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From quick walkthroughs to deep dives with our ecommerce & sales tax experts, with full transcripts and key takeaways

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Profitability
Ecommerce COGS vs. Expenses Explained: Key Differences
Packaging and shipping feel like product costs, but they land in expenses, not COGS. Stephen Brown draws the line at the warehouse: COGS covers producing the product and getting it there, and everything after that is an expense. Then he walks the P&L order, revenue minus COGS gives gross profit, minus sale related and overhead expenses gives operating income, and explains what a high gross profit with low operating income is telling you.
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Stephen Brown3 min
Income Tax
Texas Franchise Tax Filing Guide: 2024 UPDATE
Texas franchise tax is a privilege tax on gross revenue, not a sales tax and not an income tax, and it applies to any business with nexus in Texas regardless of sales channel. As of January 1, 2024 the threshold rose from $1.18 million to $2.47 million and the No Tax Due Report was scrapped. Kelley Birrell covers what changed, which form applies at which revenue level, and walks both forms line by line.
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Kelley Birrell8 min
Profitability
Ecommerce Contribution Margin Explained
Sell for $20 with $14 in variable costs and you keep $6, a 30% contribution margin. That $6 is what funds payroll, rent, and software before anything becomes profit. Stephen Brown explains why your operating margin can never beat that number, what a contribution margin at or below zero means, and how to divide fixed costs by the ratio to find the revenue where you break even.
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Stephen Brown4 min
General Business
Best Amazon to QuickBooks Integration in 2026
Every Amazon settlement bundles sales, fees, refunds, reimbursements, reserves, and tax into one deposit, and a single settlement can span two months. Brittany Brown shares the three tests LedgerGurus uses to judge any Amazon to QuickBooks integration: it reconciles to the penny, splits settlements at month-end, and gets fixed fast when Amazon adds fees. A2X passes all three and runs behind nearly every Amazon client the firm manages. She also covers when Synder, Webgility, or the free QuickBooks connector makes more sense, and why building your own with AI turns you into an unpaid integration developer.
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Brittany BrownAug 12, 20265 min
Inventory & COGS
How to Get IEEPA Tariff Refunds in 4 Steps!
Nobody sends you an IEEPA tariff refund. You file for it, and the hardest part is getting into a government portal you have probably never touched. Stephen Brown walks through the process he ran for his own DTC brand: registering for the CBP ACE portal, the three fields that trip people up, adding bank details, pulling eligible entry numbers off your 7501 forms, and uploading a CSV through CAPE.
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Stephen BrownJun 3, 202611 min
Sales Tax
Amazon & Shopify Sales Tax: What Ecommerce Sellers Get Wrong
Sellers turn on Shopify tax collection, sell on Amazon, and assume compliance is handled. This walks through the gaps that assumption leaves behind. Amazon remits under marketplace facilitator laws but never registers you, and FBA inventory creates physical nexus in every state it sits in. Shopify collects nothing on its own. You also get the difference between collecting without remitting and never collecting at all, plus a five step cleanup plan.
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Kelley BirrellMay 20, 202615 min
Sales Tax
What Ignoring Sales Tax is Actually Costing You
Every month you put off sales tax, your exposure grows. Interest runs from the day the tax was due, and states will not waive it. Penalties range from 10% to 50%, and most states waive them through a voluntary disclosure agreement (VDA), but only if you come forward before a state contacts you. Kelley Birrell explains why never filing brings a longer lookback than filing late, and what shifts the moment a state's letter arrives.
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Kelley BirrellApr 8, 20269 min
Sales Tax
What to Do When a State Sends You a Notice
A Washington seller got a polite letter asking about their sales. No threats, no penalties named. It was a nexus questionnaire, and because they paused before answering, they still had time to file a voluntary disclosure agreement (VDA) first. Stacy Walker sorts the four notices states send: nexus questionnaires, missing return notices, audit letters, and assessments. She explains the deadline attached to each and what answering too fast costs you.
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Stacy WalkerMar 18, 20268 min
Sales Tax
How to Catch Up on Past Due Sales Tax (Here's What to Do First)
You know you have exposure. You do not know which states, how many years, or whether registering will trigger an audit, so the spreadsheet stays closed for another year. Stacy Walker lays out the three step sequence that got one seller compliant in 90 days: get current where you have nexus now, size up the back years with rough numbers, then send high exposure states to voluntary disclosure agreements (VDAs) and low exposure states to direct registration.
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Stacy WalkerMar 11, 202610 min
Sales Tax
Sales Tax Problems Don't Fix Themselves
Every month you put off sales tax, the bill gets bigger. This video runs a Texas example: three years of unfiled sales tax comes to $74,000 in back tax, penalties, and interest, and one more year pushes it to $100,750. A voluntary disclosure agreement (VDA) can waive the penalties and cap the lookback, but only if you contact the state before it contacts you. You also get three steps for acting while you still have leverage.
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Stacy WalkerMar 4, 20268 min
Inventory & COGS
Why Your Inventory Reports Don't Match Reality
A $5 million seller got handed a $300,000 inventory adjustment at year end and spent the night trying to work out where it went. This video explains why that happens: roughly 20 points between a purchase order and your P&L where reality and your reports can separate. You get two tests for whether your numbers hold up, a gross margin consistency check and a 10% adjustment threshold, plus three things you can run this week.
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Kelley BirrellFeb 11, 20269 min
Profitability
Revenue Growing but Profit Shrinking? Here's Why
Buy $100,000 of inventory in January, expense it all at once, and January shows a loss while February and March look spectacular. That works until you are running multiple suppliers, varying freight, and returns. Kelley Birrell explains why growth does not break your COGS, it exposes the method you were already using, and walks the accrual approach: inventory sits on the balance sheet as an asset and moves into COGS as it sells.
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Kelley BirrellJan 14, 20265 min
Cash Flow
Cash Conversion Cycle: The Metric EVERY Ecommerce Owner Should Understand
Your P&L shows profit and your bank account does not agree. The cash conversion cycle explains the gap: how many days your money sits trapped in inventory and receivables before it comes back. Stephen Brown walks the three components and the math, contrasts Dell and Costco running near zero or negative cycles, and explains why most ecommerce brands run at least 90 days and some carry 240 days of inventory.
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Stephen BrownDec 29, 20258 min
Inventory & COGS
FREE Inventory Forecasting Template: How to Avoid Stockouts + Overbuying
Guessing at reorder timing is how sellers end up either out of stock or sitting on cash they cannot touch. This walkthrough sets up a free forecasting spreadsheet with one SKU per row, adds cost per unit and lead time, then projects this year's demand from last year's sales and a growth percentage. You learn to read the red cells that signal a coming stockout, and to work backwards from lead time to the month you actually need to order.
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Kelley BirrellSep 10, 202514 min
Inventory & COGS
FIFO, LIFO, and Average Cost: Which method is best?
Pick the wrong inventory costing method and you either overstate profit or hand the IRS more than you owe. Kelley Birrell runs the same 300 shirt example through all three methods, average cost, FIFO, and LIFO, and shows your COGS (cost of goods sold) landing at $975, $900, or $1,125 on identical sales. You get the tradeoffs behind each one, the three mistakes sellers make most often, and a scorecard for matching a method to how your business runs.
