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eCommerce bookkeeping

eCommerce Bookkeeping Services for Online Brands

As an online store scales, the books get harder — marketplace fees, refunds, sales tax across states. Datastub provides eCommerce bookkeeping & accounting for online businesses, so you get reports that match reality: real revenue, real margin, real cash position — reconciled and four-tier reviewed every month.

eCommerce industry illustration

99%

Accuracy Rate

6+

Years In Business

250K+

Billable Hours

28+

Years of Combined Leadership

7+

Industries Served

All 50

States

THE ECOMMERCE CHALLENGE

Why eCommerce Bookkeeping Is Different From Standard Bookkeeping

A growing store doesn't just generate orders — it generates fees, refunds, payouts, nexus, and inventory movement across every channel. Standard bookkeeping wasn't built for this level of complexity. Here's where it usually breaks down.

Payouts Don't Match Sales

Shopify reports one number; your bank shows another. The gap is merchant fees, refunds, reserves, and chargebacks. Reconciling those daily batches by hand is a job nobody has time for.

Returns Hide Their True Cost

A refund isn't just a reversed sale. There's the original shipping, return shipping, restocking, repackaging — and stock that sometimes can't be resold. Booked as a simple reversal, returns hide what they actually cost you.

Sales Tax Headache

You crossed the economic nexus in states you've never set foot in. Now there are registrations, filings, and deadlines — and you're not even sure when the obligation started.

Inconsistent Reporting

One month revenue is booked gross, the next it's net of fees. Refunds land in different places. When data is recorded inconsistently, month-over-month comparisons don't hold up and the growth trend is guesswork.

Inventory and Books Disagree

Your storefront says one thing about stock and COGS; your accounting software says another. When the two don't sync, you're making purchasing decisions on numbers you can't trust.

Disconnected Ad Spend

Meta, Google, TikTok — the spend is easy to track, the return isn't. Without ad cost tied to the revenue it drove, you're scaling campaigns on a guess.

ABOUT DATASTUB

Outsourced Bookkeeping & Accounting Firm for Small & Mid Size Businesses

Datastub is an outsourced accounting and bookkeeping firm supporting small and mid-sized businesses with bookkeeping, accounting, payroll, tax, cleanup, and financial operations — all under one team.

We started in 2019 solving complex accounting problems for operational businesses — messy books, payout mismatch, inventory challenges, multi-state sales tax compliance, and reporting issues that smaller bookkeeping setups weren't built for.

Today, our team includes CPAs, EAs, sales tax experts, QuickBooks specialists, and accounting professionals working together through a four-tier internal review on every output.

Datastub accounting professionals team
SCATTERED vs. CONNECTED

Why eCommerce Accounting Gets Scattered — and How We Fix It

When online brands grow, so does their scattered data. You end up running on five systems — Shopify, Stripe, Meta Ads, an inventory tool, your bank — five different sets of numbers, none of them connected. So, nothing reconciles cleanly: not payouts, not inventory, not ad ROI, not bank vs. Shopify.

Datastub's job is to connect them — every payout, fee, refund, and ad dollar reconciled into one ledger that finally matches reality and gives you one combined report instead of five.

Before

Five Systems, None Connected

After

One Reconciled Ledger

HOW IT WORKS

How Our eCommerce Bookkeeping Service Works

From first call to monthly close — here's exactly what working with Datastub looks like, and when.

0 Day

Discovery Call

A 30-minute call with Nimesh or a senior. We learn your store — platforms, channels, order volume, where the books stand today.

1-5 Days

Scope & Books Review

We review your store setup, payment processors, current books, and multi-state exposure. You get a written scope with fixed pricing.

48 Hours Kick-off

Onboarding

We connect your platforms, pull existing records, and set up your chart of accounts. If historical books need cleanup, that's scoped and priced separately.

30 Days

Financial Review

A walkthrough of your numbers — real revenue, margin by channel, ad ROI, cash position. What changed, what to watch.

2nd Month

Ongoing Bookkeeping

Every payout reconciled, fees and refunds and COGS booked correctly, sales tax filed on time. The books close every month.

ECOMMERCE SERVICES

eCommerce Bookkeeping and Accounting Services for Online Stores

From payout reconciliation to multi-state sales tax, monthly reporting, and year-end filing — the full set of services Datastub handles for your growing online store.

Books Cleanup

Catch-up bookkeeping for stores dealing with backlogs, broken reconciliations, or historical errors. We rebuild messy ledgers, re-reconcile payouts, and correct miscategorized fees. Scoped upfront with a fixed price before work begins.

Monthly Bookkeeping

Ongoing bookkeeping on a published monthly schedule. We reconcile all bank, credit card, and merchant accounts, keep COGS and inventory current, and close the books every month.

Payout & Channel Reconciliation

We untangle the data between your storefront and your bank. Shopify, WooCommerce, Stripe, and PayPal payouts matched to deposits, with fees, refunds, and chargebacks isolated and booked where they belong.

COGS & Inventory Accounting

Accurate cost-of-goods booked monthly and inventory reconciled between your store and your ledger. The margins on your reports are based on real numbers, not estimates.

Sales Tax Compliance

End-to-end multi-state sales tax management. We run nexus studies to determine where you owe, handle state registrations, manage ongoing filings, and provide audit support if a state asks questions.

Financial Reporting

Monthly reports built for the way online stores operate. A clean P&L and balance sheet, plus margin breakdowns by channel and ad spend tied to the revenue it drove.

Business Tax Filing

Federal and state income tax prep for LLCs, S-corps, and partnerships. We prepare and file your year-end returns directly from your reconciled books. Available alongside bookkeeping or standalone.

