How PM+M turned manual ecommerce bookkeeping into a monthly sense-check

PM+M’s cloud accounting team was applying VAT rates by hand on mixed-rate Amazon sales across around 30 e-commerce clients, until the firm moved onto Link My Books and month-end became a sense-check.

Some ecommerce clients can be managed by hand. A client selling mixed-rate goods on Amazon can’t. Every product line has its own VAT treatment, and someone has to apply the correct rate to each sale before anything reaches Xero.

PM+M is a 180-person UK firm with a 23-strong cloud accounting team, which is where most of its ecommerce clients sit, around 30 of them and growing. Anya Holden works in that team, and she has watched the Amazon side of the book get heavier. "A lot of them are like small, small transactions, but there's just a huge volume of them, and it's just getting bigger and bigger."

The team now runs those clients on Link My Books with a monthly sense-check. It did not start that way.

The challenge: reports, pivot tables and hand-applied VAT

Before Link My Books, each ecommerce client meant a monthly routine. Chase the client or log into their Amazon and eBay accounts, download the reports for sales, fees and VAT, and rebuild them by hand.

"It would be putting it into an Excel spreadsheet and then typing it into Xero. We do have a few clients as well that sell mixed-rate goods for VAT. So it was very, very manual in terms of pulling off what they've actually sold, and having to apply a VAT rate depending on what it was they were selling."

Pivot tables, VLOOKUPs, and a check for human error at every step, with a lot of back and forth with the client in between. Her summary: "really, really hard work."

Why they changed

There was no single crisis. "There's got to be an easier way to be doing this" is how Anya  describes the trigger, though she suspects the first client onto the tool was the one with mixed-rate goods, "because that was the biggest headache for us."

What kept the team manual for as long as it was is worth hearing, because it is the same thing that keeps most firms manual: trust.

"Maybe the complexity of some of the clients and us wanting to be sure that all the VAT was being calculated properly. I suppose just putting the trust into something else to calculate it and just let it run on its own. You've got to trust it quite a lot."

Early on, the team did not commit to one tool. It ran A2X and Dext Commerce alongside Link My Books, choosing app by app on a client-by-client basis. Over time, the comparison settled itself. On A2X, the team was not confident in how it accounted for VAT, or how it split data that straddled a month-end. "All the other features of it were probably on par," Anya  says, "but it was the important stuff that we didn’t feel was  correct . The first thing you need to get right is the data." Every client moved to Link My Books, and new ones go straight on: "If Link My Books has the connection, we will use it. It's the first choice."

How trust was actually built

Two things converted a cautious team into one that lets the software run.

The first was the setup itself. Link My Books prompts the VAT rates it intends to use through its tax wizard, which gives the reviewer something to check before anything posts. "They're usually right. I've maybe once seen that not be quite accurate. So that does give you confidence immediately."

The second was watching it handle change without being asked. When Amazon alters how it deals with VAT, the tool updates in the background. The example Anya reaches for is the biggest change of all.

"When Brexit happened, Link My Books automatically just had everything set up for us. It split out any goods sold pre-Brexit, any sold post-Brexit, if they were overseas transactions, and it just filled us with a bit more confidence that the guys there knew what they were doing."

The day-to-day now

The monthly routine has collapsed into a review.

"Now it just pulls the information from the ecommerce platform and puts it straight into Xero, and we just have a quick glance over it to make sure that it looks about right, and it 99% of the time is."

The records are also timelier. Instead of waiting until month-end for the previous month's data, sales pull through as they happen, so a client logging into Xero sees their sales posted and paid off to the right places when the bank lines come in. And the VAT question that used to dominate the work is handled in the flow, including for clients selling overseas, where the correct rates are applied automatically.

On the figure of five hours saved per client per month that other firms report, Anya’s  answer is measured: "I'd say it's probably about right on average." Some quieter clients save less, she notes, the ones with fewer channels and fewer transactions.

Her two indispensable features are the ones that used to be the job: "It's the VAT calculation and the period cutoffs. Just the automation of it all is just a lifesaver."

What it changed commercially

The clearest change is in quoting. Where a proposal once had to absorb what Anya estimates as two days' worth of manual work at charge-out rates, it now factors in the software fee. By her rough arithmetic, one hour of charge-out time costs about the same as a month's subscription.

"It definitely helps us to be more competitive. Since we've got Link My Books in place, we've definitely tried to target more ecommerce clients, just because we know that we can service them really well now."

That last line is the shift. Ecommerce went from work the team endured to work it goes looking for. The next step on the to-do list is internal: auditing the firm's other teams for ecommerce clients who are not yet on the tool and are not seeing the benefits the cloud team is.

Asked how she would describe Link My Books to another accountant, Anya does not reach for features. "It just makes life easier."

Where to start

PM+M's route in is a repeatable one: start with the client whose VAT is the biggest headache, let the tax wizard show its workings, and let trust accumulate from there.

Link My Books breaks every settlement into sales, refunds, fees and taxes and posts a clean summary to Xero or QuickBooks that reconciles against the bank deposit, with UK VAT handling built in. Fourteen days, no card required, and a setup call with one of the in-house accountants.

Which of your clients would you hand the VAT headache to first?

Frequently asked questions

How do you handle mixed VAT rates on Amazon sales in Xero?

Manually, it means identifying what was actually sold and applying the right rate line by line, which PM+M describes as its biggest ecommerce headache. Link My Books applies the VAT treatment automatically, prompting the rates at setup through its tax wizard so the accountant can verify them before anything posts.

Can you trust automated VAT calculation for ecommerce clients?

PM+M's trust was earned in stages: the tax wizard prompted rates the team could check, and the software handled rule changes, including Brexit, automatically in the background. The team still sense-checks monthly, and finds the figures right "99% of the time".

How much time does it save per client?

Anya puts the industry figure of five hours per client per month as "probably about right on average", with quieter clients, fewer channels and fewer transactions, saving less. Before automating, she estimates a proposal had to absorb around two days of manual work.

Does automating ecommerce bookkeeping change what a firm can quote?

For PM+M, yes. Proposals that once carried days of manual work at charge-out rates now carry a software fee instead, which Anya says makes the firm more competitive, and the team now actively targets ecommerce clients rather than absorbing them.

Which clients does it work for?

PM+M's approach is simple: if Link My Books has the connection to the client's sales channels and aligns with their budget and requirements, it is often the firm’s preferred integration tool.