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Kelley BirrellAug 13, 20255 min
Sales Tax
Stop Overpaying Sales Tax in These States (MTC Resale Certificate Tutorial)
Your vendor charges you sales tax in a state where you have no nexus, and you pay it because nobody told you there was another option. The Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) resale certificate is accepted in over 30 states, and it is your next best option when a state is outside the streamlined sales tax group. Kelley Birrell walks through each field on the form and the footnotes that decide whether a state will accept it.
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Kelley BirrellJul 30, 20253 min
Sales Tax
Sales Tax Holidays 2025 Explained: What’s Exempt, When, and Where
Charge tax on an exempt item during a sales tax holiday and you have overcharged a customer and fallen out of compliance. Over 20 states ran holidays in August 2025 alone. Kelley Birrell covers the four main types of holidays, real 2025 examples from Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia, and the details that trip sellers up, like price caps, shipping, and time zones. She also compares switching tax settings by hand with letting software like Avalara or Shopify Tax do it.
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Kelley BirrellJul 23, 20257 min
Sales Tax
Stop Paying Sales Tax with This One Form (Streamlined Sales Tax Resale Certificate Tutorial)
Your supplier adds sales tax to your dropshipped orders and you pay it, even in states where you have no permit. One streamlined sales tax (SST) exemption certificate is accepted in all 24 streamlined states, and you do not need to be registered there to use it. Kelley Birrell fills out the form box by box, then covers what to do when a state is not on the list.
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Kelley BirrellJul 16, 20253 min
Profitability
Cut Business Costs the Smart Way: What to Slash, What to Keep
A $5 million business with healthy margins can flip to a loss on a 30% tariff increase, which is why blanket cuts are the wrong reflex. Kelley Birrell walks four steps: kill low impact spend, optimize fulfillment and marketing before slashing them, question fixed overhead including rent and payroll structure, then fix contribution margin at the product level. Plus three quick wins, including a bonded warehouse that delays your duty hit.
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Kelley BirrellJul 9, 20259 min
Inventory & COGS
How to Create a SKU System That Actually Makes Sense (and Scales With You)
SKU001 tells you nothing, and once you have a few hundred of them, matching products across your store, warehouse, and accounting system turns into manual work. This walkthrough gives you a three step formula: a category identifier, the traits that make each version unique, then optional batch or version detail. You also get the rules that keep it usable, meaning eight to 12 characters, no leading zeros, no lookalike characters, and one structure for every SKU in the catalog.
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Kelley BirrellJul 2, 20256 min
Sales Tax
Where Do You Owe Sales Tax? The 4 Questions Every Seller Must Ask
Having nexus in a state does not always mean you collect there. Your products are not taxable everywhere, and marketplaces already remit for you in most states. Kelley Birrell runs the four questions LedgerGurus asks for every state. She works a case where $85,000 on Amazon plus $20,000 on Shopify puts you at $105,000 into Illinois, over the threshold, and the Shopify sales become yours to collect on.
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Kelley BirrellJun 25, 20257 min
Sales Tax
3 Sales Tax Questions Every Ecommerce Business Needs to Answer
A letter from a state is how most sellers find out they had a sales tax problem. This video reduces the whole subject to three questions: where you're selling, which determines nexus, who you're selling to, which determines exemptions, and what you're selling, since groceries, clothing, and supplements are taxed differently state by state. It closes with the mistake that causes the most cleanup work, collecting tax before you register.
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Kelley BirrellJun 4, 20255 min
Profitability
The Smart Way to Start Cutting Costs in Ecommerce (Without Regrets)
Slash marketing, drop your best tools, gut fulfillment, and then wonder why sales stalled. Kelley Birrell gives the benchmark ranges first, fulfillment at 10 to 15% of revenue, marketing 10 to 20%, payroll 10 to 15%, so you know whether you actually have a problem. Then the precision cuts: packaging dimensions, campaign audits, duplicate software, renegotiated 3PL terms, and two fast wins including a product redesign that doubles as a sustainability story.
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Kelley BirrellMay 21, 20257 min
Profitability
How are Tariffs Impacting Your Profits? The Tariff Impact Calculator Explained
Put twelve months of P&L numbers into the calculator and it shows what a tariff increase does to your gross profit and net income. From there you can model a price increase against elasticity, layer in cost cuts, and see the break even math: how much revenue you would need, or how much overhead you would have to remove, to land back where you started. Stacy Walker walks through each sheet.
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Stacy WalkerMay 7, 202511 min
Sales Tax
5 Things You Need to Know About Sales Tax
States are buying seller data to find businesses that never registered, so waiting to be contacted is a losing strategy. This video covers five things: where you have nexus and when registration is required, the where, who, and what that decide taxability, how to handle exemption certificates, what to do when a business activity questionnaire arrives, and the options available if you have already fallen behind.
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Kelley BirrellMar 26, 20257 min
Profitability
Ecommerce Fulfillment Spend: What It Includes, What It Doesn't, and How Much You Should Spend
Fulfillment is warehouse to customer: storage, labor, packaging, and shipping. Inbound shipping, tariffs, and fees are COGS, not fulfillment. The benchmark is 10 to 15% of revenue, and free shipping on every order with no minimum is the fastest way past it. Stephen Brown covers what drives the number up, from heavy products to warehouse location to manual picking, then the moves that bring it back down, including a dog crate redesign that cut costs and raised sales.
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Stephen BrownJan 15, 20256 min
Sales Tax
The Secret to Surviving a Sales Tax Audit (Without Losing Your Mind)
States are getting more aggressive with online sellers, so plan on an audit notice arriving at some point. Waiting until it shows up leaves you scrambling for records you should already have. Kelley Birrell covers the ongoing practices that keep you ready, then the four steps to take once the notice lands: gather sales data from every channel, get your returns and exemption certificates in order, prepare to respond, and bring in help.
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Kelley BirrellNov 26, 20245 min
Sales Tax
3 Sales Tax Audit Trends Every Ecommerce Sellers Should Know
Six years after Wayfair, the leniency states showed online sellers is gone. This video covers three audit trends: states funding dedicated audit task forces in California, Florida, and Washington, mailing business activity questionnaires that ask for three years of sales data, and sharing what they find with each other through a multi-state commission. You also get what puts you on a state's radar, and why Washington's penalties reach 39% of the tax owed.
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Kelley BirrellNov 20, 20245 min
Profitability
Ecommerce Gross Margin: What's a Good Range and How to Improve It
Gross margin runs 40% to 80% in ecommerce, and 40 is the floor rather than a target. Fulfillment takes 10 to 15%, merchant fees about 3%, and efficient advertising around 20%, which leaves a 40% brand with almost nothing to spend acquiring customers. Stephen Brown explains why resellers sit at the low end, why owning a brand buys pricing power, and four ways to move the number up.
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Stephen BrownOct 23, 20245 min
Inventory & COGS
Cost of Goods Sold: What IS and is NOT Included for Ecommerce Sellers
Miscategorize a few costs and your P&L will tell you that you're profitable when you're not. This video sorts what belongs in COGS, meaning product cost, raw materials, manufacturing labor, inbound shipping, and import duties, from what does not, meaning ad spend, shipping to customers, and refunds. You also get the answer on packaging, which usually counts, and a benchmark to measure against: COGS at 20% to 40% of revenue.
