QB 'Appy Hour - Using A2X to Record Amazon Sales

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A2X is growing in popularity when it comes to integrating Amazon with QuickBooks Online. Maybe it's because Murph wrote an 'App First Look' article about A2X last November (2017) that got everyone excited about A2X, or maybe it's just because everyone has gone Amazon crazy in terms of eCommerce. Either way, it's easy to understand why A2X is so popular when you understand what they really do so well in terms of linking Amazon with QuickBooks Online.

Large and small businesses are using Amazon to reach millions of customers. Amazon is often the first step that many brick and mortar stores take when they decide to leap into online sales.

Some of the Pros of selling on Amazon are:

 > Fairly easy to get started on Amazon Marketplace

 > Amazon has a huge consumer base

 > Built in eCommerce solutions:

  • Amazon has established website
  • Easy to create your product listing and advertise
  • Built in FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) warehouse with shipping infrastructure
  • Shopping cart and payment solutions are provided

The Cons of selling on Amazon are:

 > True Income prediction is difficult due to Amazon batched settlements (usually every 14 days)

 > It’s difficult to see your fees:

  • Hosting fees
  • Advertising fees
  • Shipping fees
  • Commissions
  • Industry fees  

The growth of A2X is directly tied to these pros and cons of selling on Amazon. What A2X does is automatically fetch income and expenses from your Amazon account. A2X sorts the sales and fees allowing the seller to see, often for the first time, all the costs associated with selling on Amazon. A2X can also create a journal entry within QuickBooks Online posting lines for each income and expense account. This means that your journal entry will match your bank statement!  

So while Murph gave you a great 'first look, last year, I hope to give you a bit more than that in both this feature and in my QB 'Appy Hour' on December 11th. With that said, let's look at some of the specifics about A2X for Amazon and QuickBooks Online.

To get started with A2X you follow these steps:

1) Once you are signed-in to A2X (using your Google account) connect to your Amazon Marketplace.

2) Select which Amazon account to connect (you can only connect to one account per subscription) this avoids a mess.

       (A) You will need to use the 'Owner's credentials' do accomplish this, and

       (B) You will have to wait 4 to 12 hours for the settlement to process from Amazon into A2X before you can proceed with integration into QuickBooks Online.

3) Connect A2X to QuickBooks Online

4) Map your Accounts and Taxes

       (A) Select Account and Taxes

       (B) For each transaction type map to the desired QBO account (While mapping there are 2 options: Use existing QBO accounts or Allow A2X to create account.)

       (C) Save Mapping (If you make any changes to QBO accounts be sure to refresh the A2X cache.)

5) Now Map your Products

You will need to map by SKU or Product-type in Amazon using the features shown below:

       (A) Settings

       (B) Product-types

       (C) Add Product-types if you know the Amazon Product SKU and/or Name

       (D) If you are unsure the of the Amazon Product or SKU name, Preview Product-Types

       (E) Then enter the SKU and/or Product-type name used by Amazon

6) Groups Products for Sales Data

After mapping your items you need to tell A2X how you want the products grouped for your sales data.

       (A) Settings

       (B) Invoice Settings

       (C) Group Sales by: All Sales, SKU or Product Type (Product type shown below)

       (D) Options Groupings include: Country, Fulfillment channel, and Special situations (refunds, promotions, shipping and giftwrap charges, etc.).

7) Return to the A2X Home Dashboard - Select 'Review' to see your Amazon batched invoice details.

In the case above A2X created one Invoice for this Amazon settlement in the amount of $4,126.79. After clicking review the settlement was displayed and it was easy to review the various transactions, amounts, accounts and taxes making up the settlement simply by clicking on the 'Show Invoice Details' (red box) as shown below.

8) Export Sales to QuickBooks Online

Once you are satisfied that everything is the way you want it you can either export each settlement one at a time to QuickBooks Online or you can automatically import settlements each time an Amazon batch is created by selecting 'Enable Auto-posting' (as shown below).

9) Review the A2X Journal Entry in QBO

As you can see the details by account match up to the settlement details within A2X.

By the way, it's easy to invite another user to an A2X account if you need too. From the Settings menu, then choose Users, and then Invite the user using their email address.

I hope this article has peaked your interest in A2X and that you would like to learn more about this great product and see it in action.  If so be sure to join me for the QB 'Appy Hour on Tuesday December 11 (2018) at 4:00pm Eastern-time as we explore more about when, why and how to use A2X. I hope to see you there, so register here.