Accounting and Bookkeeping Services in the UK for Ecommerce Sellers and Growing Businesses

Om Accounting keeps the books for UK ecommerce sellers, importers and small companies, and for UK accountancy practices that need dependable offshore capacity. We handle the reconciliation-heavy work behind a UK business: Amazon and eBay settlements, Shopify and gateway payouts, import VAT, digital records that satisfy Making Tax Digital, and a month-end close that your UK accountant can file from without rebuilding it first.

The UK is not simply the United States with different spelling. Two features make it its own problem. The first is that an overseas seller has no VAT registration threshold at all, which catches out a large number of businesses selling into Britain for the first time. The second is Making Tax Digital, which has turned record-keeping itself into a compliance requirement rather than just a means to an end. Both are covered below, in the detail they actually need.

What we handle	Bookkeeping, Amazon and eBay settlement reconciliation, Shopify and gateway reconciliation, VAT return preparation, import VAT and postponed VAT accounting, inventory and cost of sales, payroll journals, management accounts, year-end file preparation
Who it is for	UK Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Shopify sellers, importers and distributors, small limited companies and sole traders, and UK accountancy practices outsourcing bookkeeping and VAT work
Platforms	Amazon.co.uk, eBay.co.uk, Etsy, Shopify, OnBuy, TikTok Shop, WooCommerce
Software	Xero, QuickBooks Online, Sage Business Cloud, FreeAgent, A2X, Link My Books, Dext, Hubdoc
Key rules we work to	Making Tax Digital for VAT, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax, online marketplace deemed supplier rules, postponed VAT accounting
Reporting	Monthly management accounts, VAT working papers, channel-wise contribution, inventory and landed cost schedule, reconciliation pack
What we do not do	We are not a UK registered auditor and we do not sign statutory accounts. Filing sits with your UK accountant

If you are not established in the UK, there is no VAT threshold

This is the rule that surprises most overseas sellers, and getting it wrong is expensive. A business established in the UK registers for VAT once its taxable turnover passes £90,000 in a rolling twelve months. A business with no UK establishment, no UK company, no branch and no fixed place of business here, is a non-established taxable person, and a non-established taxable person has no threshold. Registration is required from the first pound of UK taxable supplies.

In practice this means an Indian, Chinese or American seller who ships a single pallet into a UK fulfilment centre and starts selling is already in scope, regardless of how small the turnover is. There is no grace period built into the rule and no turnover to grow into. If you are holding stock in the UK and selling from it, the registration question is already answered.

The related trap is assuming that because the marketplace is handling VAT on your sales, you do not need to be registered. That is not how the deemed supplier rules work, and the next section explains why.

The online marketplace rules: who accounts for the VAT

Since 1 January 2021 online marketplaces have been made responsible for VAT on certain sales rather than the seller. The rules are precise, and which side of them you fall on changes your invoicing, your returns and your cash flow.

• Goods already in the UK, owned by an overseas seller, sold to a consumer — the marketplace is treated as the supplier and accounts for the VAT. The seller makes a zero-rated deemed supply to the marketplace
• Goods already in the UK, owned by an overseas seller, sold to a UK VAT-registered business — the deemed supplier rule does not apply. The sale is the seller own supply and the seller accounts for it, which means the seller needs a UK VAT registration to do so
• Goods imported directly to a consumer in a consignment valued at £135 or less, sold through a marketplace — the marketplace charges and accounts for the VAT at the point of sale. There is no import VAT on the consignment
• Consignments over £135 — normal import VAT and duty apply at the border, and the importer of record accounts for them
• Sales through your own website — no marketplace is involved, so the whole obligation is yours

The practical consequence is that an overseas seller with stock in a UK fulfilment centre usually still needs to be registered, even though the marketplace is collecting on most of the sales, because of B2B sales, because of any direct sales, and because registration is what allows the seller to recover input VAT on marketplace fees, freight, duty and UK costs. Being registered and reporting mostly deemed supplies is normal, not a sign that something has gone wrong.

Import VAT and postponed VAT accounting

If you import goods into the UK, postponed VAT accounting is usually the single biggest cash flow lever available to you. Instead of paying import VAT at the border and waiting to recover it on a later return, you declare it on the VAT return and recover it on the same return. Where the VAT is fully recoverable the two entries cancel and the cash impact is nil.

It only works if the bookkeeping supports it. Postponed VAT is evidenced by the monthly postponed import VAT statement, which has to be downloaded each month from the customs declaration service, not by the older C79 certificate and not by the freight forwarder invoice. Statements are only available for a limited period, so a business that does not download them monthly can find it has no evidence for VAT it has already recovered. We download and file them as part of the monthly routine.

Customs duty is a different animal. Duty is a real cost that never comes back, and it belongs in the landed cost of the goods, not in an overheads line where it quietly destroys your gross margin analysis. So does freight, so does the customs broker charge, and so does prep. Getting landed cost right is the difference between knowing your margin and guessing it.

Making Tax Digital for VAT is a record-keeping rule, not a filing rule

Every VAT-registered business must now keep VAT records digitally and file through functional compatible software. Most businesses read that as being about the submission. It is not. The requirement bites on the records themselves.