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Stacy WalkerOct 16, 20245 min
Sales Tax
How to Use a VDA to Wipe Out Sales Tax Liabilities
You missed collecting sales tax in a state, and an audit could reach back a decade. A voluntary disclosure agreement (VDA) lets you come forward first in exchange for lower penalties, a shorter lookback, and audit protection. Kelley Birrell covers the three conditions that decide whether you still qualify and the three step process from first contact through payment. She also gives the honest counterargument: if your exposure is smaller than the professional fees, just register and pay.
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Kelley BirrellSep 24, 20245 min
Forecasting
How to Prepare for Q4: Financial Planning for Ecommerce Success
Q4 preparation starts at the beginning of the year, not in September. Stephen Brown walks the finance side: validating the sales and marketing plan, checking it against the calendar, ordering inventory in late spring, and getting lines of credit expanded before you need them. He also makes the case that Q4 is for demand capture rather than demand creation, because acquiring new customers when everyone is bidding gets expensive.
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Stephen BrownSep 11, 20245 min
Ecommerce Accounting
LedgerGurus: Your Ecommerce Accounting Experts
Multi-channel sales, COGS accounting, and sales tax compliance are three different specialties, and most growing brands cannot hire three people. Brittany Brown lays out what LedgerGurus covers, from capturing multi-channel activity and bill pay through budgeting and cash flow forecasting. Then Beddy's and Thread Wallets describe what changed for them: inventory counts that stopped being a struggle, and numbers reliable enough to build marketing budgets on.
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Brittany BrownSep 6, 20245 min
Profitability
How to Use PROFIT FIRST to be More Profitable (for Ecommerce Sellers)
Allocating 10% of every sale to a profit account does not make you profitable. The hard part is running the business on whatever lands in the operating expense account. Stephen Brown lays out the five accounts, the allocation schedule, and the CAPs, then explains where the method strains for ecommerce: a COGS allocation only replaces inventory sold, not growth, and Profit First's stance on debt collides with how sellers actually fund purchases.
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Stephen BrownAug 14, 2024 7 min
Sales Tax
Navigating Pre-Audit Questionnaires: The New Sales Tax Challenge for Online Sellers
A letter from the state asks for your sales data going back to October 2018. That is a business activity questionnaire, and more states are sending them. Kelley Birrell explains what states are looking for: sellers who had nexus before they registered. She covers why registered and unregistered sellers both get these forms, what ignoring one costs, and why a voluntary disclosure agreement (VDA) has to happen before a notice arrives.
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Kelley BirrellAug 6, 20244 min
Sales Tax
Minnesota Retail Delivery Fee: Everything You Need to Know
If you sold $1 million or more into Minnesota last year, your checkout needs a new line item. Starting July 1, 2024, Minnesota followed Colorado with a retail delivery fee of 50 cents per transaction on orders of $100 or more. Kelley Birrell covers which sales the fee applies to, how it has to appear on the receipt, and where to add it in Shopify.
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Kelley BirrellJul 9, 20243 min
Inventory & COGS
4 Methods to Calculate Cost of Goods Sold for Ecommerce Sellers
Your margins look healthy right up until you find out your cost of goods sold was never calculated correctly. Stacy Walker breaks down four ways ecommerce sellers can calculate COGS: expensing inventory the moment you buy it, estimating it as a percentage of revenue, working from beginning and ending inventory counts, and tying unit cost directly to units sold. You get the tradeoff behind each one and why sticking with your choice matters as much as the choice itself.
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Stacy WalkerJul 3, 20244 min
Inventory & COGS
Get Real Time Sales Insights with an Inventory Management System
Closing your books at month end means you find out about a margin problem 30 days after it starts. Stacy Walker puts numbers on that delay. A business bleeding $3 per order across 150,000 orders loses $450,000 before anyone notices, and a candle maker who missed a tripled wax cost gave up $180,000 over six months. An inventory management system recalculates COGS as orders and purchase orders move through it.
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Stacy WalkerJun 20, 20244 min
Sales Tax
Sales Tax Compliance: 8 Essential Tips to Protect Your Online Business
States are getting seller lists from Amazon, buying and sharing lists, and in Illinois, auditing back to 2018. Registering late, collecting before you register, or missing an exemption certificate can each leave you paying out of pocket. Kelley Birrell walks through eight compliance areas that catch online sellers: nexus footprint, voluntary disclosure agreements (VDAs), product taxability, exemption certificates, use tax, retail delivery fees, aggressive states, and sales tax holidays.
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Kelley BirrellJun 5, 202412 min
Inventory & COGS
Why Ecommerce Sellers Need an Inventory Management System, Even with a 3PL
Sellers tell Stacy Walker they don't need an inventory management system because their 3PL already handles inventory. Her answer is that a 3PL handles the warehouse, the picking, packing, and shipping, and may send you a report on what went out. What it doesn't do is show availability across your selling channels, forecast when to restock, generate purchase orders against your lead times, or calculate your cost of goods sold.
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Stacy WalkerMay 8, 20242 min
Profitability
Ecommerce Profitability Explained: From Gross Sales to Net Income
Gross sales, net sales, COGS, cost of sales, fixed expenses, other income. Stephen Brown walks each layer of the P&L and what each subtraction leaves you: gross margin, contribution margin, net operating income, and finally net income. He closes on the thing that catches product businesses out, which is that profit is not cash. Buy inventory and cash drops even in a profitable month.
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Stephen BrownApr 17, 20243 min
Sales Tax
How to EASILY Get a Resale Certificate for Drop Shipping
Your drop shipper is right to charge you sales tax where they have nexus, unless you hand them an exemption certificate. Kelley Birrell shows how the SST and MTC forms let you cover 35 of the 45 sales tax states without registering in a single one of them. She also covers what to send when a drop shipper refuses to accept the SST form, which happens often enough to have a standard fix.
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Kelley BirrellFeb 14, 20244 min
Profitability
The Smart Way to Start Cutting Costs in Ecommerce (Without Regrets)
Charlie Munger called EBITDA BS earnings, and banks and buyers use it anyway. Stephen Brown breaks the acronym down letter by letter with ecommerce examples: interest on the loan you took to stock up for the holidays, depreciation on the warehouse forklift, amortization on a premium domain. QuickBooks Online will not calculate it for you, but it is the number that comes up when you seek funding or sell.
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Stephen BrownFeb 7, 20243 min
Profitability
Other Income & Expenses Explained: Income Statement (Profit and Loss) for Ecommerce Sellers
Interest income, a sublease, and YouTube ad revenue are all money coming in, and none of them tell you anything about how your business performs. That is why they sit below the line. Stephen Brown explains what belongs in other income and expenses, how private companies use the section strategically for owner add-backs, and how moving tax, depreciation, and amortization down there turns net operating income into EBITDA.
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Stephen BrownJan 24, 20243 min
General Business
AMEX Business Line of Credit Review 2024 | Ecommerce Sellers and Small Business Friendly
Banks do not want to lend to ecommerce brands, because inventory is not collateral they can liquidate, so sellers end up on expensive Amazon, Shopify, and PayPal loans. Stephen Brown applied for the AMEX business line of credit with two of his own businesses and had approval in about 20 minutes. Terms run 6 to 24 months, up to roughly $250,000, with no origination, annual, or prepayment fees.
