Ecommerce accounting that actually ties to your payouts.
Your sales report says one number. Your bank says another. Saturn BPO is the outsourced controller and bookkeeping team that reconciles every Shopify, Amazon, and Stripe settlement to the penny, books COGS monthly from your 3PL data, and hands you contribution margin by channel you can run the business on. A fast month-end close, statements a lender will accept, and a controller who signs off every number.
Shopify · Amazon · Stripe · PayPal · Klarna · ShipBob · ShipMonk · QuickBooks Online & Xero
Margin truth
This month
Contribution margin
0.0%
3.4 ptsContribution by channel
- Shopify (DTC)$0
- Amazon$0
- Wholesale$0
- Subscriptions$0
Gross margin
0%
Processor fees
0.0%
Returns
0.0%
Works with the tools you already run
Where $100,000 of sales becomes $72,450 in the bank.
This is the part most bookkeepers skip. They book the deposit as “Shopify income” and move on. Every fee, refund, and marketplace deduction disappears into a number that looks like revenue but isn't. Here is what one month looks like, and how we book it.
One month, one brand · illustrative
- Gross sales (all channels)$100,000
- Discounts & promo codes−$8,200
- Refunds & returns−$4,900
- Shopify Payments fees−$2,540
- Amazon referral + FBA fees−$11,300
- Chargebacks & disputes−$610
- Net deposits to your bank$72,450
Sales tax collected also passes through the deposit. It belongs on the balance sheet as a liability, never in revenue.
How a generic bookkeeper books it
Revenue: Shopify income $72,450
- • $27,550 of fees, refunds, and discounts vanish. You never see fee creep by channel.
- • Sales tax collected gets counted as sales. Revenue is overstated.
- • Gross margin is computed on the wrong base, so every margin number downstream is wrong.
- • The bank still doesn't tie, so someone plugs the difference.
How Saturn books it
- Gross revenue, by channel$100,000
- Discounts (contra-revenue)−$8,200
- Returns (contra-revenue)−$4,900
- Processor & marketplace fees, own accounts−$14,450
- Sales tax collected→ liability
- Bank ties. Real net revenue, real fee %, real return rate.
Illustrative numbers, not client data. Your mix will differ. The method won't.
Six things your current bookkeeper probably gets wrong.
Not because they're careless. Ecommerce accounting is its own discipline, and most bookkeepers learned on service businesses.
Deposits are not sales
Shopify pays out 2–5 days late, net of fees. If the books start from the deposit, you never see what you actually sold.
Amazon is a black box
Referral fees, FBA fees, storage, reserves, reimbursements, refunds, and ad spend all net inside one biweekly disbursement. It gets booked as one line.
COGS is a year-end guess
No landed cost, no monthly inventory tie-out to the 3PL. Your gross margin is a rumor until tax time.
Refunds and chargebacks rot
Disputes sit uncoded for weeks. Revenue looks higher than it is, and the return rate you plan against is fiction.
Sales tax mixed into revenue
Tax collected at checkout gets booked as sales. Revenue is overstated and the liability your CPA files from is off.
Cash surprises
Inventory POs, ad spend, and marketplace reserves all hit at different times. With no weekly cash read, the crunch shows up unannounced.
Credentialed by the people who set the rules
QuickBooks ProAdvisors
Xero Advisors
NACPB Certified Bookkeepers
The difference shows up in your margin.
| Feature | Saturn BPO | Generic bookkeeper |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify & Amazon settlements | Reconciled to the penny, every payout | Deposit booked as income |
| Processor & marketplace fees | Own accounts, tracked as a % of sales by channel | Buried in revenue or a generic expense |
| COGS & inventory | Booked monthly from 3PL and platform data, landed cost included | Estimated at year-end, if at all |
| Refunds, returns, chargebacks | Contra-revenue, coded weekly | Left in suspense |
| Sales tax collected | Liability account, reconciled to your filings (your CPA or tax pro files) | Mixed into sales |
| Contribution margin by channel | Yes | No |
| Month-end close | Fast, controller-reviewed, every month | Whenever the bank feed catches up |
| Financial statements | GAAP-aligned, lender- and diligence-ready | A QuickBooks P&L export |
| Who reviews the work | A controller signs off every close | Nobody |
From deposits that never match to margin you can actually trust.
Before Saturn BPO
- Shopify deposits never match your sales
- Amazon disbursements booked as one line
- Stripe fees buried in a generic expense bucket
- Refunds sitting uncoded for weeks
- COGS guessed, so margin is fiction until April
After Saturn BPO
- Every settlement reconciled, revenue net of fees and returns
- COGS booked monthly, real margin by channel and SKU
- Sales tax collected reconciled monthly, ready for your tax pro to file
- A weekly cash and AR pulse you can plan inventory against
- A controller's read on what moved and why, every month
Contribution margin by channel. Most brands see this table for the first time with us.
