Shopify POS
In-store sales in the same books
Card sales taken on Shopify POS with Shopify Payments are paid out and split alongside your online orders. Cash sales come from Shopify's register session reports and are matched when the cash is banked.
Industries · Ecommerce · Shopify
Shopify bookkeeping that shows what your store really earns.
Excello's Shopify bookkeeping takes every Shopify payout apart into sales, fees, refunds and adjustments, matches it to your bank, keeps stock and landed cost current, and closes your books within five business days.
Your Shopify dashboard shows what you sold. Your books should show what you kept, inside your own QuickBooks, Xero or Odoo.
- Shopify
- Payouts split daily
- POS, gift cards and Capital
- Margins with landed cost
- Closed within five business days
What is Shopify bookkeeping?
The payout
Shopify bookkeeping is the recording and checking of a Shopify store's sales, fees, refunds and payouts, so the books show what the store sold, what it cost to sell and what reached the bank.
The hard part is the payout. Shopify pays out on the schedule you choose, daily, weekly or monthly, after taking its fees, and on a daily schedule it sends Friday, Saturday and Sunday payments as one payout. Refunds and chargebacks can settle faster than sales and reduce the next payout, and part of your balance can be held back as a reserve.
So the deposit in your bank is rarely the same as your sales. Here is one weekend's payout, taken apart the way bookkeeping for Shopify stores needs it.
| Line | Amount | Where it goes in the books |
|---|---|---|
| Card and Shop Pay orders, Friday to Sunday | 6,400 | Sales, at their full value |
| Processing fees, including Shop Pay Installments | (236) | Payment processing fees |
| Refunds | (180) | Refunds and returns |
| Chargeback and its fee | (95) | Chargebacks, reversed if you win the dispute |
| Shopify Capital repayment | (320) | Shopify Capital loan, reducing what you owe |
| Paid to your bank | 5,569 | Bank, matched to the deposit |
Book only the $5,569 deposit and sales look $831 smaller than they were, and the fees, the chargeback and the loan repayment disappear into the gap.
Does Shopify do accounting?
Shopify and your books
Not fully. Shopify records orders, payments and payouts and has good sales and finance reports, but it keeps no general ledger and never sees your other bank accounts, cards or suppliers.
The answer to “does Shopify do bookkeeping?” is the same: Shopify supplies the raw records, and the books are kept in accounting software connected to your store.
| Area | In Shopify | In your books, kept by Excello |
|---|---|---|
| Orders, payments and payouts | Recorded, with a transaction list behind every payout | Each payout split into sales, fees, refunds and adjustments, and matched to the bank deposit |
| Gift cards and store credit | Outstanding balance reports | A liability on your balance sheet, moved to sales when the customer spends it |
| Product costs | A cost per item you type in, excluding shipping and other costs | Landed cost: supplier price plus freight and duties, as each shipment arrives |
| Your bank accounts, cards and suppliers | Outside Shopify | Every account reconciled to its statement at the close |
| Financial statements | Sales, finance and profit reports | Balance sheet, profit and loss and cash flow statement every month |
How the store connects to your ledger is on the Shopify accounting integrations page.
The Shopify details most bookkeepers miss
Beyond the payout
Four parts of a Shopify store that a general bookkeeper can easily get wrong, and how each is recorded.
Gift cards and store credit
Money owed, not money earned
A gift card sold is a liability until it is spent, and Shopify's own sales reports leave gift card sales out too. Store credit is treated the same way.
Shopify Capital
A loan, not income
The advance goes to a loan account, repayments taken from your sales reduce it, and the fixed fee is recorded as a cost of borrowing.
Buy now, pay later
Paid in full, less a fee
Shop Pay Installments, Klarna and Afterpay orders are recorded as normal sales, and each provider's fee is split out and matched to the order it came from.
Shopify COGS: why cost per item is not enough
Product cost
Shopify COGS and profit reports use the cost per item you enter on each product. Shopify's Help Center suggests entering the price you paid the manufacturer, excluding shipping or other costs, and notes that the figure is static: it only changes when you change it.
