Accounting for Retail & E-commerce
Inventory that ties, margins you can trust by channel, sales tax handled across every state you ship to - and clean accounting for the marketplace settlements that hide your real numbers.
The retail problems we solve
Retail and e-commerce accounting fails in predictable places: inventory balances that drift from reality, cost of goods sold that nobody can explain, marketplace payouts booked as revenue (they are not - they are revenue minus fees, refunds and reserves), and sales tax obligations quietly accumulating in states you have never visited. Since the Supreme Court’s Wayfair decision, economic nexus means shipping volume alone can create filing obligations in dozens of states.
We put structure under all of it: perpetual inventory tied to counts, channel-level margin reporting, marketplace settlements decomposed into their real components, and a sales tax footprint mapped state by state.
What’s included
Inventory & margins
- Inventory accounting: costing methods, landed cost, shrink and reserve policies that keep the balance sheet honest
- COGS and channel margins: gross margin by product line and channel - DTC, marketplace, wholesale - reconciled to the GL
- Marketplace settlements: Amazon, Shopify and payment-processor payouts split into revenue, fees, refunds and reserves
Sales tax & compliance
- Nexus mapping: where economic and physical nexus exist today - and where growth will create it next
- Taxability analysis: what you sell, mapped to each state’s rules
- Registration and filing coordination: a compliance calendar that keeps pace with your footprint
- Voluntary disclosure: cleaning up past exposure on the best available terms
Physical footprint
- Lease accounting (ASC 842): store and warehouse leases capitalized correctly, renewals and incentives included
- Multi-entity and multi-state: consolidated reporting when the brand outgrows one company or one state
Start with a free self-check
Free self-checks for the exposure questions retailers ask us most:
- Sales tax nexus self-check - which states can already require you to collect?
- Sales tax taxability self-check - is what you sell taxable where you sell it?
- Voluntary disclosure self-check - the cleanest way out of past exposure
- Lease classification self-check (ASC 842) - operating or finance - and what lands on the balance sheet
- Cash flow self-check - inventory-heavy businesses live and die on cash timing
Frequently Asked Questions
We sell on Amazon and never registered anywhere. How bad is it?
It depends on volume, states and years - but the answer is knowable, and it is almost always cheaper to fix proactively. Voluntary disclosure agreements typically limit lookback periods and waive penalties; waiting for a state to find you does neither. We quantify the exposure first, then fix it in order of risk.
Our margins look fine in Shopify but the bank account disagrees. Why?
Usually three culprits: marketplace payouts booked gross instead of net, inventory purchases hitting the P&L as expenses instead of the balance sheet, and refunds or reserves lagging the sales they relate to. A proper close catches all three - that gap between dashboard and bank account is exactly what we eliminate.
Do you handle inventory counts?
We design the count process and the accounting around it - cycle counts, reserve policies, shrink analysis - and we book the results. The physical counting stays with your team or your 3PL, with our procedures making the numbers auditable.
Know your real margins - and your real sales tax exposure.
Inventory, marketplace settlements and multi-state compliance handled by senior professionals at fixed fees.
Get a fixed-fee quote