Net revenue after discounts and returns, minus COGS, minus fees, minus the ad spend that drove it. Per channel, every month, straight from reconciled books, not a spreadsheet someone rebuilt from memory.
| Channel | Net revenue | COGS | Fees | Ads | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shopify (DTC) | $52,100 | $18,200 | $1,900 | $14,600 | $17,400 33% |
| Amazon | $33,400 | $12,100 | $9,800 | $4,200 | $7,300 22% |
| Wholesale | $18,900 | $8,700 | $300 | $0 | $9,900 52% |
| Subscriptions | $9,600 | $3,100 | $400 | $900 | $5,200 54% |
Illustrative, not client data. When Amazon runs at 22% and wholesale at 52%, you see it in the first week of the month, not at tax time.
Your first 30 days.
No mystery onboarding and no 90-day blackout. A clean takeover takes two to three weeks. Twelve months of cleanup first takes four to six. We'll tell you which on the discovery call.
Access and an honest diagnosis
Read-only access to Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, Stripe, PayPal, your bank, your 3PL, and QBO or Xero. We size any cleanup and tell you the real scope before anything else.
A chart of accounts built for ecommerce
Revenue by channel. Discounts and returns as contra-revenue. A fee account per processor and marketplace. COGS and inventory. Sales tax collected as a liability, not sales.
First fully reconciled month
Every settlement tied to the bank deposit, COGS booked from fulfillment data, refunds and chargebacks coded. Backlog cleanup runs in parallel if you need it.
First close, first real statements
P&L, balance sheet, contribution margin by channel, and your KPI dashboard, reviewed with your controller on a call. From here it repeats every month.
This is the finance team you'd hire if you had the time to hire one.
Fast month-end close
Controller-run month-end close, built to be fast and efficient once your records and access are in place.
Controls that hold
Internal controls, approvals, and audit-ready records. Nothing slips.
Visibility, not hindsight
Weekly cash and AR pulse, monthly statements, KPIs. See where you stand, not just what happened.
Books to board, one team
Bookkeeping, controller, and reporting under one roof. Income tax filed via our partner.
Ecommerce engagements are scoped to your operation.
Final price is sized to channel count, transaction volume, inventory complexity, and the reporting support you want. Custom quote in 24 hours after a 30-minute discovery call.
What that buys you
- • Multi-channel bookkeeping + settlement reconciliation (base layer)
- • COGS booked monthly, contribution margin by channel and SKU
- • Fast month-end close + GAAP-aligned financial statements
- • Sales-tax reconciliation (filing + remittance by your CPA or tax pro)
- • Weekly cash and AR pulse + a controller's read on the numbers
- • AP, AR, and payroll oversight when you want it
- • Federal + state income tax filing via our tax partner
Typical engagement
Custom quotein 24 hours
Month-to-month. Stay on QBO or Xero. No forced migration.
Get a custom quotePrice scales with
- • Transaction volume (Shopify orders + Amazon orders + Stripe charges)
- • Number of sales channels and marketplaces
- • Inventory complexity (SKU count + warehouse partners)
- • AP volume (vendor count)
- • Reporting cadence requested
Which one is right for you?
We'd rather you pick the right partner than the wrong one. Here's where each genuinely wins.
Saturn is the right fit when...
- You sell on Shopify, Amazon, or both, and your deposits don't match your sales
- You're somewhere between $1M and $20M a year and margin questions are costing you real money
- You have a 3PL or inventory system and nobody reconciles the books to it
- A lender, investor, or buyer will want real financial statements in the next 12 months
- You want to stay on QuickBooks Online or Xero, not migrate to someone's proprietary tool
Probably not the fit when...
- You're pre-launch or under about $500K a year (a good bookkeeper is enough for now)
- You want someone to file sales tax for you (we reconcile it; your CPA or tax pro files and remits)
- You need audited financial statements (we run internal controls, not external assurance)
- You want a tax-only CPA rather than monthly accounting and a controller
What people actually ask before they sign.
Bring one settlement report. We'll show you what your books are missing.
Thirty minutes with our team. Bring your last Shopify payout report or Amazon settlement and your current P&L. We'll walk the gap between the two on the call, no logins needed, and tell you straight whether we're the right fit.
Book a free 30-min settlement auditNo contract. No high-pressure follow-up. If we're not a fit we'll say so.