Digital links are the part that gets missed. The chain from the source record to the figure on the return has to be digital end to end. Exporting a report, retyping a total into a spreadsheet, and then submitting from that spreadsheet breaks the chain, and manual re-entry is exactly what the rule was written to stop. Where a spreadsheet is genuinely needed, it has to be linked rather than rekeyed.

For ecommerce sellers this matters more than for most, because the raw data arrives as marketplace reports that somebody has historically summarised by hand. We build the flow so it is linked: settlement data into the ledger through a tool or a structured import, VAT figures derived inside the software, and the return produced from the ledger rather than from a working paper someone typed.

Making Tax Digital for Income Tax is now live

From 6 April 2026 Making Tax Digital for Income Tax applies to sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000. The threshold falls to £30,000 from 6 April 2027 and to £20,000 from 6 April 2028. Making Tax Digital for Corporation Tax is not proceeding.

For anyone in scope this is a genuine change of habit rather than a form change. It means digital records kept as you go, quarterly updates submitted through compatible software, and a final declaration after the year end. A sole trader who has always handed a carrier bag of receipts to an accountant in December cannot do that any more, because three of the four quarterly deadlines will already have passed.

If you are a sole trader ecommerce seller over the threshold, or approaching it, the practical answer is to move the bookkeeping onto a monthly rhythm now. That is exactly the rhythm we run.

Your Amazon payout is not your sales figure

The reconciliation problem is the same in the UK as everywhere else, and it is the single most common reason a set of ecommerce books is wrong. Amazon pays you net: after referral fees, FBA fees, storage, refunds it has issued, sometimes advertising, and after holding a reserve.

Booked as a single sales figure, the deposit understates revenue, hides every fee, flatters gross margin, and makes the true return rate invisible. The correct treatment explodes the settlement into gross sales, each fee category, promotional rebates, refunds and reserve movement, and reconciles the net back to the bank to the penny. On top of that, the UK adds a VAT dimension: deemed supplies where the marketplace accounted for the VAT have to be separated from your own supplies, because they are reported differently.

Settlement periods also straddle month ends on a rolling fourteen-day cycle, so proper cut-off means splitting the settlement at the month boundary rather than posting it all to the month it was paid in. Our approach to this is set out in more detail on our ecommerce accounting and Amazon seller accounting pages.

The VAT schemes that change your numbers

Two scheme choices come up constantly and both are worth checking rather than inheriting.

The Flat Rate Scheme can suit a low-cost service business, but it is usually poor for an ecommerce seller who buys goods, because you give up input VAT recovery on purchases. The limited cost trader rule pushes a business with low goods spend onto a 16.5 per cent rate, which is punitive. Sellers who joined the scheme when they were tiny and never revisited it are often losing money on it every month.

The Cash Accounting Scheme and the Annual Accounting Scheme can help cash flow for some businesses, but neither is automatically right, and cash accounting sits awkwardly with marketplace settlement timing. We look at what the schemes would do to your actual numbers rather than recommending them on principle.

Multi-channel and multi-currency

A UK ecommerce business rarely stops at one channel or one currency. Amazon.co.uk sits alongside eBay, Etsy, a Shopify store, sometimes OnBuy or TikTok Shop, and often sales into the EU or the US as well. Suppliers invoice in dollars or euros, marketplaces settle in several currencies, and payment providers such as Wise or Payoneer add their own layer.

Normalising all of that onto one comparable basis is the work: gross revenue, platform fees, fulfilment, advertising, refunds and net contribution meaning the same thing across every channel, with exchange differences recognised properly rather than absorbed into a mystery balance. Only then can you tell which channel actually earns its keep.

How a month runs with us

Early in the month we collect settlements, bank and card feeds, gateway reports, supplier invoices and the postponed import VAT statement. Then transactions are coded, settlements exploded and reconciled, landed cost applied to inventory movements, and VAT positions worked through including the split between deemed supplies and your own. A second person reviews before anything is issued, and queries come back to you in one consolidated list.

• Monthly management accounts with channel-wise contribution
• Balance sheet with inventory, marketplace reserve and gateway clearing accounts substantiated
• VAT working papers with the deemed supplier split and postponed import VAT evidenced
• Inventory and landed cost schedule
• A reconciliation pack tying every settlement and payout to the bank
• Aged payables and receivables

Working with UK accountancy practices

A meaningful part of our UK work comes from practices rather than direct clients. Ecommerce files are the ones that eat staff time out of all proportion to the fee, because settlement reconciliation is slow and nobody in the office enjoys it. We take that work, deliver a closed month in your file, to your templates and naming conventions, and leave the client relationship, the advisory work and the filing entirely with you. If you would rather your client never knows we exist, that is a normal way to run it.

What we do, and what we do not

We do: bookkeeping and management accounts, settlement and gateway reconciliation, VAT return preparation and working papers, import VAT and postponed VAT accounting records, inventory and cost of sales, payables and receivables, payroll journals, and a year-end file your UK accountant can work from directly.

