E-Commerce Accounting
A marketplace payout arrives net of a dozen deductions. Until each one is separated and matched, revenue, margin and GST are all estimates.
E-commerce accounting is largely a reconciliation problem. A marketplace payout arrives net of commission, fulfilment and shipping fees, returns, penalties and tax collected at source, so gross sales, expenses and GST liability all have to be reconstructed from settlement reports rather than read off the bank statement. Add returns and RTO, cash on delivery timing and stock held in fulfilment centres across several states, and the accounts stop resembling those of an ordinary trading business.
What our e-commerce accounting covers
Every channel reconciled back to gross, not net.
- Settlement report parsing for each marketplace and payment gateway
- Reconciliation of gross sales to net payout, deduction by deduction
- Classification of commission, fulfilment, shipping and penalty charges
- GST tax collected at source, credit claim and matching on the portal
- Returns, RTO and cash-on-delivery timing differences
- Multi-state registrations, stock transfers and inventory across fulfilment centres
The four problems unique to online sellers
None of them appear in a normal trading ledger.
Settlement reconciliation
Rebuilding gross revenue and each deduction from the marketplace settlement file, rather than booking the bank credit as sales.
GST and TCS
Tax collected by the operator on the net value of taxable supplies, matched on the portal and claimed rather than left sitting unused.
Returns and RTO
Returns, refunds and return-to-origin consignments recorded in the right period, with the associated fees and stock movements.
Multi-state stock
Inventory held at fulfilment centres in several states, with the registration and stock transfer consequences that follow.
Our process
Building an accounting process that scales with channels.
Channel mapping
Listing every marketplace, gateway and D2C channel and how each one reports and settles.
Data pipeline
Setting up a repeatable extraction of settlement reports so reconciliation is not rebuilt each month.
Monthly reconciliation
Gross-to-net reconciliation per channel, GST working papers and stock reconciliation.
Reporting
Channel and SKU-level margin reporting after all deductions, which is the number that actually matters.
Where online sellers lose money quietly
What sets our approach apart.
Payout is not revenue
Booking the net credit as sales understates both turnover and expenses, distorts GST and makes true channel margin impossible to see.
TCS credit goes unclaimed
Tax collected at source by the operator has to be accepted and claimed through the portal; sellers who never complete that step leave real money in the ledger.
Stock in a state creates obligations
Holding inventory at a fulfilment centre in another state generally requires registration there, and businesses discover this only when a notice arrives.
E-Commerce Accounting questions answered
What people ask before engaging us.
Selling across marketplaces and unsure of your real margin?
Send us one month of settlement reports and we will reconcile them back to gross.
