Per-channel margins for the first time — and three new e-commerce clients

The challenge

The firm had several e-commerce clients on its roster and they were the most review-intensive clients it had. Shopify and Amazon payouts didn't reconcile to the bank, COGS and inventory were misclassified, and a senior reviewer was personally untangling the close every month because the firm's generalist bookkeepers didn't know A2X or Webgility. The firm was turning away new e-commerce leads — not because it didn't want the work, but because it couldn't deliver it well, and it knew that a messy e-commerce close erodes the client's trust fast. The e-commerce bookkeeping it was already doing was barely profitable once the reviewer's rescue time was counted.

The solution

We placed a dedicated offshore bookkeeper with e-commerce and A2X experience at $8.50/hour, working under the firm's brand. The bookkeeper set up A2X to map every channel correctly — splitting each Shopify and Amazon payout into revenue, fees, refunds, shipping, and reserves — reconciled payouts to bank deposits, reclassified COGS and inventory, and reconciled the inventory asset to ShipBob, where a $31K variance surfaced. Sales tax nexus was tracked by state and handed to the firm for the client's CPA. The bookkeeper then owned the ongoing monthly close for the firm's e-commerce clients under the firm's review workflow.

The result

Within two months the firm's e-commerce clients had clean per-channel margins for the first time. The $31K inventory variance was found and resolved before it reached the client's tax return. The senior reviewer stopped rescuing the close and moved to advisory work. The firm took on three new e-commerce clients using the bookkeeper as scalable specialist delivery — work it had been turning away — and the bookkeeper's monthly cost was recovered by the second new client. The e-commerce bookkeeping that had been barely profitable became cleanly profitable once the reviewer's rescue time came out of it.

Timeline

1. Week 1A2X connected to Shopify, Amazon, Etsy for the firm's e-commerce clients; chart of accounts remapped for e-commerce.
2. Week 2All channels mapped; payouts reconciled to bank deposits; COGS reclassified across clients.
3. Week 3Inventory asset reconciled to ShipBob on one client; $31K variance identified and resolved.
4. Month 2First clean per-channel margin reports delivered to every e-commerce client; senior reviewer stops rescuing the close.
5. Quarter 1Firm takes on three new e-commerce clients using the bookkeeper as specialist delivery — work it had been declining.

What nearly went wrong

What nearly went wrong: the firm almost had the bookkeeper fix COGS for the current month only, without restating prior months — which would have made the per-channel margin trend unreadable for the client. We restated the prior quarter so the client could actually compare channels across time. A clean current month means nothing if the client can't compare it to last month.