The answer
Shopify seller, behind on books
The reason e-commerce books drift further behind than anyone else's is that the bank statement lies to you. A Shopify payout is not revenue. It is gross sales plus shipping, minus refunds, minus processing fees, minus chargebacks, deposited as one number with none of the parts shown.
Below: one payout taken apart, the chart of accounts a seller needs, and what a cleanup costs. Titan closes your first month free from one statement so you can read it before deciding.
Titan, for comparison
- Up to 6 months behind$499
- Up to 12 months behind$999
- Up to 24 months behind$1,899
- Your first month, closed and tied out$0
01 / One payout, taken apart
What is actually inside a deposit.
One Shopify Payments payout for a store doing 185 orders in a period. The bank statement shows only the last line.
Gross product sales
12,480.00
185 orders, before anything is taken out
185 orders, before anything is taken out
Shipping charged to customers
614.50
Income, not a reduction of the shipping you paid
Income, not a reduction of the shipping you paid
Refunds
(742.10)
Contra revenue for the period they were issued
Contra revenue for the period they were issued
Shopify Payments fees
(435.24)
2.9% of 13,094.50 plus 30 cents on each of 185 orders
2.9% of 13,094.50 plus 30 cents on each of 185 orders
Chargebacks
(89.99)
One disputed order, plus the dispute fee if charged
One disputed order, plus the dispute fee if charged
Deposit to your bank
11,827.17
The only figure on the bank statement
Books that record 11,827.17 as sales are understating revenue by 1,267.33 and showing no processing fees at all. The gap compounds every payout, and it will not match the 1099-K the platform files.
02 / Market rates
What a firm charges an online seller for cleanup.
Prices for a store with roughly 50 to 300 bank and card lines a month. Multiple sales channels, inventory and multi-state sales tax push every row up.
How far behind
Typical quote
Timeline
1 to 3 months behind
$300 – $500
3 – 8 weeks
1 to 3 months behind
4 to 6 months behind
$500 – $1,500
3 – 8 weeks
4 to 6 months behind
Twelve months behind
$1,500 – $3,500
3 – 8 weeks
Twelve months behind
Two years or more
$3,500 – $10,000+
3 – 8 weeks
Two years or more
Sellers get quoted high because order volume looks like transaction volume. It usually is not. A store with 3,000 orders a month still deposits one payout every two days, and the bank lines are what a cleanup reads.
03 / Chart of accounts
What an e-commerce seller's books are made of.
The chart we load when you confirm the business type. Fees sit in the cost block rather than buried in revenue, so contribution margin per order is readable.
Code
Account
What lands here
4000
Product sales
Gross, before fees and refunds — the figure on your 1099-K
Gross, before fees and refunds — the figure on your 1099-K
4100
Shipping income
What customers paid you to ship
What customers paid you to ship
4200
Refunds and returns
Contra revenue, never netted into sales
Contra revenue, never netted into sales
5000
Cost of goods sold
Product cost of what actually shipped, not what you bought
Product cost of what actually shipped, not what you bought
5100
Inbound freight and duty
Ocean and air freight, customs, brokerage
Ocean and air freight, customs, brokerage
5200
Merchant processing fees
Shopify Payments, PayPal, Shop Pay, Stripe, Amazon
Shopify Payments, PayPal, Shop Pay, Stripe, Amazon
5300
Platform and app fees
The Shopify plan, apps, marketplace commissions
The Shopify plan, apps, marketplace commissions
5400
Outbound shipping and labels
Carrier drafts, label services, packaging
Carrier drafts, label services, packaging
5500
Fulfillment and 3PL
Pick and pack, storage, FBA fees
Pick and pack, storage, FBA fees
6000
Advertising
Meta, Google, TikTok, influencer and affiliate payouts
Meta, Google, TikTok, influencer and affiliate payouts
6100
Software and subscriptions
Email, analytics, design, helpdesk
Email, analytics, design, helpdesk
6200
Contractors and agencies
Totalled by payee for the calendar year
Totalled by payee for the calendar year
1300
Inventory
An asset until it ships. The account most often missing entirely
An asset until it ships. The account most often missing entirely
2200
Sales tax payable
What you collected and have not yet remitted
What you collected and have not yet remitted
3900
Owner draws
Transfers to yourself. Not an expense and never in the P&L
Transfers to yourself. Not an expense and never in the P&L
04 / Where cleanups go wrong
Six errors specific to selling online.
