Before you go online and start searching for ecommerce companies to help you with every step of the accounting and bookkeeping list, try to understand what each concept entails. When you choose an accounting ecommerce software, consider how it works with your online ecommerce and fulfillment platforms. You need all your ecommerce platforms to function together to lead to the most effective results. Using a break even point calculator can help you determine if your sales will be enough to cover your costs and to what degree. With this calculator, you’ll be able to figure out how many products you must sell to break even. You’ll also know how many products you must sell to hit your target gross profit.

If you sell on multiple ecommerce platforms, you’ll need a single source of truth to maintain your inventory levels. This is critical to keep your sales, returns, restocks, and assets up-to-date in your financials. Double-entry bookkeeping records each transaction in two accounts as debit and credit to make sure your income, expenses, assets, and liabilities line up appropriately. I think one of the biggest misconceptions that eCommerce sellers have is that they’re only looking at the income statement.

All You Need to Know About eCommerce Bookkeeping

Comprehensive bookkeeping is absolutely essential if you’re running an ecommerce business. You’ll need to deal with issues like tracking inventory, sales tax, financial reports, and merchant fees. Without an accountant or a dedicated bookkeeping program, managing records is a challenging task. Fortunately, platforms like FreshBooks offer impressive bookkeeping services.

It also secures data storage with SSL encryption and automates bank data importation. You can also receive invoice details, accounts aging, sales tax summaries, and more. It is a comprehensive cloud-based accounting app, perfect for your ecommerce company. FreshBooks gives you access to expense management, reports, and insights. Ecommerce platforms often charge merchant fees, which is a unique bookkeeping element online sellers need to track. In essence, proper Etsy bookkeeping makes a sale look perfect so there are no holes for potential buyers and investors to pock and reduce the value you put out there for sale.

Create a general ledger (chart of accounts)

You need to know how much inventory you sell and what’s left in stock. This way, you know your sales are accounted for and also know when it’s time to order more products. From keeping track of your daily sales to having proper records in place for tax time, managing your books should never be put on the sidelines. Keeping your records straight and accurate ensures your business operates efficiently and legally, too. You don’t need to be an accounting expert to run a successful e-commerce business. In case you need a hand, we’ve got short videos and step-by-step instructions to help you learn how to use QuickBooks.

• For example, with a refund, not only do you have the refund itself, but there are also processing fees that need to be taken into account.
• These deposits are “net deposits” from your sales channels and payment processors.
• All Shopify transactions calculate sales taxes, and getting a handle on them is essential.
• You go through it line by line, you compare it to the previous month, you compare it to the same month last year.
• Some e-commerce platforms make dealing with shipping logistics easier by integrating directly with shipping systems.

One of the most common mistakes we see bookkeepers make with ecommerce accounting is expensing all products immediately when the product is purchased from the vendor. E-commerce businesses are operating in an international marketplace, bringing about fierce competition for customers. Sales and price slashing can increase your edge in the market, but you need to measure your profitability before offering a deal or price cut on your products. When you subtract these two accounts from your total sales number, you get net sales. Net sales reflect your total sales revenue after subtracting returns, discounts, and allowances, which are discounts made for defective merchandise that customers keep.

What accounting software connects with Shopify?

Cash flow is one of the most prominent startup killers, so getting the books in order is your non-negotiable responsibility. Really, the lifeblood of your business should be in QuickBooks, should be in Xero, should be the income statement, balance sheet, cash flow, but there are other tools you can use in addition. They just look at the money getting deposited into their bank account.

A separate account makes it easy to monitor your transactions, create financial reports, and identify your tax deductibles. Come tax time, you won’t be debating whether that IKEA expense was for your office chair or living room ecommerce bookkeeping furniture. If you don’t want to set up a new account, you can also check if you’re eligible to use an account with sub-accounts. The cash flow statement is probably the most important document for any type of bookkeeping.

Bookkeeping is key for financial forecasting and small business growth. Bookkeeping is the only way to gain insight into how your business is operating at any given time. The bookkeeping will have to account for foreign currency and its constantly changing conversion rates. For example, with a refund, not only do you have the refund itself, but there are also processing fees that need to be taken into account.

The merchant fee will vary depending on the platform you use, but it’s details like this that you need to keep in mind when using an ecommerce platform. Luckily, there’s lots of bookkeeping software that integrates with ecommerce platforms, making it easier https://www.bookstime.com/ to manage your sales and expenses. Bookkeeping is a critical aspect of running a successful eCommerce business. Keeping accurate records of financial transactions can help you make informed decisions, comply with tax laws, and secure financing for growth.

These items identify what’s coming into your company and what’s going out, plus it puts everything in an orderly format. Two primary accounting methods include cash basis and accrual basis. A receipt is a proof-of-purchase which is received after the goods are delivered, but it differs from an invoice or a sales order, because it doesn’t serve as a request. Receipts are simply documents that list the items or services purchased and delivered, showing how much the customer paid. The invoice is delivered to the customer after completion of an order, when the products have been received or services have been rendered.

But if you were to model your ecommerce accounting on this, you would end up with a hot mess AND an inaccurate picture of your business. Startup accounting encompasses more than just bookkeeping procedures. For example, you need to choose an inventory accounting method and either the cash or accrual basis of accounting. E-commerce business owners have a degree of flexibility not afforded those with physical storefronts. More appealing than avoiding rent on a storefront, being able to fulfill orders from home while wearing sweatpants would lead me to opt for an e-commerce model.