Shopify Bookkeeping Services & Accounting

Shopify makes selling easy and bookkeeping deceptively hard. The store reports orders; the bank shows payouts; and the two never match, because every payout is sales minus fees, minus refunds, minus reserves. Maxim Liberty’s bookkeepers reconcile that gap every month — breaking payouts into their parts, tracking sales tax, and keeping QuickBooks or Xero tied to both Shopify and the bank — for $15/hour, with plans from $75/month.

Why Shopify Books Go Wrong

The most common Shopify bookkeeping mistake is treating bank deposits as revenue. Per Shopify’s documentation, payouts arrive on a daily, weekly, or monthly schedule you choose — and each one nets out transaction fees, refunds, and sometimes reserves that “temporarily hold funds from your sales to cover potential disputes and refunds.” Book the deposit as sales and you’ve understated revenue, hidden your processing costs, and made gross margin unknowable.

Then come the multipliers: a second payment gateway (PayPal, Shop Pay Installments, Klarna) with its own payout pattern; sales tax collected in some states and not others; gift cards; and inventory — the number Shopify tracks in units while your ledger needs it in dollars.

What Shopify Gives You — and What Still Needs a Human

Shopify’s Payments activity report shows “how money moved through Shopify Payments for a selected date range and payout currency, including gross activity, fees, payouts, and your ending balance” (Shopify help documentation, retrieved August 2026). That’s good raw material — but it isn’t bookkeeping. Someone still has to post each payout’s components to the right accounts, reconcile Shopify against the bank, record refunds and chargebacks, track the sales-tax liability, and value inventory and COGS so your P&L reflects what selling actually costs.

Core Shopify Bookkeeping Functions We Handle

1. Payout Reconciliation & Fee Breakout

Every payout split into gross sales, fees, refunds, and reserves — posted to the right accounts, tied to the bank.

2. Multi-Gateway Reconciliation

Shopify Payments, PayPal, and any other processor each reconciled on its own payout cycle.

3. Sales Tax Liability Tracking

Tax collected recorded as a liability — not revenue — so filings and remittances come from clean numbers.

4. Refunds, Chargebacks & Gift Cards

The messy edges recorded correctly, so revenue isn’t overstated and liabilities aren’t missed.

5. Inventory & COGS Entries

Purchases, landed costs, and monthly COGS recorded so gross margin is real.

6. Month-End Close & Reporting

A disciplined close with channel-level P&L your CPA can file from without cleanup.

Behind on Your Shopify Books? We Do Rescue Work

A year of deposits booked as revenue is a common starting point — and fixable. We rebuild the payout history, restate revenue and fees, reconcile every account, and hand you clean books going forward. Our catch-up bookkeeping team clears backlogs like this every week.

Why Outsource Shopify Bookkeeping to Maxim Liberty

E-commerce margins are too thin for guesswork books. Our dedicated bookkeepers cost $15/hour, and every plan includes a supervisor who reviews the work and serves as your single point of contact. Since 2005, BBB A+ accredited, with a 100% money-back guarantee on your first deposit — and your store, your ledger, and your data stay yours.

Frequently Asked Questions About Shopify Bookkeeping