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Stephen BrownJan 10, 20245 min
Sales Tax
Colorado Sales and Use Tax System (SUTS) Explained for Online Sellers
Colorado has 72 self collecting home rule cities, and each one sets its own rates and taxability. That means a separate return per city on top of your state filing. Stacy Walker explains how the Sales and Use Tax System consolidates 66 of those cities into a single return, which six still demand their own, and why one seller shipping into Denver and Broomfield counties can end up filing nine returns in a single month.
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Stacy WalkerJan 3, 20243 min
Profitability
Net Operating Income vs Net Income: Understanding Ecommerce Profitability
Strong net operating income and weak net income means the problem is not your business, it is your financing or your taxes. Stephen Brown separates the two, walks the expense flow from COGS through cost of sales to overhead, and runs a $5 million example where $1 million of operating income becomes $500,000 after interest and taxes. Knowing which number is slipping tells you where to look.
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Stephen BrownDec 13, 20233 min
Sales Tax
Ecommerce Sales Tax: When Do Sellers Need to Collect?
You do not owe sales tax in a state until you have nexus, a connection strong enough to create a sales tax obligation. Physical presence comes from people and property, including inventory you own sitting in a 3PL. Economic nexus comes from how much you sell, usually 200 transactions or $100,000, with bigger states like New York, Texas, and California at $500,000. Kelley Birrell explains both, and when the obligation actually starts.
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Kelley BirrellDec 6, 20233 min
Inventory & COGS
Inventory Landed Costs Explained | What's Included and How to Calculate It
Your supplier quotes $100 a unit, you price off that number, and later you wonder where the margin went. Kelley Birrell separates buy cost, which is the price tag from your supplier, from landed cost, which is what the product costs once it reaches your warehouse. She then follows a gadget shipment through inland transport, two rounds of customs, ocean freight, and warehouse receiving, adding roughly $10,000 to a $10,000 order.
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Kelley BirrellNov 15, 20234 min
Inventory & COGS
Inventory and COGS for Shopify | How to Do It Right!
Expense inventory the month you buy it and January shows a $15,000 gross loss while February and March look great. Neither number is real. Stacy Walker shows the alternative: code purchases to inventory on the balance sheet, then release cost to COGS as units actually sell. You get the two things you have to track, quantity and value by SKU, how to build a product cost catalog from a vendor invoice, and how Shopify can serve as your product master.
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Stacy WalkerNov 8, 202314 min
Profitability
The Difference between Cost of Sales & Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) in Ecommerce
COGS stops when the product is ready to ship. Cost of sales keeps going: the box and bubble wrap, the delivery, the Facebook ads that won the order, and the processor fee on every card swipe. Stephen Brown separates the two, then opens QuickBooks Online to show the carved out cost of sales section and a business where the two together eat almost 68% of revenue.
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Stephen BrownNov 1, 20233 min
Profitability
Quick Guide to Gross v Net Revenue | for Ecommerce Sellers
Gross revenue is the full bucket. Net revenue is what is left after discounts and returns drain some out and customer paid shipping adds some back. Stephen Brown shows the same numbers two ways, in Shopify's sales over time report and in QuickBooks Online, and flags where Shopify gets it wrong: sales tax is a liability, not a sale, so it should never sit inside your total sales.
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Stephen BrownOct 18, 20234 min
Inventory & COGS
COGS Explained for Ecommerce Sellers
Sellers routinely lump customer shipping into COGS and then wonder why their margins look wrong. Stephen Brown draws the line: COGS covers what it takes to get a product to your warehouse, and cost of sales picks up everything after that. He then works through gross margin, the 40% to 75% range most ecommerce businesses land in, and why that number has to cover marketing, software, and payroll.
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Stephen BrownOct 11, 20232 min
Inventory & COGS
How to Create a Product Cost Formula | A Step-by-Step Guide
Month end COGS turns into a scavenger hunt when your product costs live in five different places. Brittany Brown builds a product cost catalog from a single vendor invoice, starting with buy cost and layering shipping and packaging on top to reach a landed cost per unit. You see the weighted average formula she uses to allocate shipping by total price, and why these costs have to hit inventory on the balance sheet instead of being expensed.
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Brittany BrownJun 20, 20238 min
General Business
Expensify Review: Is It STILL #1 for Business Expenses?
Expensify handles the whole loop: employee submits, manager approves, money moves back. Smart Scanning pulls vendor, date, and amount off a photo and matches it to the imported card transaction, so nobody keys anything. Stephen Brown runs through ten reasons it works, including the QuickBooks Online sync that ends double entry, and the Expensify card that pays 1% back and prompts for receipts at the moment of purchase.
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Stephen BrownJun 7, 20235 min
Sales Tax
How to Register for Sales Tax | Complete Massachusetts Walkthrough
This started as internal training for the LedgerGurus registrations team, which is why it goes screen by screen rather than skimming. Heidi walks the full MassTaxConnect application for a remote seller: which NAICS code to try first and what to fall back on, how to verify addresses, which date to enter for your registration requirement, and how Massachusetts uses your estimated annual tax to assign your filing frequency.
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Kelley BirrellMay 11, 202314 min
Inventory & COGS
From Chaos to Order: 10 Ways a Tool Can Help You Manage Inventory Like a Pro
Implementing inventory software is painful enough that plenty of sellers put it off and keep patching spreadsheets instead. Brittany Brown lays out ten problems a system actually solves: where your stock sits, what's already committed, what a SKU really costs, overselling across channels, purchase order accuracy, pick pack and ship, and profitability by SKU, order, and channel. Match those against your own list and decide whether the switch is worth it.
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Brittany BrownMay 3, 20237 min
Sales Tax
Shopify Sales Tax: Are you setting it up the WRONG way?
Shopify rebuilt its tax settings, and the old walkthrough no longer matches what you see. The platform now tracks how close you are to each state's economic nexus threshold, uses product categories to apply state taxability rules, and exports county level reports for filing. Kexin Smith walks through manage tax collection, product categorization, overrides, locations and sourcing, the charge tax box, and exempt customers.
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Kexin SmithApr 19, 202315 min
Sales Tax
UPDATE - Do Amazon Sellers Need to Worry About Sales Tax?
Amazon is a marketplace facilitator, which means it calculates, collects, and remits sales tax on every order you sell through the platform. Kexin explains why that leaves your liability at zero in every sales tax state, then covers the two places you may still need to act: a $0 return in your home state where you have physical presence, and the FBA warehouse states, where roughly half take the position that stored inventory creates nexus.
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Kexin SmithMar 29, 20237 min
Sales Tax
2 Ways to Solve Duplicate Transactions on Amazon Sales Tax Report
Amazon's combined sales tax report lists the same order four times, once each for state, city, county, and district, so any pivot table built off it inflates your sales figures. This walkthrough shows two fixes. The quick one drags jurisdiction level into the pivot filter and selects state only. The cleaner one filters out the blank tax rows, pastes the result as values into a new tab, then builds the pivot from that.
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Kexin SmithFeb 21, 20238 min
Ecommerce Accounting
Cash vs Accrual Accounting: How to Know When to Switch to Accrual
Most ecommerce businesses run a mix of cash and accrual, and they move along that spectrum as they mature. Stacy Walker maps four stops: watching the bank balance as a startup, moving revenue and then COGS to accrual once timing differences distort your months, spreading prepaid expenses so month to month is comparable, and full GAAP compliance once investors, debt holders, or the $25 million threshold require it. A fictional duck company illustrates each stage.
