payout is caught in the week it goes missing.

Inventory and cost of goods sold

Purchases land in inventory, not in expenses. Each month stock on hand is reconciled and the cost of what was sold moves to COGS, so gross margin is real. If you run Cin7, DEAR or Unleashed we integrate it; if you do not, we track inventory monthly from your stock counts.

GST that is actually right

Export sales GST-free, Australian sales with GST, low-value imported goods, platform-collected GST where it applies, and the GST on overseas advertising and software. These are the lines the ATO looks at first in an ecommerce review.

What you get each month

Profit and loss with revenue and margin by channel.
Gross margin by product group where your inventory system supports it.
Advertising spend as a percentage of revenue, by channel.
Cash position across the bank and every clearing account.
A note on what moved and why.

Who this is for

Australian online sellers doing roughly $1M to $20M across one or more channels, including brands that also sell wholesale or through a physical store. If you are earlier than that, the small business bookkeeping package is usually enough. If you are scaling fast, the virtual CFO service adds a forecast, inventory funding planning and a monthly meeting on the numbers.

Getting started

Book a FREE discovery call, 30 minutes with a New Wave team member. Bring your channel list and roughly how you track stock today.
We review the Xero file and the platform connections and send a proposal within the week with the monthly package agreed up front. A clean-up of historical settlements is quoted separately if you need one.
We connect the settlement tool, set up the clearing accounts and inventory process, and your designated bookkeeper takes over the weekly reconciliation.

Before you ask

Ecommerce bookkeeping services: the questions we get.

Why do my Shopify payouts never match my sales?

Because a payout is sales less refunds, less Shopify Payments fees, less chargebacks, sometimes less a reserve, often spanning several days of orders, and excluding anything paid through PayPal or Afterpay. Reconciling the bank deposit as revenue understates sales and hides fees. A settlement tool such as A2X breaks each payout into its parts and posts them to Xero, so the deposit matches to the cent and the fees become a visible cost line.

Do I need A2X, or can Xero connect to Shopify directly?

Xero’s own Shopify connection posts a daily summary and suits a single-channel store with simple GST. Once you have Amazon or eBay alongside Shopify, sell overseas, use several gateways or need gross margin by channel, A2X or an equivalent settlement tool is the cleaner choice because it reconciles per payout and handles each channel’s fee structure. We set up either; the discovery call is where we work out which fits.

How should inventory be treated in ecommerce books?

Stock is an asset when you buy it and a cost when you sell it. If purchases go straight to expenses, profit swings with every container that lands and gross margin means nothing. We hold purchases in inventory, move the cost of what sold to cost of goods sold each month from your stock counts or inventory system, and value closing stock at 30 June for tax. Landed cost, freight and duty are part of that, not separate overheads.

Is GST charged on sales to overseas customers?

Generally no. Goods exported to a customer outside Australia can be GST-free when the export conditions are met and you keep evidence of the export, while sales to Australian customers carry GST once you are registered. Low-value imported goods, platform-collected GST on some marketplaces and GST on overseas advertising and software each have their own treatment. Getting the channel mapping right in the settlement tool is what makes the BAS correct without manual adjustments.

Ready when you are

Stop paying for the dinosaur.

Book a free discovery call. Thirty minutes with a New Wave team member on where the business is and where you want it. If we are not the right firm for you, we will tell you who is.

Book a free discovery call Call (07) 5504 1999