E-commerce Accounting for Sellers Who’d Rather Sell Than Do Bookkeeping
Shopify, Etsy, eBay, and Amazon accounting and bookkeeping for sellers across Canada
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Ghumans offers specialized tax accounting and bookkeeping services for Shopify, Etsy, eBay, and Amazon sellers in Canada, designed to transform the way you manage and plan your business for both the present and the future. By partnering with us, you’ll be able to broaden your customer reach, boost your revenue, and achieve unprecedented growth for your business.
FINANCIAL E-COMMERCE SERVICES
- Expertise in Corporate Finance
- Specialists in A2X, QuickBooks Online (QBO), and Xero
- Masters of SAGE and FreshBooks
BUSINESS EXPANSION
- Goal and Challenge Assessment
- In-depth Situation Analysis
- Tailored Business Solutions
EASY COMMUNICATION
- Customer-Focused Engagement
- Clear, Detailed Explanations
- Collaborative Working Approach
One Bookkeeping Team, Every Platform You Sell On
Whether you run one storefront or five, our job is the same: turn your platform payouts into books that hold up at tax time, without you having to become a bookkeeper to get there. We currently handle bookkeeping for over 80 e-commerce accounts across Shopify, Etsy, eBay, and Amazon.
Our Range of Services
Accounting
Ensure comprehensive financial management with services ranging from financial statements and cash flow analysis to meticulous record-keeping and financial planning. Whatever Shopify accounting support you require, Ghumans is here to assist you.
Sales Tax Registration and Filing
Ghumans provides comprehensive Shopify tax services to help you register, collect, and remit sales tax in accordance with local regulations. We guide you through the complexities of Canadian tax law, ensuring you remain compliant.
Bookkeeping
Handling invoices, sales, expenses, and other financial documents for your Shopify business can be daunting. Our Shopify bookkeeping services help you stay organized, ensuring you always have a clear picture of your business’s financial health.
Software Integration and Management
We utilize the most reliable accounting and bookkeeping software in the industry to meet all your business needs. With seamless synchronization and integration, you’ll always stay on track.
Financial Statements
How can you make informed business decisions without regular financial statements? We provide financial statement preparation and analysis for Shopify sellers in Canada, empowering you to effectively grow your business.
Payroll
Is your Shopify business expanding quickly? Our payroll services for Shopify e-commerce ensure compliance with local payroll regulations, while making sure your team is paid accurately and on time.
OUR CLIENTS ARE OUR TOP PRIORITY
Three Reasons Why Our Clients Keep Coming Back
Unlimited, On-Demand Support
Get access to your full accounting team, including your CPA, whenever you need them. Reach out via video chat, phone, or email for immediate assistance.
Upfront and Honest Pricing
Enjoy peace of mind with transparent monthly pricing: no hidden fees, no surprise charges, and no long-term commitments.
Fully Online, Fully Accessible
Our advanced online tools make it easy to collaborate in real-time, providing you with up-to-date financial insights at your fingertips.
Join our community of satisfied clients today!
Assistance with Tax Account Registration in Canada
Shopify is one of the most powerful e-commerce platforms available, allowing users to easily start, grow, and manage their online businesses. This makes it a fantastic opportunity for both small entrepreneurs and large corporations to thrive.
However, even the best e-commerce software has its limitations. Accounting software that integrates with Shopify addresses these gaps, enabling you to effectively manage your accounting, bookkeeping, tax preparation, and more.
At Ghumans, we offer specialized Shopify bookkeeping, accounting, and tax services tailored to help you grow and manage your e-commerce store. Whether you’re a small business, SME, or a multinational corporation, we’re here to support your financial needs.
Our team of experienced tax accountants and bookkeepers utilizes top-notch Shopify accounting software to drive your business forward. With numerous options for Shopify accounting apps and software, we assist you in selecting the best fit for your business, setting it up, managing it, and handling all your accounting, bookkeeping, and tax preparation needs.
Let us help you avoid financial surprises, audits, and common accounting mistakes. The Shopify accounting experts at Ghumans are dedicated to ensuring your Shopify store’s success.
Certified on the tools you’re already using: QuickBooks Elite ProAdvisor, Xero Platinum Partner, A2X Partner, FreshBooks Certified, Sage Gold Partner
Why E-commerce Bookkeeping Is Different
Standard bookkeeping assumes one sale, one invoice, one payment. E-commerce doesn’t work that way: a single order can involve platform fees, currency conversion, shipping charged separately, refunds processed days later, and sales tax collected by the platform itself in some cases. Getting this wrong doesn’t just mean messy books. It means misreported income and sales tax exposure that surfaces at the worst time: a CRA review.
- Multi-channel reconciliation: matching what the platform pays out against what actually sold, after fees
- Sales tax by province: GST/HST registration once you cross the small-supplier threshold ($30,000 in worldwide taxable supplies in a single calendar quarter or over the last four consecutive quarters), plus PST obligations in BC, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba where applicable. We handle GST return filing and HST return filing directly for e-commerce clients
- Inventory and cost of goods sold: tracking what inventory actually costs when you’re buying from multiple suppliers at different prices
- Cross-border sales: GST/HST treatment differs when you’re selling to customers outside Canada
How We Actually Reconcile Your Payouts
Most sellers record their books one of three ways. Only one holds up if the CRA ever asks questions. This is part of our broader bookkeeping services.
