E-commerce and online seller accounting

Accountants for e-commerce sellers in Glasgow.

Amazon FBA, Shopify and marketplace accounting for growing Glasgow sellers — settlement reconciliation, VAT, inventory, management accounts and cash-flow reporting.

£0
First consult
20+
Years combined
ACCA
Regulated

Countify for Glasgow e-commerce sellers

Local context
that actually matters.

Glasgow's e-commerce base concentrates around two structural advantages and one accounting headache. The structural advantages: the M8/M74 corridor and Eurocentral logistics park at Mossend/Bellshill give Glasgow-based sellers next-day pallet distribution across Scotland and the North of England, and the city has a growing Amazon FBA prep-house cluster around Cambuslang and Rutherglen (G73) servicing sellers who don't want to ship into FBA themselves. The headache is the Royal Mail / DPD / Evri pricing differential — Glasgow sellers pay measurably more for last-mile to England than England-based competitors, which compresses margins and makes VAT-recovery accuracy on inbound shipping fees actually matter. We also see a steady flow of Glasgow craft-and-DTC sellers (textiles, food and drink, jewellery) who scale from Etsy to Shopify around the £50k–£90k turnover band — that is exactly the window where VAT registration timing decides whether the next twelve months are profitable or break-even.

Sector context

What e-commerce seller accounting actually involves.

A growing Amazon or Shopify business cannot be understood from bank deposits alone. Each settlement combines sales, VAT, marketplace fees, refunds, advertising charges, fulfilment costs and reserves; stock may be moving between the UK and overseas fulfilment centres at the same time. Countify reconciles Amazon, Shopify, Stripe, PayPal, Etsy and eBay activity back to the bookkeeping, maintains inventory and cost-of-goods reporting, monitors VAT obligations and produces management information that shows margin, cash and channel performance. The result is a set of accounts that supports day-to-day decisions, funding discussions and an eventual sale—not merely a year-end compliance exercise.

How we help Glasgow e-commerce sellers

E-commerce seller-specific scope, fixed fees.

VAT registration timing and threshold monitoring

Rolling 12-month turnover tracked so you register at the right time — not so early you give up margin, not so late you trip a backdated liability.

OSS, IOSS and EU FBA VAT registrations

We review whether OSS or IOSS is available, coordinate registrations with suitable local support, and identify country-level VAT obligations where stock is held in EU fulfilment centres.

Marketplace settlement reconciliation

Amazon, Etsy and eBay settlement files reconciled to your bookkeeping monthly. Stripe and PayPal payout fees split correctly between cost-of-sales and finance costs.

Year-end accounts and CT600 for online stores

Including stock valuation, foreign-currency translation on multi-region sales, and R&D claims on bespoke platform development where eligible.

Inventory, landed cost and gross-margin reporting

Stock purchases, freight, duty, prep, fulfilment and write-offs mapped into cost of goods so margin is measured by product and channel rather than guessed from cash movements.

Monthly management accounts and marketplace KPIs

P&L, balance sheet, cash flow, contribution margin, refund rate, advertising cost, stock cover and channel trends delivered on an agreed monthly timetable.

Cash-flow forecasts for stock-led growth

Purchase orders, VAT, corporation tax, payroll and marketplace reserve timing built into a rolling forecast so growth does not create an avoidable cash shortage.

Exit readiness and financial due diligence

Clean reconciliations, normalised earnings, defensible stock figures and a consistent KPI history prepared before buyers or funders request them.

Questions we hear weekly

E-commerce sellers FAQs.

When do I need to register for UK VAT?

Registration is generally required when taxable turnover over the previous 12 months exceeds £90,000, or when you expect taxable turnover to exceed £90,000 in the next 30 days alone. Marketplace reports need to be analysed transaction by transaction because the VAT treatment depends on where the seller, customer and stock are located and whether the marketplace is treated as the supplier for that sale.

Do I still need EU VAT registrations after Brexit?

Sometimes. If you ship from the UK directly to EU consumers, you can usually use IOSS (for parcels under €150) or have the customer pay VAT on import. If Amazon stores your FBA stock in Germany, France or other EU fulfilment centres, you trigger a domestic VAT registration in each of those countries — that does not go away with OSS. OSS replaces multiple country-level filings for distance sales from a single EU country, not for stock-held registrations.

How do I account for Amazon marketplace-facilitated VAT?

First separate sales for which the marketplace is treated as the supplier from sales for which your business remains responsible for VAT. Then reconcile gross order activity, cancellations, refunds, fees and VAT reports to the settlement and bookkeeping. The correct return entries depend on the seller, customer and stock locations, so a single net bank deposit should never be used as the VAT calculation.

Are Stripe and PayPal fees an allowable expense?

Fees incurred wholly and exclusively for the trade are normally deductible business costs. Their management-account classification should follow a consistent policy: many stores present variable processing fees within cost of sales or contribution margin so channel economics remain visible, while statutory-account presentation may be broader. We document the policy and reconcile the fees to processor reports.

Can you reconcile Amazon settlement reports to Xero or QuickBooks?

Yes. We separate sales, marketplace-collected VAT, Amazon fees, refunds, advertising charges, fulfilment costs and reserves before reconciling the net payout to the bank. That prevents turnover and VAT being recorded as the cash deposit alone and gives management accounts a reliable gross-margin base.

What should an Amazon seller's monthly management accounts include?

At minimum: profit and loss, balance sheet, cash flow, VAT and tax reserves, inventory value, stock cover, landed product cost, gross and contribution margin, refunds, marketplace fees and advertising spend by channel. We agree the pack and delivery timetable around the decisions the owners need to make.

Can Countify help prepare an e-commerce business for sale?

Yes. We help clean up settlement reconciliations and stock records, establish a consistent monthly KPI history, separate exceptional or owner-specific costs and prepare forecast information that can support buyer due diligence and valuation discussions.

Countify supports Glasgow e-commerce sellers from 5 St. Vincent Place, Glasgow.

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