For Shopify, Amazon, + Etsy sellers.
E-commerce bookkeeping with settlement decomposition built in.
Each platform payout splits into Sales / Refunds / Marketplace Fees / Net Deposit so the P&L shows real revenue and real fees. Inventory wires post to the asset account; COGS recognizes when the product sells. Ad spend gets its own expense line by platform.
No card required · $15/mo after trial · 30-day money-back
Payout-vs-payment timing
Amazon disburses every 14 days. Shopify is +2 business days. Etsy is weekly. Meta and Google bill at thresholds. Inventory is COD or net-30. PlainBooks aligns all of it on one calendar so you see the gap between when revenue lands and when bills hit.
Real ad-spend share
Meta, Google, TikTok, Amazon PPC. PlainBooks tallies what each platform actually cost last month as a share of revenue — not the dashboard's per-platform ROAS number that ignores the cumulative drain.
Inventory-cycle visibility
You buy inventory in August for the November sell-through. PlainBooks shows the cash gap on the calendar: the September week the wire to your manufacturer clears, the October ad ramp, then the November payout that catches up.
Where the books get messy
You wired $4,200 to your manufacturer in August for the holiday inventory. Amazon disburses every 14 days. Shopify is +2 business days. Etsy is weekly. Meta and Google bill at thresholds — sometimes daily, sometimes every other day. Inventory is COD or Net-30. The Shopify settlement comes net of refunds and chargebacks, which post separately on the next cycle. Pirate Ship adds shipping debits per shipment. Klaviyo and a half-dozen apps subscribe monthly.
Across three platforms and four ad networks, the books are easy to get wrong. Revenue recognized at the wrong moment, COGS booked when the wire cleared instead of when the product sold, ad spend buried inside platform settlements.
What PlainBooks does
PlainBooks gives you the books — chart of accounts shaped for a Shopify / Amazon / Etsy operator, the journal where each platform payout, ad-spend pull, inventory wire, and shipping invoice writes a balanced entry, and a period close that locks each month.
Inventory wires post to Inventory (asset). When the product sells, PlainBooks moves the cost into COGS at the per-unit basis, so the P&L reflects actual margin per period — not the lumpy spend pattern.
Platform settlements split each deposit into Sales (gross), Refunds (contra-revenue), Marketplace Fees (expense), Shipping Income (where applicable), and Net Deposit (cash). The A2X-style settlement decomposition is built in. Ad spend is its own expense line by platform.
When the month closes
Close the period and PlainBooks generates the closing entries. The monthly PDF package — Trial Balance, P&L with channel-by-channel revenue + COGS + ad spend, Balance Sheet (inventory and AP visible), GL detail, AR aging if you do B2B wholesale, AP aging for manufacturers and ad platforms — comes out in one file.
PlainBooks does not run your storefront, manage inventory levels, or process refunds. Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, Etsy, ShipStation, A2X handle those. PlainBooks records what cleared the bank and what each settlement was actually composed of, so the books match the reality.
Bills you can't afford to forget
PlainBooks puts each one on the same calendar as your real bank balance, so you see the collision before it happens.
- Inventory / COGSPer batch, 4–8 weeks$2,000–$5,000/mo avg
- Shopify subscription + transaction feesMonthly$39–$299/mo + per-sale
- Amazon Seller Central + FBA feesMonthly + per-unit$39.99/mo + $500–$2,500 FBA
- Ad spend (Meta / Google / TikTok / Amazon PPC)Daily, billed at thresholds$1,000–$4,300/mo avg, 2–3× in Q4
- Shipping (Pirate Ship, UPS, USPS)Per shipment$400–$1,500/mo
- Packaging supplies (Uline, EcoEnclose)Monthly$100–$400
The Q4 inventory-and-ads buildup
To do $30,000 in November you have to buy the inventory in August or September. Then ad spend has to ramp 2–3× through October to win Black Friday auctions. The cash leaves the account 60–90 days before the Shopify payouts arrive. PlainBooks shows the exact week the cash dips lowest — usually mid-October — so the holiday play is funded, not a gamble.
What PlainBooks doesn't do
Honest about scope. If you need any of these, you need different software.
- Run your storefront — Shopify, Amazon Seller Central, Etsy already do that
- Manage inventory levels or reorder points — ShipStation, A2X, your platform
- Process refunds or returns — that's your platform's job
- Tell you what to bid on Meta or Google. The ad strategy is yours — PlainBooks just shows the cost as it happens.
Ready to see your cash position?
$15/month or $150/year (two months free). 14-day free trial. No card required.
Start your free trialCommon questions
- Does PlainBooks work for e-commerce / online store?
- Yes. PlainBooks is general-ledger bookkeeping software — workspaces, chart of accounts, journal entries, period close, bank reconciliation, the full report set (Trial Balance, P&L, Balance Sheet, GL detail, AR aging, AP aging, 1099 summary). The e-commerce / online store-specific copy on this page describes the accounts and bills that matter most in this vertical.
- What does it cost?
- $15/month or $150/year when signups open. One price, all features, no tiers. Signups aren't open yet — leave your email on the home page and we'll send one note when launch happens.
- Do I need to connect a bank account?
- No. PlainBooks does not ingest bank feeds. You post journal entries directly (and for trucking workspaces, trips and state-mileage entries write the underlying entries automatically). If you want bank-fed cash visibility, that's a different category of tool.
- What about cash-flow forecasting?
- On the roadmap, not in the current build. PlainBooks today shows what your books say — current balances, what's open in AR and AP, what's posted, what's pending close. We don't promise features that aren't built.