Bookkeeping tips for your e-commerce business

Helping you with your online store bookkeeping needs

Online stores are now the norm with more and more people embracing online shopping rather than hitting the high street. And while a lot of the online shopping that we do is with the big name brands such as Amazon, there are countless online e-commerce businesses popping up everyday that offers everything and anything from car parts to customised t-shirts.

But just because you are an online business doesn’t mean that you don’t have to do your books. E-commerce bookkeeping can present many unique challenges and understanding these challenges can be vital for your online business to not just survive – but to thrive.

And that is why we wanted to look at some top tips for managing your bookkeeping with an online e-commerce business.

1 – Alternative payment methods

The majority of payments that an online e-commerce store receives are credit card transactions. But what happens if your online store also accepts payment in the form of cheque, cash, gift card etc. If you accept cheque payments for example, the date of the transaction will not be the same as the date that the money is deposited into your bank account. This may seem like a simple issue to resolve once of twice but what if it happens hundreds of times in online sales in the year?

2 – Track Inventory

Some businesses don’t just operate on their own site. They may sell on Amazon, Ebay and other sites as well. All selling effectively the same product. While an e-commerce site comes with stock management built in, it doesn’t necessarily link with your accounts and products for sale on your ebay page. It is essential to keep track of inventory, especially when dealing with restocking and returns.

3 – Merchant Fees

If you sell using Paypal for example as the method of accepting payment, there will be a merchant fee. Long story short, they take a cut of your sale. This becomes a complicated issue for bookkeeping as the net sales will be deposited into your account rather than the gross. Making sure you can track and document the merchant fees (and the potential different fees depending on the different suppliers) is crucial.

4 – Refunds

Not every sale online will be successful. Some customers will want to return their purchase. If someone does return a product, how will you track it through your e-commerce system and how will this affect your bookkeeping records?
And with any refund, you won’t get the merchant fee back from the original sale meaning that every refund is actually a loss. How will you reflect this in your bookkeeping?

This all sounds stressful – can you help?

We are Momentum Bookkeeping and our goal is to make running your business easier. Whether it’s getting paid by your customers on time, completing your VAT returns or processing payroll; the demands on businesses can seem endless.

Let us handle your bookkeeping needs so that you can focus on running your business and gain some real momentum.

Covering the full range of bookkeeping services that the typical business would require, we have built our bookkeeping services around going a step further. And that means that we offer not just what you expect, but what you need (even if you didn’t know you need it).

From VAT returns and payroll services to custom built MySQL databases as part of our Bespoke Services. From a once a year service to a daily interaction service into your business; we can be as integrated with your business as you want us to be.