Amazon and Xero exhilarating accounting question
Hi everyone,
Hopefully this questions is allowed. I’ve recently got an accountant and have advised me to sign up to use the Xero accounting software. They have now suggested that I also subscribe to a “bridging software” because Xero doesn’t have a direct link with Amazon. They have suggested I use One Saas to pull through the transactions from Amazon (and Etsy) onto Xero.
Is this something I definately need? How do you all manage the accounting of your transactions on Amazon? At the moment I just have the payments from Amazon showing up in Xero from my bank account.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
64 replies
Seller_POrEiTkyfOMz6
Are you selling just in the UK? Are you VAT registered? This will affect how easy it is to reconcile the payments from Amazon correctly.
Seller_aQji8mLqVwDko
Thanks for such a detailed response. I did just check out the blog post and yes to be honest it does seem like a hassle doing it manually, but at the same time I’m not doing crazy amounts of transactions so I can probably justify using a service to do this.
What do you mean by “they should be willing to set the chart of accounts in Xero up correctly”? I have granted them access to it, and taught me how to reconcile items but I’m a newb to this so not even sure what I need to make sure they’ve set up properly.
Thanks again I really appreciate it.
Seller_mVDcRkqYu2Tyf
If you are doing the bookkeeping yourself I would definitely get a2x or link my books as well as receipt bank, the cost of these tools is negligible in my opinion to the time it saves in the long run.
Its nice to try and learn these things yourself but reconciling amazon is not the place to start as its quite complex.
Not what you want to hear but your accounting sounds quite expensive at the sales volume you are at (under the VAT threshold) I assume you are a limited company if not, I’d be tempted to do it all myself if your going down the DIY bookkeeping route.
Seller_IswCvHVJr0TL5
I’m a sole trader and became VAT registered last year. I decided to get an accountant to help with VAT return and self assessment but they struggled with the VAT reports amazon produce (They’ve never had an Amazon seller before and really didn’t understand the way it operates) I ended up buying Link My Books after seeing it recommended here and it makes everything SO simple. Accountant didn’t do anything with the set up apart from confirm VAT rates were correct over the phone. After getting up to speed with Zero thanks to accountant I’ll probably stick with my software and loose the accountant in future.
Seller_7brl8vLce4fwu
I am on Xero and used to enter all the details manually for all Amazon sites UK, EU USA and CAN. I gave Link My Books a trial and OMG never looked back. For me, the cost justified itself as it literally saved me so much time and I never dread VAT or Tax time. I also use Autoentry to upload all my invoices to Xero. Once the invoices are on Xero I don’t need to keep them. With Autoentry - I ask all my suppliers to send me invoices on email… once they drop in my inbox I literally forward to AE and then once a week - click buttons to approve them and the software re-creates the invoices in Xero and keeps a scanned copy on their too. Less paper for me around the house.
After the initial set up time - it has all been a breeze and I am back to enjoying my business again without stressing over the data entry aspect.
I have no affiliation with either software but just wanted to share my experience.
Technology is mindblowing these days As Chook said - it will be time to lose the accountant soon.
Seller_yOXMggIgIJUeI
Yes definitely needed…although link my books is far better and cheaper.
Accounting for amazons split periods, fees, refunds without it is a minefield
Seller_GJP3Cbt07uSu0
i use a2x and worth every penny imho
Seller_bdSdLjti4IugQ
We use Xero and A2X and it’s worth every single penny! Can you do what A2X does manually? Sure you can… It’s basically just taking data from your Amazon payout and putting it in the correct charts of accounts… however, where it gets complicated is linking up payments that span over multiple months and just the volume of data… can you do it yourself yes… but for the sake of what works out around £1 - £1.50 a day (Depending on your plan) a2x is a no brainer. The times we have had issues and questions we get a response from a2x within an hour and they offer support with their product in relation to Xero (was thinking i’d get fobbed off to Xero for help)
Seller_3yhYGU61cigbH
We use sage accounts and Tradebox to go between Amazon, eBay and a woocommerce website. It drags in orders, sends them to sage and takes care of VAT if needed, it downloads all the fees and processes them to sage too. We can upload stock quantities to the marketplaces through it which is handy after a stocktake. By using it for the orders we reduced a couple of hours of printing orders to just a couple of minutes. Couldn’t recommend it enough.
Seller_aQji8mLqVwDko
Just out of interest everyone. Do you pay all for your Xero and A2X subscriptions yourself? I signed up with my accountant for £150pm, then got told to sign up to Xero which is £35, and now I’ve been told to sign up to one of these One Saas/Link My Books services as well which is going to be another £25-£30, so I’m going to be looking at £210 a month. Should I be paying for the extra software if they’re supposed to be doing the bookkeeping like we agreed? I’m not sure whether to challenge them on this or not…
