Accounting software for amazon

[jjscruff]

Thought i'd take the plunge and get everything organised into a software package.
I sell on amazon (priority), ebay and etsy and usually file my returns via spreadsheets which i'm pretty fast at doing

Been using xero but when i try and do integration with amazon via "linkmybooks" its trash. It can't even find my amazon US sales.
And then the UK ones it finds, its reporting that i owe VAT on zero rated sales.
Linkmybooks don't even have customer support.

Anyone found anything better? I've spent quite a while in xero consolidating invoices etc so i'll be annoyed if i have to give this up since it doesn't work.

 

[Spur Support Services]

If you work on multiple platforms, then may want to consider a solution that consolidates all your sales activities.
I use Expandly with clients, but I do recommend investing in strong accounting support, as it's still complex.

Expandly has the benefit of pulling all your data into one area, from all platforms and websites.

Their ability to handle multiple jurisdictions is good and VAT is a high priority for their design. Expandly integrates very well with Xero posting all your sales orders each day.

You can either choose for the Xero postings to be done on an individual document or a daily batch basis. The latter is advisable for high volumes, to maintain the health of your Xero platform.
Expandly can also be used to track your inventory, liaise with shippers and manage your listings across platforms.
They have a responsive support team.

The complexities that I recommend accounting support for, arise because like many other inventory based apps, Expandly is reading the order reports, whereas Link My Books is reading the Cash Settlement (Payment) reports.
Therefore you are swapping a problem with visibility of your sales and stronger VAT compliance capabilities, for one of reconciliation of your cash settlements.
Additional posting needs to be undertaken for returns, together with the various fees, commissions and deductions.
The way that these reconciling entries and checks are performed really depends on your sales volumes, but may still involve Link My Books, but in a slightly different way.

Care also needs to be taken with the implementation of the changes to the EU distance selling VAT rules in 1 July 2021.

What I recommend is that you sit down with your accountant and talk through your problems, so that you can see if they can help you find, set up and monitor a suitable solution, based on your particular size, geographical spread and operational challenges.

I hope this helps

https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebeccajohnson8/

 

[jjscruff]

thanks for this
I looked into it but its £175/pm
I don't need any of the other features just an accounting tool that works

 

[antropy]

Been using xero but when i try and do integration with amazon via "linkmybooks" its trash. It can't even find my amazon US sales.
And then the UK ones it finds, its reporting that i owe VAT on zero rated sales.
Linkmybooks don't even have customer support.

Are you sure there's not a support email for them anywhere?
Are there any other plugins for Xero?

 

[Spur Support Services]

thanks for this
I looked into it but its £175/pm
I don't need any of the other features just an accounting tool that works

I think you should try Link My Books support again.

There should be no reason why they aren't picking up your Amazon US activity if you have linked Amazon US in addition to Amazon EU.

The VAT rate issue may be a configuration problem, which support should be able to guide you through. You could try using the "Expand" function in the "Accounts and Taxes Mappings" list, to correct the Sales Shipped outside the EU postings.
https://docs.linkmybooks.com/setup-step-3-choose-your-preferred-account-and-tax-rates/

I haven't had a problem contacting Link My Books . They provided email support in response to questions raised in the webchat.

 

[Pish_Pash]

I tried linkmybooks, and at first it looked promising...but it doesn't map the incoming AmazonSKU sold directly to the Quickbooks inventory 'item' (& therefore makes no corresponding deduction in Quickbooks inventory ..... neither did A2X with Xero). This seems a major oversight, because having shelled out for this solution to save manual effort...you've still got to expend manual effort & pick the bones out of each Amazon disbursement!

To the OP, I've walked this walk (BIG time), there are only three options...

1. Be on the hook for a LARGE monthly outlay (using a combination of subscription services)
2. Be on the hook for a large outlay of time (by not deploying anything)
3. Roll your own solution (immense learning curve - I did it...and can report it's a never ending project)

(what irks me immensely about these subscription services...is the way they totally stiff you for adding more sales channels ...e.g. Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.fr etc - it's using the same underlying code!)

 

[antropy]

3. Roll your own solution (immense learning curve - I did it...and can report it's a never ending project)

Why don't you share your solution, perhaps even for a fee?

Paul.

 

[jjscruff]

i got on a live chat with link my books who after many screenshots and painful explaining to the support, they said that the reason it wasn't splitting my sales into UK/ROTW was because of a "glitch"

They said they'd fixed it but its 24 hours later and i still can't check because it keeps re-processing my settlements which takes literally hours. It completed then asked me to fill in the tax treatment wizard for the 5th time afterwards and is now processing all over again.

still not pulling in my amazon us account

Going to have to pull the plug in this and try A2X. I don't need inventory management tools

 

[jjscruff]

damn all these things are trash.
Now on A2X trial
"can't connect with amazon US account"
then successfully connects to UK account but the settlements its pulls are the US account in USD.
And I can't get the UK ones. Don't know how anyone uses these things

 

[Pish_Pash]

Why don't you share your solution, perhaps even for a fee?

Paul.

Because it's a right mish mash...which has evolved over time (as my knowledge of the FUBAR way in which Amazon present disbursement data increased...and as my knowledge of coding increased). It's about as far removed as a possible commercial contender as you could get! Basically it works with my bespoke system. (and even then roughly)...and that's it.

Going to have to pull the plug in this and try A2X. I don't need inventory management tools

I didn't need 'inventory management per-se' ...but I did need Quickbooks to know of the aggregated items sold within each disbursement period - the irony is ....Linkmybooks pulls that data in...it just doesn't offer any SKU mapping (AmazonSKU->QB SKU) to be able to to the deduction in QB (all my Amazon SKUs are different to my QB Items/SKUs ...this because Amazon are forever forcing me to create new SKU names ...so it needs SKU mapping in all of these offerings as far as I'm concerned). And that's what I've had to deploy under my own steam ...i.e. 'go get' the Amazon disbursement file, aggregate all SKU sales & then export to Quickbooks....Amazon make it ugly though. I mentioned this need to linkmybooks but they said it was a lot of coding for little demand.

 

[antropy]

Don't know how anyone uses these things

That just sounds like computers in general

Keep going back to them until it works.

Paul.

 

[SeanOF]

Our bookkeeper uses A2X (Both Amazon US & UK) and she's a fan.

 

[Danny Whitaker-Leach]

Tradebox is what I use and cannot recommend it highly enough.
Isn’t cheap but will capture everything down to SKU or country overrides and the new EU VAT reforms

 

[antropy]

Tradebox is what I use and cannot recommend it highly enough.
Isn’t cheap but will capture everything down to SKU or country overrides and the new EU VAT reforms

I wrote the official OpenCart to Tradebox extension and I would recommend Tradebox.

Paul.