1. Bank payouts are not your sales

Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify and TikTok Shop collect the buyer’s money, take their fees, refunds and charges, and pay the rest into your bank. So your bank statement shows less than you sold.

Turnover is the money the company gets from selling its goods, after trade discounts and VAT1. Company accounts can’t set income off against costs2. So the accounts show the full sales, then the fees as a cost. The profit comes out the same either way. What changes is that your turnover is right, and turnover is what decides things like your company’s size and whether it must register for VAT.

A short example. In a year, buyers paid £48,000. Refunds were £1,500. The platform’s fees were £6,200. The bank received £40,300 in payouts. In the accounts: sales £46,500 (after refunds), fees £6,200 as a cost. The difference between £46,500 and £6,200 is £40,300, the same as the bank.

More on this in marketplace payouts and fees in your accounts.

Getting the full year’s sales from each platform

Download the platform’s payment or account report for the company’s whole accounting period, covering every marketplace account the company sells through, and keep gross sales, refunds, fees and payouts separate. Postage charged to buyers is part of what they paid; your delivery costs are a cost of the business1.

  • eBay: the payment reports in Seller Hub show sales, fees, refunds and payouts.
  • Etsy: use the payment statements for each month in the period.
  • Amazon, Shopify and TikTok Shop: the payout or settlement reports for the period.

Keep the start and end dates you chose for each report, and resolve unmatched payments, currency differences and reserves before you use the totals. Money from last year’s sales that was paid out this year is not this year’s sales: count each sale once, in the year it was made8. A bank total that matches doesn’t prove an incomplete report covers the whole year.

If the shop is registered in a director’s personal name but the sales belong to the company, check the business details the platform holds: they are what it reports to HMRC. See HMRC digital platform reporting.

2. Platform fees and other selling costs

Seller fees, commission, payment processing, advertising, postage labels and fulfilment fees are all costs of the year. Keep them out of the cost of your stock: storage and selling costs are never part of what goods cost3.

3. Stock at the year end

Count the goods the company owns at the end of its year end date, wherever they are: at home, in a unit, at Amazon or a third-party warehouse. Value each item at what it cost, or what it will sell for less selling costs where that is lower3. The company must keep a record of its stock at the year end and the stocktakings behind it6.

Your platform’s inventory report gives the units. You add the cost: a listing’s retail price is not its cost. If you make what you sell, as many Etsy sellers do, materials and part-made goods count as stock too3. See closing stock: how to value it, which also covers getting the year-end count from Amazon, Shopify and TikTok Shop.

If you never hold the goods, as in dropshipping, there’s no stock. See dropshipping company accounts.

Check your company’s dates and set a reminder

Search the Companies House register. Your company page shows its filing dates, what to file next and a reminder you can set.

4. Money owed to you at the year end

Platforms pay out on a delay. A sale made in the last week of your year may reach the bank the week after. That sale still belongs to this year, and the money the platform held for you is an amount owed to the company at the year end. A limited company can’t use the cash basis, so it counts sales when they are made, not when the money arrives5,4.

Bills work the same way the other way round. A supplier’s bill for this year that you paid after the year end is a cost of this year.

5. Paid for something yourself?

If you bought stock or paid a company cost on your own card, it is still the company’s cost, and the company owes you the money. See when you pay for company costs yourself in the director’s loan guide.

6. File the accounts and the tax return

Private company accounts go to Companies House within 9 months of the year end7. The Company Tax Return goes to HMRC within 12 months of the end of the accounting period, and the Corporation Tax is usually due 9 months and 1 day after it ends9. See every company filing deadline.

How Fileyear does it

Fileyear prepares the accounts and the Company Tax Return from your company’s bank statement, or from a bookkeeping file.

  • Payouts. It spots payouts from Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Etsy and TikTok Shop. On the year-end step it offers to read your platform’s payout or summary report. If the report’s payouts match your bank, it records the full sales, refunds, fees and the money owed to you at the year end. If they don’t match, it keeps the bank figures. You can skip it.
  • Stock. When your figures show you sell goods, it asks about stock. Upload a Shopify, Amazon, TikTok Shop or eBay inventory report, or Fileyear’s template, or type the total.
  • Only what you upload. It reads the reports you choose to upload. Inventory reports give products, units and costs, never orders or customers.
  • Before you pay, “Check everything” shows what stock did to the profit and the tax.

See Fileyear for online sellers for the supported stock, payout and bookkeeping inputs.