We do not: Om Accounting is an Indian firm. We are not a UK registered auditor, we do not sign or file statutory accounts at Companies House, and we do not act as your HMRC agent or hold ourselves out as a UK-regulated practice. Statutory filing and UK tax advice stay with your UK accountant, and if you do not have one we will tell you that you need one rather than quietly filling the gap.

Data security and handover

Your accounting file stays in your own software subscription and your documents stay in storage you control. We work on named user accounts that you can revoke at any moment rather than on a shared master login, and documents move through your document system rather than personal email. Staff on your engagement are under confidentiality obligations and access is limited to the people actually doing the work.

We do not claim certifications the firm does not hold. If your business requires a specific certified control environment, ask before you engage and we will answer honestly.

Who you are actually hiring

Om Accounting and Consultancy is based in Jaipur, India. The business was founded in 2017 and the professional experience behind it goes back to 2007. The team includes qualified chartered accountants and CPAs alongside CA-level accounting professionals. India is five and a half hours ahead of the UK for most of the year, which is the friendliest time gap we work across: your morning and our afternoon overlap comfortably, so calls are easy to arrange.

There is more about the firm on our about page. Our largest practice is in India, and we also work with sellers in the UAE, the United States and Canada.

Talk to us about your UK books

Send us one recent settlement file and your latest VAT return, and we will tell you what is being missed and what a clean close would look like. If your books are already sound we will say so. Start on our contact page.

Frequently Asked Questions

I am not based in the UK but I hold stock in a UK Amazon warehouse. Do I need to register for VAT?

Almost certainly yes. A business with no UK establishment is a non-established taxable person and has no registration threshold, so the obligation starts from the first pound of UK taxable supplies. Holding stock in a UK fulfilment centre and selling from it puts you squarely in that position. The fact that Amazon accounts for the VAT on most of your consumer sales under the deemed supplier rules does not remove the registration requirement, and registration is what lets you recover input VAT on fees, freight and duty.

Amazon is already charging VAT on my sales. Why do I still need a VAT return?

Because the deemed supplier rules only cover part of what you do. Sales to UK VAT-registered businesses are still your own supplies, sales through your own website are entirely yours, and your zero-rated deemed supplies to the marketplace still have to be reported. A return is also how you recover the input VAT you are paying on marketplace fees, freight, duty and UK costs, which for most sellers is a meaningful sum.

What is a digital link, and does my spreadsheet break it?

A digital link is a transfer of data between software without manual re-entry. Making Tax Digital for VAT requires the chain from source record to the figure on the return to be digital throughout. Copying a total out of a report and typing it into a spreadsheet breaks that chain. A spreadsheet is not banned, but it has to receive and pass on data through a link, such as an import or a formula reference, rather than through someone typing.

When does Making Tax Digital for Income Tax apply to me?

It applies from 6 April 2026 to sole traders and landlords with qualifying income over £50,000, from 6 April 2027 where that income is over £30,000, and from 6 April 2028 where it is over £20,000. In scope it means digital records, quarterly updates through compatible software and a final declaration after the year end. Making Tax Digital for Corporation Tax is not going ahead.

Should I be on the Flat Rate Scheme?

Usually not, if you sell goods. The scheme trades a simplified calculation for the loss of input VAT recovery on purchases, which is a bad trade when you are buying stock, paying import duty and paying marketplace fees. The limited cost trader rule also pushes businesses with low goods spend onto a 16.5 per cent rate. It is worth modelling against your real numbers, and worth revisiting if you joined years ago when the business looked different.

Why does my Amazon deposit never match my sales?

Because the deposit is net of referral fees, FBA fees, storage, refunds already issued to buyers, sometimes advertising, and a reserve Amazon is holding. Your sales figure should be gross, with each deduction recorded separately. Reconciled properly, the difference between the two is fully explained line by line, and the reconciliation itself is the control that proves nothing was missed.

Do you prepare and file the VAT return, or does my accountant?

We prepare the return and the working papers behind it, including the deemed supplier split and the postponed import VAT evidence, to the point where it is ready to submit. Submission through your HMRC account or by your UK accountant as your agent is the final step, and we are explicit that we do not act as your HMRC agent. Many clients have us prepare and their UK accountant review and file.

Which software do you work in?

Xero and QuickBooks Online cover most of our UK clients, with Sage Business Cloud and FreeAgent also common. Where A2X or Link My Books is in place we use it, and Dext or Hubdoc for document capture. If you are starting fresh we will set up a chart of accounts designed for ecommerce, because the generic default is the reason most ecommerce accounts cannot be read.

How do you handle sales into the EU as well as the UK?

They are separate systems since Brexit, and the split has to be maintained in the ledger from the start rather than untangled later. We keep UK supplies, EU distance sales and any EU-established stock movements distinguishable in the records so that whoever handles your EU registrations or One Stop Shop reporting is working from figures that reconcile. We do not file EU returns ourselves.

How is the fee worked out?

On volume and complexity rather than hours: number of channels, transaction volume, whether inventory and imports are involved, how many entities and currencies, and whether the file is current or needs catching up. The monthly fee is fixed and agreed in advance, and any catch-up work is quoted separately so it cannot turn into an open-ended bill.