Industries / Amazon Sellers
Amazon seller accountant & bookkeeping
Before Vertical Financials, Ben was Controller at JoyJolt — a DTC brand selling on Amazon, Shopify, and 15+ other channels, running GoFlow as the OMS. Which means the messy parts of an Amazon close aren't a surprise here: the settlement that straddles month-end, the reimbursement that never came, the freight invoice that arrives six weeks after the container did.
Where Amazon books usually break
The deposit in your bank account isn't your revenue.
It's gross sales minus refunds, minus a dozen fee types, minus ad spend, plus or minus a reserve that moves for reasons Amazon doesn't explain. When a bookkeeper codes that single deposit to sales, three things break at once: revenue is understated, fees are invisible, and gross margin becomes a number nobody trusts. Add inventory bought in one month, shipped in another, and sold across a third, and the P&L stops describing the business.
That's fixable. It's mostly a matter of doing the boring steps in the right order, every month, on schedule — which is the Predictable part of how we work.
What we actually do each month
Settlements, not deposits
Every payout gets reconciled back to the settlement report it came from — gross sales, refunds, referral fees, FBA fulfillment fees, storage, ads, and the reserve. The deposit is the last step, not the source of truth.
Fees broken out where you can see them
Referral, fulfillment, storage, long-term storage, inbound placement, and ad spend each get their own line. Lumping them into one "Amazon fees" account is how a fee increase goes unnoticed for two quarters.
Inventory that ties out
Units on hand, in transit, at the 3PL, and inbound to FBA are tracked separately, with freight, duty, and inbound handling capitalized into cost per unit instead of expensed as they hit the bank.
Reimbursements handled properly
Lost, damaged, and disposed units are matched to reimbursements. What's still unresolved stays on a list you can act on rather than disappearing into other income.
Sales tax posture that matches reality
Marketplace-facilitated collections are separated from anything you collect and remit yourself, so what you owe is obvious and your filings match your books.
Margin by SKU and channel
A monthly view of contribution margin after landed cost, fees, and ads — the number that tells you which SKUs deserve more inventory and which ones are borrowing money from the winners.
Why this background matters
Closed from the inside, not from a portal.
Ben's path to this work ran through the operations side. Accounting at Adorama, where high-volume retail and marketplace activity is the daily reality. Accounting at a freight-forwarding company, which is where landed cost stops being a spreadsheet concept and becomes duty, drayage, chargeable weight, and an invoice that shows up long after the goods do. Then Controller at JoyJolt, owning the close for a multi-channel inventory brand.
That mix is the reason a conversation here starts with your inventory flow and your cost build-up rather than with a pricing tier. It's also why we're comfortable saying which parts of your setup we'd leave alone.
You get a partner who reads a settlement report the same way you read your sales dashboard — that's the Personal and Practical part. See how the monthly ecommerce close works.
FAQ
Amazon bookkeeping questions we get asked
- Can you work directly in Seller Central, or do you need reports from us?
- Either way. Give us view-only Seller Central access and we pull the settlement and inventory reports ourselves each month. If you'd rather not add a user, we'll take the settlement reports and the monthly inventory ledger and work from those.
- How do you handle a settlement period that straddles month-end?
- We split it. The portion that belongs to the closing month is accrued so revenue and fees land in the period they were earned, and the deposit is reconciled against the settlement, not against the bank line. Without that split your last week of sales quietly slides into next month.
- Do we have to use A2X or ConnectBooks?
- No, but we usually recommend one of them because hand-keying settlements does not scale. If you already have a tool running, we'll work inside it. If not, we'll help you pick — we wrote up how we compare them.
- What about FBA reimbursements, removals, and lost inventory?
- They get their own treatment rather than being dumped into revenue. Reimbursements are matched to the units they relate to, removals and disposals reduce inventory, and unresolved discrepancies stay visible so you can decide whether to open a case.
- Our COGS is basically a guess right now. Can you fix it?
- Yes, and it's usually the first thing we fix. We rebuild cost per unit to include freight, duty, and inbound handling so gross margin means something. It takes purchase history and landed cost detail from you up front, then it stays accurate every close.
- We sell on Amazon plus other channels. Is that a problem?
- It's the normal case for our clients. Each channel is reconciled to its own payout and mapped into one P&L, so you can see blended margin and per-channel margin without exporting anything.
Related: All industries we serve·Shopify bookkeeping·Ecommerce bookkeeping services·Fractional CFO for ecommerce·Reconciling Amazon settlements in QuickBooks·A2X vs ConnectBooks
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