A modern UK e-commerce business runs on a stack: a sales channel (Shopify, Amazon, etc.), a payment processor, an inventory management system (Linnworks, Cin7, ChannelAdvisor) for multi-channel sellers, an accounting platform (Xero, QuickBooks, Sage), connectors that move data between them (A2X, Link My Books, Dext Commerce), and increasingly a BI layer for management reporting. The stack architecture decisions determine whether the finance function scales with the business or breaks at high volume.
This pillar covers the major stack decisions for UK e-commerce. Each section links to a detailed companion piece.
A2X vs Link My Books
The two dominant settlement-summary tools for Shopify and Amazon:
For most UK e-commerce businesses, A2X is the safe default. Link My Books is increasingly competitive and worth evaluating, particularly for Shopify-only sellers wanting modern UX.
Xero/QuickBooks transaction limits
Xero and QuickBooks both have soft transaction limits that affect performance for high-volume sellers:
- Xero: no hard limit but performance degrades above ~10,000 transactions/month per organisation.
- QuickBooks Online: hard limit on certain plans; varies by tier.
- Mitigation: use settlement-summary tools to post one journal per week or month rather than per-transaction.
- For very high volume (£10m+ revenue), specialist e-commerce ERPs (NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics) become necessary.
Inventory management systems
For multi-channel sellers, an IMS (Inventory Management System) sits between the sales channels and the warehousing/3PL:
- Linnworks: dominant in UK; strong multi-channel support; mid-range pricing.
- Cin7 (now Cin7 Core/Omni): strong for global multi-warehouse operations.
- ChannelAdvisor: enterprise-grade; expensive; for £10m+ businesses.
- Veeqo (Amazon-owned): tightly integrated with Amazon; free for some sellers.
Dental-specific chart of accounts for e-commerce
A well-designed chart of accounts for e-commerce has separate revenue lines per channel, separate fees per processor and channel, separate landed-cost components in COGS, and meaningful operating expense categories (advertising by channel, software, fulfilment costs). Generic SME COAs flatten this into "Sales", "Cost of Sales", and "Marketing" — losing all the margin visibility that makes the business tractable.
Stack rebuild or migration needed?
Free, no obligation. Matched with a vetted specialist.
Specialist E-commerce Accountant Matching Service
All guides on this site are reviewed for technical accuracy by qualified accountants in our network before publication.