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Stacy WalkerJan 17, 20238 min
Sales Tax
Avalara? TaxJar? Taxify? BEST SALES TAX APP for Ecommerce
Sales tax rates change constantly, vary by county and special district, and have to be filed on each state's own schedule. This review covers the three tools LedgerGurus uses most with clients. Avalara scores highest on calculation but costs the most and takes real work to set up. TaxJar is cheap and quick to start but remits what it calculates rather than what you collected. Taxify and Sovos sit in between, with the best support.
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Kexin SmithDec 8, 202227 min
Ecommerce Accounting
A2X/QBO Setup & Consulting | How to Make Huge Changes in Your Business
Returns, fees, advertising, warehousing, and sales tax come out of gross sales inside your channels before anything reaches your bank, so the bank feed alone hides most of your business. Syncing every channel transaction into QuickBooks Online buries you in detail instead. Kelley Birrell explains how A2X sorts channel activity into buckets and delivers one monthly journal entry, why your chart of accounts has to line up with those buckets, and what the LedgerGurus setup service covers.
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Kelley BirrellNov 16, 20227 min
Inventory & COGS
Why You Want to Use Accrual Accounting for Inventory
Buy $50,000 of inventory, expense it on the spot, and January shows a catastrophic loss while February and March show profits you never earned. Stacy Walker explains why inventory belongs on the balance sheet until it sells, and what the year-end inventory penalty actually is: your tax accountant adjusting for stock you still hold, which cuts your COGS and raises your taxable income. Frustrating, she says, but entirely correct.
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Stacy WalkerOct 12, 20225 min
Ecommerce Accounting
Expensify Reimbursement | How to Setup a Personal Bank Account in Web App
Before your employer can reimburse you through Expensify, you need a deposit-only bank account on your profile. Stephen Brown shows where it lives, under settings, account, payments, and walks through both ways to add one: entering your account details manually, or logging into your bank directly and selecting the account. Either way you finish with a short identity verification.
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Stephen BrownSep 28, 20221 minute
Ecommerce Accounting
Expensify Mileage Tracking | 4 Methods Demonstrated
Expensify gives you four ways to log business mileage, three on mobile and one on the web. Stephen Brown demonstrates each: GPS tracking that runs while you drive, odometer readings you enter at both ends of a trip, straight manual distance entry, and a web based option that calculates the distance from a start and finish address. Pick whichever fits how you actually work.
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Stephen BrownSep 15, 20222 min
Inventory & COGS
How to Choose the Best Inventory Management Tool for Your Ecommerce Business
Sellers abandon expensive inventory implementations after discovering the tool cannot handle a workflow they cannot change. Stacy Walker gives you five questions to answer before you sign anything: do you manufacture or buy finished goods, what does the tool integrate with, do you fulfill yourself or use a 3PL, how does pricing scale as you grow, and can it actually run your workflows. She also names the three tools LedgerGurus sees succeed most often.
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Stacy WalkerSep 14, 20227 min
Ecommerce Accounting
How to Capture Receipts in Expensify | Mobile, Email, File Upload
Expensify takes receipts three ways: photographed in the mobile app, forwarded by email, or uploaded as a file in the web app. Stephen Brown demonstrates each one, then opens all three captured receipts to show that Expensify has already read the merchant, date, and total off every one of them. From there you build a report and submit it for approval without typing any of it in.
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Stephen BrownAug 17, 20222 min
Cash Flow
Shopify Capital Review | What is it and how does it work?
Shopify Capital lends a lump sum and takes repayment as a percentage of daily sales, with no credit check and no personal guarantee. Stephen Brown spoke to a Shopify Capital specialist, then walked through a real offer on a store he co-owns. The convenience has a price: roughly 9 to 15% effective APR against 7 to 9.5% on an SBA loan at the time, and faster repayment pushes the real rate higher.
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Stephen BrownJul 19, 20228 min
Sales Tax
Colorado Retail Delivery Fee | Everything You Need to Know
Colorado added a 27 cent fee on every retail delivery starting July 1, 2022, and it's a separate account, a separate form, and a separate line on the invoice. Kexin covers the two tests that trigger it, taxable tangible personal property delivered by motor vehicle, plus what marketplaces handle for you, why free shipping makes no difference, and how to fill out the return. Colorado opens the account for you automatically.
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Kexin SmithJun 20, 202213 min
Sales Tax
How to Register for Florida Sales Tax (Step-by-Step Guide)
Every state registration asks for roughly the same things, including your Social Security number, because sales tax is a trust tax and the state holds the owner personally liable. Kexin lists what to gather first, then walks the Florida application screen by screen. The line that matters most is your first date of taxable activity, because whatever date you enter is the date Florida starts expecting returns from you.
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Kexin SmithJun 8, 202218 min
Sales Tax
Do Foreign Companies Have to Deal with US Sales Tax?
There's no national US sales tax, so an international seller has to evaluate all 50 states separately. Kexin covers the three kinds of nexus that apply, what economic thresholds look like state by state, and the four things you need in place before you can register, including an EIN, a US bank account, and a US mailing address. She closes with three mistakes that create obligations you never had.
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Kexin SmithJun 1, 202212 min
Income Tax
A Step-by-Step Guide to Get an FEIN for International Businesses
Without an EIN (employer identification number) you cannot open a US bank account, get a mailing address, or register for a sales tax permit. If you are outside the US with no Social Security number and no ITIN, the online application is not available to you. Kexin Smith walks through the only route that works: fill out Form SS-4 completely, call the IRS right when they open, confirm every line with an agent, and fax the form over. They give you the number on the call.
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Kexin SmithMay 31, 202214 min
Sales Tax
What Online Sellers Need to Know About Sales Tax Nexus
Until you have nexus in a state, you have nothing to register, collect, or remit there. Kexin Smith explains the two things that create nexus: people and property in a state, and enough sales into it. Then she shows what a nexus study adds: whether your products are taxable, which channels already collect for you, and the real dollar amount you owe. Sometimes that number is $80, and registering makes no sense.
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Kexin SmithMay 1, 202213 min
Sales Tax
How to File a $0 Sales Tax Return in California (Step-by-Step for Amazon Sellers)
Amazon already remitted the tax, but your registration still obliges you to file. Kexin builds a pivot table from Amazon's combined sales tax report to split revenue by ship to state, then walks the CDTFA return line by line: report gross sales, deduct sales in interstate or foreign commerce, and deduct the California portion as marketplace facilitated sales. The result is a $0 liability. She also shows the simpler version for states like Utah.
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Kexin SmithApr 30, 202213 min
Cash Flow
How to Choose the Best Banks for Online Businesses
The right bank changes as your business does. Stephen Brown maps three bank types onto three stages: neobanks or a big bank while you're small and want everything online, a regional bank or credit union once the cash cycle forces you to need a line of credit, and multiple banks once you're moving serious money internationally. He also makes the case that running more than one bank is normal, not a problem.
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Stephen BrownMar 28, 20226 min
Sales Tax
Everything You Need to Know About Sales Tax for Drop Shipping
Drop shipping puts three parties and two taxable transactions in one order, which is why sellers keep getting charged sales tax by their own supplier. Kexin maps it out on a whiteboard: your nexus comes only from where your customers are, while a drop shipper serving hundreds of sellers hits economic nexus almost everywhere. That's why they charge you, and why a resale certificate in their state is the only thing that stops it.