The deposit booked as revenue
This is the error in almost every set of e-commerce books that were never closed properly. The bank shows 11,827.17 and the books record 11,827.17 of sales. Real sales were 13,094.50, refunds and fees are invisible, and the total will not match the 1099-K the platform files.
Inventory expensed when it is bought
A $40,000 purchase order paid in November is an asset until the goods ship to customers. Expensing it on payment produces a loss in November and a phantom profit for the next six months. Gross margin becomes unreadable.
Sales tax counted as income
Tax collected is money you are holding for a state. Where Shopify remits as a marketplace facilitator it never touches your bank at all, which changes how the payout reconciles.
Four money paths, one set of books
Shopify Payments, PayPal, Shop Pay Installments and Amazon settlements each land on a different schedule with a different fee structure. Reading only the bank feed makes them four unexplained deposits.
Ad spend read as one number
Meta and Google draft irregularly, sometimes several times a week, sometimes on a threshold. The monthly total is what the P&L needs, and the individual drafts are what the bank statement shows.
Timing at the year boundary
A payout for December orders that lands on 2025-01-03 is December revenue. Getting the cutoff wrong moves sales between tax years, which is the version of this error that costs money.
05 / What to send
Two files close a month. A third splits the payouts.
Required
Bank statements
One PDF or CSV per month, from any US bank. This alone closes the month and ties it out.
Required if used
Card statements
The business credit card that pays ad spend, apps and inventory deposits.
Optional
Shopify payouts export
The payouts CSV or finance summary. With it, every deposit splits into sales, shipping, refunds and fees.
No bank credentials, no store access, no app to install. We never connect to Shopify and we never touch your bank.
06 / Titan's price
Public, fixed, and payable on this page.
Close one month free before you buy anything. Drop one statement and read the closed month, tied out to the ending balance your bank printed.
07 / Questions
The rest of what sellers ask.
- Why do my Shopify sales not match my bank deposits?
- Because a payout is a net figure. Shopify deposits gross sales plus shipping income, minus refunds, minus processing fees, minus chargebacks. Sales of 13,094.50 can arrive as a deposit of 11,827.17. Books that record the deposit as sales understate revenue and hide the fees entirely.
- How much does e-commerce bookkeeping cleanup cost?
- A firm charges $1,500 to $3,500 for a year for a business with normal volume, and more for high order counts, on a three to eight week timeline. Titan charges $999 for up to 12 months, which is $83.25 per month closed. A volume surcharge applies above 500 transactions a month.
- Can you close my month from bank statements alone?
- Yes. We categorize every line, tie the month out to the ending balance your bank printed, and produce the P&L, balance sheet and cash flow statement. Each payout appears as one deposit, correct in total.
- Can you split each payout into sales, refunds and fees?
- Only with the payout export. Add the Shopify Payments payouts CSV, or the finance summary for the period, and each deposit is split into its components against the chart above. Without it we book the deposit accurately and flag it as unsplit rather than inventing a breakdown.
- Do you handle inventory and cost of goods sold?
- We book purchases to inventory and hold them as an asset. Moving cost to cost of goods sold as units ship needs your product cost data, so we ask for it once and say plainly which months are on a cost basis and which are not.
- What about sales tax across states?
- We show what you collected and what was remitted, separately, from the statements. We do not calculate nexus, do not file returns, and do not give tax advice. Those decisions belong to your CPA or a sales tax specialist.
- I sell on Amazon and Etsy too. Does that work?
- Yes. Any US bank or card statement as PDF or CSV, plus settlement reports if you have them. Each channel gets its own income and fee lines so you can read margin by channel instead of one blended number.
Read one month of your own books first.
One statement, one closed month, an e-commerce chart of accounts, tied out to the figure your bank printed. No call, no card.
Read next
What catch-up bookkeeping costs
Real market rates for cleanup, what moves the number, and the three options priced side by side.
Bench shut down — what now
The shutdown in dates, what your export is actually worth, and how to rebuild the years behind you.
Reconstruct books from bank statements
The eight-step method, the tie-out that proves a month is finished, and the five errors that cost the most time.
Bookkeeping cleanup for contractors
A contractor chart of accounts, the six statement lines that get miscategorized, and what a trade shop gets quoted.