Shopify is a powerful sales channel for small to mid-sized sellers. But it heavily relies on third-party apps for accounting tasks like tax calculations, customs fees, and financial reporting. As a result, you may have to deal with fragmented data across different systems, making it difficult to reconcile expenses and ensure accuracy.
Even if you spend the median pay of $47,000 to hire a bookkeeper, the challenge remains. Because the disconnected systems still lead to errors and missing numbers.
Here’s where the best accounting software for Shopify can come in. It will take care of all basic accounting tasks for your store, and a few even automate them to save time and reduce errors.
Let’s walk through the six best Shopify accounting software to understand why pairing them with an ecommerce integration tool can make your bookkeeping even more efficient.
Before we dive into a detailed comparison of Shopify accounting software, here’s a quick rundown of what each one offers.
Accounting software |
Pricing |
Key features |
Quickbooks Online |
Starts at $17/month |
|
Netsuite |
Custom |
|
FreshBooks |
Starts at $7/month (for six months) |
|
Xero |
Starts at $2.9/month (for three months) |
|
Wave |
Starter plan at $0 |
|
Sage |
Starts at $61.92/month |
|
QuickBooks is the most widely used accounting software for Shopify sellers.
Unlike basic accounting tools, QuickBooks automates tax calculations, syncs transactions across payment gateways, and ensures compliance with e-commerce tax regulations. Its built-in reporting and reconciliation tools help businesses maintain accurate financial records without constant manual intervention.
With QuickBooks, Shopify sellers can manage their cash flow and financial health in one centralized platform.
It offers two versions: QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop.
QuickBooks Online is a cloud-based accounting solution. It is ideal for businesses seeking easy financial tracking, invoicing, and tax management.
On the other hand, QuickBooks Desktop is locally installed software on Windows or Mac. It is ideal for businesses needing in-depth accounting and inventory tracking.
Users report the following accounting challenges when directly integrating Shopify with QuickBooks:
Accurate order and payout reconciliation: Webgility ensures that Shopify payouts are correctly mapped to individual transactions in QuickBooks, eliminating discrepancies and reducing manual corrections.
Multi-channel order syncing: Webgility syncs sales data from Shopify and multiple sales channels into QuickBooks, keeping your accounting clean and organized.
Automated tax compliance: Instead of manually adjusting tax calculations, Webgility ensures that sales tax is correctly assigned based on Shopify’s tax settings, preventing reporting errors.
Real-time profitability insights: With Webgility’s automation, Shopify sellers can get real-time profit-and-loss reports, track inventory costs, and understand their financial performance at a glance.
How Epic Men saved over 80 hours a week with Webgility + QuickBooksBefore using Webgility, Epic Mens, an online retailer selling high-end menswear, struggled with time-consuming manual bookkeeping and order tracking. With over 1,000 orders per month, the team faced delays in reconciling payouts, tracking returns, and managing expenses. By integrating Webgility with QuickBooks, Epic Mens was able to:
Their workflow became fully automated, allowing them to scale their business without worrying about bookkeeping inefficiencies. |
Simple: $17/month
Essentials: $32/month
Plus: $49/month
Advanced: $117/month
All plans include free mobile apps to run your business on the go, QuickBooks support, and app integration.
G2: 4 stars (3,396 reviews)
NetSuite is a cloud ERP suitable for large-scale Shopify businesses with complex financial needs. It’s ideal for enterprise-grade businesses seeking a comprehensive enterprise solution that goes beyond basic accounting.
Shopify sellers using NetSuite gain access to advanced financial reporting, automation, and multi-location tracking. Its automated reporting helps growing e-commerce brands scale without losing financial control. Mid to large-scale Shopify stores with complex inventory, multiple sales channels, or international sales benefit the most from NetSuite’s capabilities.
Directly integrating Shopify with NetSuite creates several challenges for e-commerce businesses:
Automated Order and Inventory Syncing: Shopify sellers often face inventory mismatches and order processing delays when relying on manual updates or disconnected systems. Webgility ensures that every new Shopify order is automatically recorded in NetSuite, updating stock levels and payment details in real time.
Multi-Channel Financial Consolidation: Manage sales from Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and other platforms in one unified financial system, eliminating duplicate data entry. Sellers get a clear financial picture across all sales channels without spending hours on manual bookkeeping.
Seamless Tax Compliance: Shopify’s built-in tax system may not always align with NetSuite’s tax structure, leading to inconsistent tax reporting across states or countries. Webgility aligns Shopify’s tax calculations with NetSuite’s settings, ensuring tax reporting accuracy across multiple regions.