1. Bank Deposit as Revenue
The simplest approach, and the one we see most often in a first bookkeeping cleanup. It’s also the least accurate: the deposit is what’s left after fees, refunds, and any tax withheld, so your books understate revenue.
2. Gross Sales, Lump Expense
Better: revenue is accurate. But without itemizing fees, refunds, and tax separately, you lose the detail that explains why the numbers moved, which matters at filing time.
3. Full Itemized Reconciliation
Matching every fee, refund, and tax line from your platform’s settlement report against your books, using A2X or an equivalent connector. This is the only version that survives an audit, and the only one we build for clients.
Platform-by-Platform Accounting
Shopify sellers deal with app fees, payment processor deposits that lag behind actual sales, and inventory synced (or not) across multiple sales channels. We work directly inside the tools most Shopify stores already run on:
- QuickBooks Shopify integration: automated sync of orders, fees, and refunds
- Xero Shopify integration: real-time reconciliation against your Shopify payouts
- A2X: the standard for matching Shopify settlement reports to your books line by line
- FreshBooks Shopify integration: for smaller stores that want simpler reporting
Etsy’s payment structure, listing fees, transaction fees, payment processing fees, and Etsy Ads spend, all deducted before you see a deposit, makes DIY bookkeeping error-prone fast. We reconcile Etsy Payments against your actual sales and handle:
- GST/HST registration and filing once you’re past the small-supplier threshold
- Tracking cost of materials and handmade-goods inventory correctly for tax purposes
- Software: QuickBooks Online, Xero, Wave Accounting, or GoDaddy Bookkeeping, whichever you’re already using, or we’ll recommend one if you’re starting from scratch
eBay sellers often run a mix of new and used inventory, which changes how cost of goods sold gets tracked. Between eBay’s managed payments system, final value fees, and promoted listing costs, your actual margin is rarely what your sales dashboard shows. We handle:
- Sales tax filing across the provinces you ship to
- Reconciling eBay’s payout reports against your bookkeeping software
- Software setup and ongoing support, whether you’re on QuickBooks, Xero, or another platform
Amazon’s fee structure is the most complex of the major platforms: referral fees, FBA storage and fulfillment fees, and reserve holdbacks all need to be accounted for separately from gross sales. We help Amazon sellers with:
- Sales tax registration and filing for Canadian-resident sellers
- Reconciling Amazon settlement reports (not just the deposit amount) against your books
- Tax account registration and ongoing compliance as your store grows
Dropshipping adds a wrinkle standard e-commerce accounting doesn’t: you’re never holding inventory, but you still need to track cost of goods sold based on what your supplier charges, not what you list the product for. We help dropshipping businesses with:
- Structuring bookkeeping around supplier invoices instead of inventory counts
- GST/HST, and where applicable PST, registration and filing: dropshippers are taxed like any other business selling in Canada, with reporting frequency set by revenue (annual by default at $1.5 million or less, quarterly above that, monthly above $6 million)
- Setting up software correctly from day one, before bad habits get expensive to unwind
Mistakes We See Most Often
Recording Net Deposits
Instead of gross sales: hides fees and understates revenue.
Missing the Threshold
Sellers assume online means no sales tax, which isn’t the rule.
Mixing Personal and Business Funds
Makes a clean reconciliation nearly impossible and is one of the fastest ways to trigger CRA scrutiny.
Not Separating Cost of Goods by Supplier
Especially common in dropshipping and multi-supplier stores, where product cost varies order to order.
Treating Each Channel as a Separate Business
Creates duplicate work and an incomplete picture of actual profitability.
Why Work with an E-commerce Accountant Instead of Doing It Yourself
This sits alongside our full financial accounting services for businesses that need more than platform-specific bookkeeping.
Time Back
Reconciliation that takes you three hours takes us thirty minutes.
Fewer Costly Mistakes
Misreported sales tax is the single most common CRA flag for online sellers.
One Person, Every Platform
No re-explaining your business each time you switch software or add a sales channel.
Scales with You
The bookkeeping setup that works at 50 orders a month still works at 5,000.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to register for GST/HST if I only sell online?
Yes, once your total taxable sales cross $30,000, in a single calendar quarter or over the last four consecutive quarters, regardless of whether those sales happen on Shopify, Etsy, eBay, Amazon, or your own site.
Does the platform (Shopify, Etsy, eBay, Amazon) already collect sales tax for me?
Since July 2021, marketplaces may collect and remit GST/HST on sales made through their platform by non-registered or non-resident vendors. But once you’re registered for GST/HST yourself, that responsibility stays with you: the marketplace rule doesn’t relieve a registered Canadian seller of it.
What's the difference between accounting for Shopify versus Etsy or eBay?
The core bookkeeping principles are the same: reconciling payouts, tracking cost of goods sold, filing sales tax correctly. But each platform’s fee structure and payout reporting is different enough that generic bookkeeping software often misreads it without the right integration or manual review.
Do I need separate books for each sales channel if I sell on more than one platform?
No, but you do need a bookkeeping setup built to consolidate multiple channels into one clean picture, which most off-the-shelf software isn’t configured to do out of the box.
When should I incorporate my e-commerce business instead of staying a sole proprietor?
It depends on your income level, growth plans, and liability exposure. This is worth a direct conversation rather than a general rule, since the right answer varies by business.
I'm just starting out. Do I need an accountant yet, or can I wait?
The earlier you set up your books correctly, the less expensive it is to fix later. Even a light-touch setup review before your first tax filing can save real money.