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Kexin SmithMar 24, 202216 min
General Business
Bank Reviews: Neobanks Explained
Neobanks are technology companies that partner with a smaller bank for the charter, and that shows in what they do well: integrations with QuickBooks, Xero, Shopify, and Amazon, portals that keep adding features, and read only access for your accountant, which many big banks still don't offer. Stephen Brown reviews Mercury, Novo, and Brex, and names what they lack: physical branches, consistent support, and lending.
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Stephen BrownMar 22, 20228 min
Ecommerce Accounting
How to Do Invoicing Correctly in QuickBooks Online
Invoices are easy to create and easy to ruin at the payment step. Brittany Brown walks the correct flow in QuickBooks Online, then explains what undeposited funds is actually for: grouping multiple checks into one deposit, or adjusting for processing fees so the amount matches your bank feed. Skip it and QuickBooks can't match the transaction, you code it as income instead, and you've just counted the same $300 twice.
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Brittany BrownMar 16, 202213 min
Sales Tax
Free Sales Tax Solution for Online Sellers | Streamlined Sales Tax
Streamlined Sales Tax is 23 member states plus Tennessee agreeing on one registration form, one filing form, and shared product definitions. If you qualify as a remote seller, a certified service provider handles your registration, calculation, filing, and remittance at no cost, because the states pay them instead of you. Kexin covers the qualification thresholds, which software companies participate, and the four limitations, including that California, New York, and Illinois aren't in it.
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Kexin SmithFeb 25, 20229 min
General Business
Best Banks for Ecommerce and Small Business | Regional Banks and Credit Unions Reviewed
There are thousands of regional banks and credit unions, and their portals and user permissions range from great to downright awful. Stephen Brown's screen is simple: if a bank will not integrate with QuickBooks, run away, and do not accept a portal without multi-user access. The reason to go local is lending, since terms and programs are more flexible, which makes lines of credit and loans easier to qualify for.
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Stephen BrownFeb 18, 20224 min
Inventory & COGS
How to Create a Journal Entry for Cost of Goods Sold in QuickBooks Online
Expensing inventory the month you buy it makes January look like a disaster and February look great, and neither number is real. This walkthrough covers the bucket to bucket method: calculate COGS by SKU in a spreadsheet, then post one journal entry crediting inventory and debiting COGS. You see the four step process, the pros and cons against tracking item by item in QuickBooks Online, and how A2X does the calculation and the entry for you.
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Feb 18, 202215 min
Ecommerce Accounting
QuickBooks Online Tutorial | How to Set Up a QBO Sandbox with Your Existing Data
If you want to test QuickBooks' inventory feature or try a new workflow without risking your live data, you need a sandbox with a real copy of your file. Brittany Brown shows the process: upgrade to QuickBooks Advanced, run a full backup, add your sandbox company to the backup area, then copy the backup into it. The upgrade is temporary, since the whole thing takes about an hour.
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Brittany BrownFeb 17, 20223 min
General Business
Best Banks for Ecommerce and Small Business | Big Banks Reviewed
Every big bank connects to QuickBooks Online, so the portal and the user permissions decide which one works for your business. Stephen Brown reviews six big banks, calls out Capital One for offering no sub users at all and Bank of America for charging extra for access controls, and recommends Wells Fargo and Chase. Physical branches are where big banks shine, and their lending programs are rigid.
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Stephen BrownJan 31, 20224 min
Ecommerce Accounting
LedgerGurus Customer Testimonial - Thread Wallets
Thread Wallets grew fast enough to outgrow its software and payment processors more than once, adding wholesale and kiosks on top of a direct-to-consumer business. Trevor Reese and CFO Ryan King explain why they picked an outsourced team over an internal hire, and Katie Liddell of LedgerGurus describes the accounting work behind that growth. Their two barometers are revenue and net margin, and the point of the relationship is trusting those numbers.
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Trevor ReeseJan 19, 20223 min
Sales Tax
Amazon Sellers Sales Tax FAQs
Amazon calculates, collects, and remits sales tax for you in 44 states plus DC, which is why most sellers assume they're done. Kexin answers the four questions that come up anyway: what Amazon actually covers, what it never touches like home rule cities and Washington B&O tax, which report to pull for filing, and how to find which FBA warehouses hold your inventory and where that creates physical presence.
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Kexin SmithDec 9, 202113 min
Sales Tax
California Online Sales Tax Explained | Rates, Registrations, Filings & More
California's economic nexus threshold is $500,000, and every sale counts toward it, including resale, exempt, and marketplace transactions. Kexin walks through what triggers registration, which products escape tax, what the CDTFA application asks for that other states don't, and how the four rate levels stack. The base combined rate is 7.25%, but district taxes push some addresses past 11%, which is why remote sellers need a tool.
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Kexin SmithNov 18, 20219 min
Sales Tax
Illinois Sales Tax Explained | Rates, Forms, Registration, and More
You used to charge a flat 6.25% on every Illinois sale. Since January 1, 2021, remote sellers collect retailers' occupational tax (ROT), a destination based tax that adds the local rate on top of the state rate for each order. Kexin Smith explains the food truck logic Illinois uses to justify the change, why it sends you a new registration certificate every time you sell somewhere new, and how the ST-1 and ST-2 change as a result.
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Kexin SmithOct 5, 202112 min
Sales Tax
Where does a Marketplace Facilitator Have Sales Tax Nexus?
You launched a marketplace, and now sellers from every state run through your platform. That does not put you on the hook everywhere. A marketplace facilitator is a platform that advertises sellers' products and processes the payments. Kexin Smith answers a question she got that morning: your sellers' physical presence never becomes yours. You register where you have people or property, and where your own sales cross the economic threshold, which is the point the collection duty moves from the seller to you.
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Kexin SmithSep 15, 20214 min
Cash Flow
Brex Cash Review
Brex Cash looks like a business bank account without being a bank. No monthly fees, no minimum, no charge for ACH or wires, and an instant revenue feature that advances unpaid marketplace payouts for 1.5% on Amazon or 1% elsewhere. Stephen Brown opens an account on camera, walks the dashboard, and lands on who it suits: small sellers, not businesses that need layered approvals.
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Stephen BrownSep 8, 20216 min
Ecommerce Accounting
3 Shopify Accounting Methods Explained: Which one is right for YOUR business?
Your bank only shows summary deposits, so the real sales activity stays inside Shopify and your payment processors. Brittany Brown walks through three ways to handle that, matched to revenue: code deposits straight to sales under $250,000, add a monthly journal entry from the Shopify sales report up to $1 million, and reconcile every payment processor above that. For one large client, the method choice changed reported sales by $600,000 in a single month.
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Brittany BrownSep 8, 202134 min
Ecommerce Accounting
Accounting for Foreign Currency Transactions with A2X and QBO | Shopify and Amazon Sellers
A2X matches your Amazon US deposit to a journal entry in one click. Amazon Mexico and Canada settle in pesos and Canadian dollars but deposit into your bank in US dollars, so nothing matches. Brittany Brown found the fix at 11:30 at night, after banging her head against the wall on it: turn on foreign currency in QuickBooks, then click the foreign currency option in the bank feed to surface the right settlement.
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Brittany BrownJul 13, 202110 min
Sales Tax
Can Amazon Sellers Deregister for Sales Tax in KS and FL?