Let's Get Your Store's Books In Order

Book a free consultation. We'll look at how your store's data flows today, where it's breaking, and what it takes to get to books that match reality. No obligation.

Let's Connect!
PLATFORMS & TOOLS

We work in the tools your store already runs on.

Datastub does eCommerce books in the platforms you already use — no forced migrations, no new systems to learn.

eComm Stores

Shopify · WooCommerce . Amazon . Walmart Selling on Etsy or eBay too? We reconcile those channels into the same books.

Payments

Stripe · PayPal · Braintree · Shopify Payments Payouts reconciled to the deposit — fees and refunds separated, not buried.

Accounting Tools

QuickBooks Online · Xero We work in QuickBooks Online, Xero, Zoho Books, Sage 50.

Integration tools

A2X · Webgility · Link My Books · fishbowl Set up when volume calls for it, to automate the flow into your books.

WHY DATASTUB

Why eCommerce Businesses Choose Datastub

Outsourcing your books raises real questions. Here's where we stand on the six that matter most.

Quality Control

Will I be able to control quality across an outsourced team?

  • Every output passes through a four-tier review: Accountant → Senior → Lead → Manager.
  • One assigned account manager who owns your engagement end to end.

Data Security

Will my data be safe?

  • US-hosted Microsoft security stack, encrypted at every level.
  • Role-based, office-only access — and covered by E&O and cyber insurance.

Point of Contact

Who's my point of contact?

  • You get a dedicated account manager assigned to your engagement — and a 24-business-hour response on every question.
  • A monthly meeting to walk through your numbers — not just send them.

Industry Knowledge

Do you actually know eCommerce books?

  • eCommerce is one of the seven industries we work in deeply — Shopify and WooCommerce stores are core to our client base
  • We handle the eCommerce-specific work: payout reconciliation, COGS and inventory, multi-state sales tax

Transition

How will the transition work?

  • Onboarding starts within 48 hours of signing.
  • Whatever your previous bookkeeper left behind, we'll sort it out — that's our job, not yours.

Flexibility

What if it doesn't work out?

  • 60 days' notice. No long-term contracts.
  • A clean handover with all your documents, ready for your next firm.
REAL PROBLEM WE'VE SOLVED

Real Results From Our eCommerce Bookkeeping Engagements

Three real eCommerce engagements — what we found, what we did, and what it meant for the client.

01

Missed Processor Payouts, $5,200 Recovered

A client hired us for ongoing bookkeeping — no cleanup needed. When a multi-channel payout came in smaller than the orders behind it, we reviewed twelve months of processor statements and found a system glitch on the processor’s end. Eleven payments had never reached the bank. The client recovered $5,200 they never knew was missing.

02

Sales Tax Booked Wrong

A fashion brand needed sales tax help, and we discovered their books had no tax liability recorded because everything was categorized as an expense. We rebuilt seven months of financial data, restructured their chart of accounts, and recorded the sales tax liabilities properly. This gave them an accurate picture of what the business earns and what it owes.

03

$900 in Chargebacks, $760 Won

We onboarded a jewelry brand whose books were built entirely from bank statements, with the Stripe account never opened. When we reconciled Stripe, we found around $900 in chargebacks, none of them ever disputed. We pulled their shipping and delivery proof, filed responses on each one, and won back $760.

What clients say

Reviews from Real Businesses

Real Google reviews from clients we've worked with. Nothing edited, nothing curated.

FAQs

Questions Owner Ask First About eCommerce Bookkeeping Services

The things people want to know before they pick up the phone. Still unsure?

Do you work if my online store is built on Shopify or WooCommerce?

Yes — Shopify and WooCommerce stores are core to what we do. We know both platforms inside out: how their payouts, fees, refunds, and chargebacks flow, and how to reconcile every bit of it cleanly into QuickBooks Online.

Can you help if we sell on Amazon or other marketplaces too?

Yes. Shopify and WooCommerce are what most of our clients run, but we reconcile Amazon, Etsy, and eBay sales channels into the same set of books. If you sell across several channels, they all land in one reconciled ledger.

Our books are behind. Is that a problem?

Not at all — it’s one of the most common reasons online stores come to us. However far back it goes, we rebuild the backlog: payouts re-reconciled, fees and refunds corrected, the books brought current. Cleanup is scoped and priced before any work starts.

Why can’t I just record my Shopify deposits as income?

Because the deposit isn’t your revenue. A $5,000 Shopify payout might be $6,000 in sales, minus refunds, minus platform and payment fees, minus a chargeback. Recorded as a flat $5,000 of income, your revenue is wrong, your fees are invisible, and your margin is a guess. We break every payout down to what actually happened.

Do you help with eCommerce sales tax?

Yes. We handle multi-state sales tax end to end — a nexus study to find where your sales create an obligation, state registrations, and ongoing filings. If a state ever raises questions, we provide audit support too.

Doesn’t Shopify handle sales tax for me?

Only partly. Shopify can calculate and collect sales tax at checkout, but it doesn’t decide where you owe it, register you in those states, or file the returns — those are still your responsibility. We handle the part Shopify doesn’t: figuring out where you have nexus, registering, and filing on time.

What accounting software do you work in?

We work primarily in QuickBooks Online, the best fit for most growing online stores. If you’re already on Xero, we work there too. If your books are somewhere else, we’ll tell you honestly whether to stay or migrate before any work begins.

How much does eCommerce bookkeeping with Datastub cost?

It depends on your order volume, sales channels, and which services you need. After books review you get a written scope with fixed pricing — no hourly surprises. Most ongoing engagements run on a flat monthly fee.

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Ready When You Are

Let's get your store's books in order.

Book a free consultation. We'll look at how your store's data flows today, where it's breaking, and what it takes to get to books that match reality. No obligation.

Book a Free Consultation