Effortless Payout Reconciliation: Shopify deposits lump sum payouts into your bank account, making it difficult to match them with individual orders in NetSuite. Webgility maps Shopify payouts to individual transactions—including refunds, discounts, and fees—directly into NetSuite.
Contact their sales team to get custom pricing.
G2: 4 stars (3,669 reviews)
FreshBooks is ideal accounting software for startups, microbusinesses, and freelancers on Shopify. It comprises all the basic accounting features, from a chart of accounts to bank reconciliation to journal entries.
Lite: $7.6/month
Plus: $13.20/month
Premium: $24/month
Select: Custom pricing
G2: 4.5 stars (886 reviews)
Xero is a cloud-based accounting platform known for its user-friendly design and powerful integrations. It’s ideal for small Shopify sellers, and businesses based in Australia, the UK, or New Zealand.
Starter: $2.90/month (Usually $29)
Standard: $4.60/month (Usually $46)
Premium: $6.90/month (Usually $69)
*90% off your plan for 3 months when you buy Xero by 28 February 2025.
G2: 4.3 stars (718 reviews)
Wave is a free, cloud-based accounting software for small businesses and solo entrepreneurs. It offers basic financial tools like invoicing, and expense tracking. It also integrates with payment processing and payroll services.
Starter: $0
Pro: $16/month
G2: 4.3 stars (295 reviews)
Sage accounting is a cloud-based solution to assist small and medium-sized businesses in managing their financial operations efficiently. It’s especially appropriate if your business needs robust inventory tracking but can do without mobile access.
Pro accounting: $61.92
Premium accounting: $103.92/month
Quantum accounting: $177.17/month
HR and Payroll bundles: Custom pricing
G2: 3.9 stars (147 reviews)
Now that you’re familiar with some of the top accounting software for Shopify, let’s dive into how to pick the one that’s right for your business.
Picking the best accounting software largely depends on these three questions:
Businesses with lean operations benefit most from straightforward, easy-to-use, and cost-effective software. Wave and FreshBooks fit this bill. Wave offers basic accounting features for free, while FreshBooks offers intuitive invoicing and expense tracking, especially for solo entrepreneurs.
If you’re scaling up and need more robust features, QuickBooks or Xero will support your growing business and help you handle more complex financial needs
If you sell on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, or Walmart alongside Shopify or manage multiple payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, or Square, QuickBooks and Netsuite are your best bets. They sync accounting data across channels, so you don’t have to reconcile financial data manually (which is a nightmare!).
While NetSuite, Sage, and QuickBooks do offer multi-channel support and some advanced inventory tracking, they fall short when you want to:
Take Greg Gordon, the founder of PartyMachines, a manufacturer and seller of foam party equipment. He spent two to three weeks every month manually entering numbers into QuickBooks. Hiring an accountant didn’t help much. Managing them took just as much time and required additional payroll and insurance, increasing operational costs.
So how did he consolidate fragmented systems for his growing company?
Instead of piecing together multiple tools and still struggling with manual work, Webgility + QuickBooks Online is the perfect combination for Shopify sellers who want to automate their accounting.
Once Greg, in the example mentioned above, integrated Webgility, he saved 8–10 hours per day. He previously spent this time on manual data entry. Instead of drowning in spreadsheets, he focused on scaling his business.
Webgiity integrates with QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, and NetSuite along with multiple POS systems, stores, and ecommerce marketplaces. Whether you’re running a brick-and-mortar store alongside your online presence or selling across multiple ecommerce platforms, it captures all your sales and expenses, at both the summary and granular levels, and feeds them into QuickBooks.
You can analyze your margins, marketplace fees, and shipping costs in-depth and get a true picture of your income and expenses by sales channel or payment processor.
Investing in Shopify accounting software without real-time automation will still keep your business in manual mode. If you’re serious about growing your Shopify business without the headache of manual bookkeeping, consider a Shopify accounting software integration tool like Webgility.
Manual bookkeeping isn’t the only culprit, inventory discrepancies also lead to accounting errors. When these systems don’t reflect the actual amount spent on products sold, it leads to inaccurate financial statements that overstate profits, leading to cash flow problems and chaotic tax filing.
Webgility solves this by automating the flow of data across your platforms, from syncing inventory to generating accurate financial reports. Get started for free with Webgility and see how much time you can save on manual bookkeeping!