Kansas and Florida both turn on marketplace facilitator collection and a $100,000 economic nexus threshold on July 1, which changes what Amazon-only sellers need to keep. Kexin called both states. Kansas will close your account with form CR-108 as long as you can show Amazon is collecting on your behalf. Florida won't, if you cross the threshold or hold FBA inventory there, but you can file $0 returns, request a lower filing frequency, or wait out eight quarters.
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Kexin SmithJun 17, 20218 min
Ecommerce Accounting
QuickBooks Online Bank Feeds Set-Up
Brittany Brown calls bank feeds the single biggest time saver in your accounting, and says an accountant who hasn't turned them on doesn't know what they're doing. She walks the full setup: creating a chart of accounts entry for every bank account and card first, connecting through the banking center, mapping each account, and choosing how far back to pull. Plus why the last four digits in every account name matter more than you'd think.
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Brittany BrownJun 9, 202113 min
Inventory & COGS
Inventory and COGS Accounting | Free template included!
Your books say one thing and the warehouse shelf says another, and that gap is where your COGS goes wrong. A LedgerGurus inventory expert walks through a quantity reconciliation: beginning count plus received, minus sold, minus known adjustments, checked against a physical count. You learn which of those numbers to distrust, how big a difference is worth chasing down, and how to turn quantity sold into a real COGS figure using cost per SKU.
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Preston AlderMay 7, 202110 min
Cash Flow
Shoe Dog Review | Lessons in Business Cash Flow Management
Shoe Dog never uses the phrase cash cycle, but the whole book runs on it. Phil Knight wired money to Japan, waited for shoes to be made and shipped, then waited again to distribute and get paid, all while doubling sales every year with every dollar tied up in inventory. Stephen Brown maps that onto today's online sellers and covers the financing options Knight didn't have, from credit cards to factoring to venture money.
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Stephen BrownApr 22, 20214 min
Income Tax
Amazon 1099 vs. Financial Statement Activity | Amazon Bookkeeping Tips
Your Amazon 1099 won't match your books, and that's expected. The 1099 reports gross order totals while your accounting uses fulfilled, shipped sales net of fees, returns, and discounts. Brittany Brown shows how to prove your numbers are right anyway: pull Amazon's date range summary report, compare net income to your books with COGS added back, and expect to land within a few hundred dollars. She also covers handling international channels in foreign currency.
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Brittany BrownApr 16, 20219 min
Sales Tax
Do You Qualify for a Sales Tax Exemption?
Not every sale needs sales tax on it, and not every purchase you make should have it either. Kexin splits exemptions into the selling side, where product type, customer type, and wholesale transactions each work differently, and the buying side, where a resale certificate stops your suppliers and drop shippers from charging you. She also covers the two multi-state forms that roughly 80% of states accept, and the handful that insist on their own.
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Kexin SmithMar 28, 20219 min
Cash Flow
Brex Credit Card Review | Small Business Credit Card | Accountant's Perspective
A brand new business has no credit history, which makes a traditional business card hard to get. Brex underwrites on bank balances and financial activity instead, with no personal guarantee and no personal credit check. Stephen Brown covers the five things he likes as an accountant: qualification, the points system, an admin portal with real expense controls, virtual cards and receipt capture for end users, and a QuickBooks Online integration he rates among the best in fintech.
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Stephen BrownMar 23, 20215 min
Ecommerce Accounting
Setting Up Chart of Accounts in QuickBooks Online | For Online Sellers
Good financial statements are built on a well-designed chart of accounts, and QuickBooks' automatic starter set isn't one. Brittany Brown covers the five account types and which statement each flows to, the four problems that make financials unreadable, and how to merge accounts rather than deleting them. Her core argument is that when you want more detail, class tracking is the answer, not another twenty accounts.
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Brittany BrownMar 12, 202119 min
Ecommerce Accounting
How to Understand Your Ecommerce Cash Flow Statement
Profit and cash are not the same thing, and inventory is the reason ecommerce feels that gap harder than most. Brittany Brown walks through the cash cycle, the three types of cash flow, and the difference between the direct and indirect methods. Then she reads a real QuickBooks statement, including a month with $744,000 of net income that still drained cash, and explains why operations eventually have to fund themselves.
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Brittany BrownFeb 26, 202120 min
Strategy
Ecommerce Business Valuation
An asset based valuation undersells an ecommerce brand, because manufacturing and fulfillment are outsourced and there is little to count. The income approach is the most accurate, and it runs on EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization): two to four times on a conservative view, four to eight on a liberal one. Stephen Brown covers the factors that decide where in that range you land, and why what a buyer will pay is the number that counts.
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Stephen BrownJan 25, 20216 min
Sales Tax
How to Read and Understand Your Shopify Sales Tax Report
Shopify is not a marketplace facilitator, so nothing gets collected or remitted for you. The orders export holds what you need to file, but it repeats one row per line item, so counting rows overstates your transactions. Kexin Smith walks through the export, builds the calculated columns and pivot table that turn it into sales, transactions, and tax collected by state, and shows how to use those numbers to file returns and test economic nexus.
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Kexin SmithJan 20, 202123 min
Income Tax
1099 vs W2 | Ecommerce Examples
Classify a worker wrong and you end up in trouble with the IRS. The IRS uses three tests to decide whether someone is a 1099 independent contractor or a W-2 employee: behavioral control, financial control, and type of relationship. Stephen Brown runs three common ecommerce roles through all three. A marketing specialist usually lands on 1099, a warehouse worker is very hard to classify as anything but W-2, and an IT specialist can easily be 1099. His closing rule: if it leans W-2, make them W-2.
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Stephen BrownJan 6, 20216 min
Ecommerce Accounting
How to Read and Analyze Your Ecommerce Balance Sheet
Your P&L shows how a period went. Your balance sheet shows where you stand right now and how close you are to trouble. Brittany Brown walks through assets, liabilities, and equity using a real ecommerce balance sheet, then shows why the current ratio can flatter you. In her example the business looks healthy at 4.39, until the quick ratio strips out a shareholder loan and prepaid expenses and leaves barely a dollar per dollar owed.
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Brittany BrownDec 8, 202022 min
Online Sales Tax | Aggressive States to be Aware of and Why
States lost revenue during COVID-19 and went looking for it in remote sellers. Kexin Smith lays out the five tactics she was seeing in late 2020. California and Washington got seller lists from Amazon. South Dakota, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Maine started challenging registration dates. Utah and Connecticut bought lists of online sellers. Some states share audit information with their neighbors, and states with deep budgets hire more auditors. Each one raises your audit risk in that state.
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Kexin SmithNov 25, 20207 min
Forecasting
Ecommerce Budgeting | Free Template
Stephen Brown walks a seven-worksheet budget template built for ecommerce, from channel-level revenue through COGS, fulfillment, merchant fees, and payroll. His method for a first budget is deliberately simple: take last year's numbers and apply a growth uplift. He spends most of the time on revenue, because everything downstream depends on it, and closes on the part most people skip, comparing actuals to budget every month and adjusting.
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Stephen BrownNov 18, 202030 min
Inventory & COGS
Inventory turnover for Ecommerce sellers | How to calculate and optimize
Inventory is likely the biggest asset on your balance sheet, and turnover tells you how well you are moving it. Preston Alder walks through the ratio, COGS (cost of goods sold) divided by average inventory, using $800,000 of COGS against $200,000 of average inventory to land on a turnover of 4. You get three places to source your COGS number, what a good ratio looks like by industry, and five levers for raising it.
