Elver E-Commerce Accountants

E-commerce accounting is accounting for E-commerce businesses e.g. those that sell on online marketplaces like Amazon or eBay or sell on their own websites. There are two key differences between accounting for other businesses and E-commerce businesses. Firstly, a traditional business typically raises an invoice and receives payment from it’s customer. By contrast, an E-commerce business will receive payouts that could potentially relate to thousands of different orders, each from different customers. Secondly, a small traditional business will typically only be selling to customers within the UK. Whereas for an E-commerce business, it is much easier to start selling internationally and therefore have international VAT and GST obligations. Such obligations require the support of an E-commerce accountant.

We can support E-commerce businesses with all their accounting, taxation and bookkeeping needs. Typically we would expect an E-commerce business to need support with annual accounts preparation, corporation tax returns, VAT returns and confirmation statements as a minimum. We also find that because of the additional complexities of E-commerce bookkeeping, many E-commerce business owners prefer to get us to do the bookkeeping too. For those looking to scale their businesses, we offer management accounting and forecasting services. We also offer international VAT and GST services for when you are ready to take your business internationally. To see further details of the services we offer, please head to our E-commerce Accounting Packages page.

We use Xero for all our E-commerce clients. There are two main reasons behind this. Firstly, we find that Xero has a simple user interface that is easy for business owners to understand. Secondly, Xero has a wide range of apps that it integrates with such as A2X, further enhancing the power of Xero.

The answer to this depends upon your business model. For example, if you are fulfilling from your garage and selling to customers in the UK with sales below £1,000 then you won’t even need to file a tax return. By contrast, a start up that is fulfilling from outside the UK to customers in the UK (a very common scenario for a dropshipper) would need to register for VAT before they can start selling and file VAT returns on a quarterly basis. In this case, you’re likely to want an accountant before you even make your first sale.

This depends on your business model. As a minimum you will need an annual tax return (a self assessment tax return if you’re a sole trader or a corporation tax return if you’re set up as a limited company). To see which other services you may need, head to our packages page.