Your real cost moves with every shipment. Excello adds each shipment's freight and duties to the stock it brought in, so cost of goods sold carries the full landed cost when each unit sells.
A worked example
- Cost per item in Shopify: $12
- Freight and duties on the shipment: $3 a unit
- Landed cost: $15 a unit
- Sold at $40, gross profit is $25 a unit, not the $28 Shopify's report shows
More on stock in inventory accounting. Work out your own figures with the landed cost calculator and the profit margin calculator.
What Shopify bookkeeping services from Excello include
Full scope
Shopify orders and payouts are recorded and matched daily. An accountant reviews them every week, or every business day on the Growth and Scale plans, before each month-end close.
| What Excello does | When |
|---|---|
| Shopify payouts recorded and split into sales, fees, refunds and adjustments | Daily |
| Every payout matched to its bank deposit | Daily, reviewed every week or every business day |
| Shopify POS card sales, and cash from register sessions | Daily, cash when it is banked |
| Gift cards and store credit held as a liability | Agreed to Shopify's balance reports at each close |
| Shopify Capital repayments and fees | With every payout |
| Shop Pay Installments, Klarna and Afterpay matched to orders | With every payout |
| Your Shopify bill: plan, apps and third-party transaction fees | Every month |
| Stock and cost of goods sold, with landed cost | As items sell, return and arrive |
| Month-end close with your three statements | Within five business days |
Selling on Amazon or other marketplaces too? Every channel is split the same way, so you can see profit by channel.
How to choose a Shopify accountant
Five questions
How Shopify bookkeeping works with Excello
Set up within one week
-
Step 01
Connect
Your store, ledger and bank feeds connected, with access you grant and can remove at any time.
-
Step 02
Every day
Payouts recorded and split, and every one matched to its bank deposit.
-
Step 03
Every week or daily
Accountants check fees, refunds, gift cards, Capital and stock, and ask you only what they cannot know.
-
Step 04
Every month
The close within five business days, with your three statements.
Behind on the books? Catch-up work is quoted separately and brings past months up to date before the monthly service starts.
What Shopify accounting services cost
Pricing
Frequently asked questions
Does Shopify do bookkeeping?
Not on its own. Shopify records orders, payments, fees and payouts and has sales and finance reports, but it keeps no general ledger, reconciles no bank accounts and produces no balance sheet. Those live in accounting software such as QuickBooks, Xero or Odoo, connected to your store.
How is Shopify Capital recorded in the books?
As a loan, not as income. The advance goes to a loan account, each repayment reduces what you owe, and the fixed fee is a cost of borrowing. For loans taken since March 2026, Shopify collects repayments from your Shopify Payments balance, so they appear inside your payouts.
How are Shopify gift cards recorded?
A gift card sale is recorded as a liability, because you owe the customer goods until they spend it. The sale is recorded when the card is redeemed. Excello agrees the balance to Shopify's outstanding gift card balance report at each close, and treats store credit the same way.
How are Shop Pay Installments recorded?
As a normal sale paid in full. Shopify pays you the whole order within one to three business days, less a higher transaction fee, inside your Shopify Payments payouts, and Affirm collects the installments. The fee is not returned when you refund, so it stays as a cost.
Do I need a Shopify accountant if I use an accounting app?
An app posts your payouts to the ledger, but someone still has to check them. That means reviewing fees and refunds, matching each payout to the bank, handling gift cards and Capital, keeping stock costs current and closing the month: the work a Shopify accountant does.
How much do Shopify bookkeeping services cost?
Shopify bookkeeping with Excello starts at $150 a month; the plan depends on how many transactions you have and how often you want them reviewed. Shopify POS, gift cards, Capital and landed cost are scoped on the first call and included in one fixed quote.
Can Excello catch up Shopify books that are behind?
Yes. Catch-up Shopify bookkeeping brings past months up to date, payout by payout, and is quoted separately from the monthly plan. Once the books are current, the monthly service takes over and each month closes within five business days.