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Preston AlderNov 4, 202010 min
Ecommerce Accounting
How to Read & Analyze Your Ecommerce Income Statement
Brittany Brown calls the income statement the easiest financial statement to read, and the best place to start. She covers its five parts, then shows why recording an Amazon deposit as your sales figure hides everything that matters. The demonstration includes class tracking to see profitability by channel, which exposes an Amazon channel losing money on storage, and right sizing expenses as a percentage of income to explain why one month earned $70,000 more than a bigger one.
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Brittany BrownOct 8, 2020 24 min
Inventory & COGS
Recording Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) | Cash vs. accrual methods
https://youtu.be/paIBItvU8i8
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Preston AlderSep 16, 20203 min
Ecommerce Accounting
An Intro to Financial Statements | for Ecommerce Businesses
Most business owners started a business partly to make money, then avoid the one tool that shows whether it's working. Brittany Brown makes the case for financial literacy first, then introduces the three statements: the P&L for day to day performance, the balance sheet for what you're worth and how close you are to trouble, and the cash flow statement, which she calls the most useful and least read. She closes by showing where to find them in QuickBooks Online.
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Brittany BrownSep 14, 202017 min
Forecasting
Small Business Budgeting | Reasons and Examples
A business has cash flowing in and out on cycles that a bank balance won't tell you about, which is why budgeting is a control rather than a chore. Stephen Brown covers why to budget, why a spreadsheet beats a third-party tool when you're starting, how to structure the model around your profit and loss, and what to actually do with the variance each month. His recurring point is that the budget is a financial model you keep tweaking.
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Stephen BrownSep 10, 20209 min
Forecasting
Ecommerce Marketing Budget Calculator | CAC | ROAS | And More
How much should you spend on marketing is one of the most common questions LedgerGurus gets, and answering it takes six numbers. Brittany Brown covers where each one comes from, works CAC and ROAS by hand, then runs a downloadable calculator that turns them into a daily profit and loss. The point of the exercise is watching what happens to net income when your margin slips or your return on ad spend drops.
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Brittany BrownJul 17, 202020 min
Ecommerce Accounting
Ecommerce Accounting vs. Regular Accounting: What's the Difference?
A regular business finds most of its transactions in the bank account. An ecommerce business doesn't, and that single difference cascades into everything else. Preston Alder covers the four areas where ecommerce accounting diverges: where the financial data actually lives, how to handle COGS and inventory, sales tax compliance across states with different rules, and the foreign transaction fees that come with selling internationally.
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Preston AlderJun 26, 202010 min
Sales Tax
Where to find your Amazon Sales Tax Report (and what it means)
Amazon collects and remits sales tax on most of your orders, but not all of them, and the report you pull decides which side you are looking at. The marketplace tax collection report shows Amazon's share. The calculation report shows yours. Kexin Smith walks through Amazon Seller Central to the tax document library, then reads the combined report column by column: the three dates, the responsible party, and the state, city, county, and district rates behind every order.
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Kexin SmithJun 16, 202013 min
Inventory & COGS
Understanding Inventory and Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) for Amazon Sellers
Expense a shipment the month it lands and January shows a $15,000 gross loss while February and March look untouchable. Brittany Brown lays out the alternative for Amazon sellers: code inventory to the balance sheet, then release it to COGS as units actually sell. You get the two things you have to track, quantity and value by SKU, how a vendor bill becomes a product cost catalog, and why FBA can serve as your product master.
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Brittany BrownMay 29, 202018 min
Inventory & COGS
Calculating Ecommerce inventory and COGS using product cost catalogs
You cannot value your inventory or your COGS without knowing what each SKU actually cost you. Brittany Brown shows how to build a product cost catalog out of the bills and POs you already receive, starting with a plain Excel list of SKUs and costs. You get the difference between buy cost and landed cost, how LedgerGurus updates costs on every new invoice, and when an inventory tool is worth paying for.
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Brittany BrownMay 29, 202016 min
Ecommerce Accounting
Ecommerce Accounting - LedgerGurus Customer Testimonial By Beddy's
Beddy's began when Betsy Mikesell got tired of making bunk beds and sewed zippers into bedding at her mother's house. It grew into a multi-million dollar brand selling worldwide, and with that growth came sales tax across dozens of states. Angie describes being close to tears over rules she didn't understand, and what changed once LedgerGurus took on the sales tax, the bookkeeping, and the reporting.
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Betsy MikesellMay 19, 20203 min
Ecommerce Accounting
Recording Amazon Sales in QuickBooks Online | Multiple Methods
Brittany Brown walks three ways to record Amazon settlements, and is upfront that the first one isn't best practice. Coding the deposit as income is fast, gives a correct net income, and is adequate under $100,000 if you only need something for your tax accountant. Breaking the settlement out by line item fixes your margins, since a $109,580 deposit actually represented $147,000 of sales. A sync tool fixes the timing problem the first two share.
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Brittany BrownMay 4, 202024 min
Ecommerce Accounting
Amazon Accounting Software A2X | The Whys and the Hows
Amazon pays you every two weeks, and that one deposit nets sales, FBA fees, refunds, chargebacks, shipping, and sales tax together. Coding it as income understates sales, in Brittany Brown's client example by $38,000 on a $109,580 deposit. She shows how A2X breaks a settlement into a journal entry that ties to the bank deposit, how it splits settlements that cross month end, and how to map your accounts and cost of goods sold.
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Brittany BrownApr 28, 202028 min
Ecommerce Accounting
Amazon Seller Bookkeeping Basics (for Accurate Financials)
The number Amazon deposits in your bank is not your sales figure, and recording it that way understates revenue in ways that surface when you sell the business. Preston Alder covers the three basics that decide whether Amazon books are trustworthy: pulling real sales from Seller Central, treating collected sales tax as a liability rather than income, and calculating COGS per product and recording it when the product sells rather than when you order it.
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Preston AlderFeb 18, 2020 7 min
Income Tax
Why Keep Receipts for Business Expenses
A credit card statement shows when you spent, how much, and with whom. It doesn't show what you bought, and that missing detail is what a tax auditor asks about. Stephen Brown covers four reasons receipts matter: proving deductibility, making coding easier, approving employee and card spend, and being ready for a financial audit. He closes with the three categories of app that capture receipts so you don't need a filing cabinet.
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Stephen BrownJan 28, 20205 min
General Business
Is your employee exempt or non-exempt? | Overtime pay implications
The minimum salary for exempt employees jumped to $684 a week in 2020, and salary alone was never the whole test. Stephen Brown walks the three conditions an employee has to meet, fixed salary, the minimum amount, and the duties test that most companies stretch, then explains what misclassification costs: unpaid time and a half owed to the employee, plus back taxes, penalties, and interest owed to the government.
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Stephen BrownDec 30, 20198 min
General Business
Bill.com: Worth It or Not?
Writing one check costs 20 to 30 minutes once you count the envelope, the stamp, and recording it in your books. Bill.com pulls the money, cuts the check, mails it, and shows you when it cleared. The bigger reason to use it is control: separate roles for who prepares a bill, who approves it, and who pays, so handing off AP does not mean handing over the checkbook.
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Stephen BrownDec 19, 201912 min

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