Selling through multiple channels, but your bookkeeping lags behind: do you recognize this?

How many sales channels do you actually have?

Count along. Your own webshop. Bol.com. Maybe Amazon. A physical store or pop-up. A B2B portal. Every entrepreneur who grows adds channels. That makes sense, because that is where the revenue is. The global e-commerce market is worth €6.04 trillion in 2024 and grows by 7.8% per year toward €7 trillion in 2027. Multichannel is no longer a choice, it is the standard.

But here is the pitfall. Every new channel brings its own financial rules. And your bookkeeping? It does not grow along automatically.

This article shows what you run into and which options you have to solve this through bookkeeping connectors.

Every channel, different rules

This is where omnichannel bookkeeping gets complex. Not because of the sale itself, but because of what sits behind it.

Bol.com charges commission percentages that differ per product category. On a return you get the commission refunded, but that refund is settled against your next payment. These are not separate transfers, it is a balance entry on your payout. If you do not book that correctly, your margins will not add up.

Amazon uses yet another model. Different commissions, different payment cycles, different currencies if you sell outside the eurozone. And then there are FBA costs, storage and advertising, all separate items that appear on your settlement report.

Your own webshop via WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento or Lightspeed has its own payment providers. Mollie, Stripe or PayPal, each with transaction costs you have to process separately.

Three channels, three completely different financial flows. And we have not even talked about VAT yet.

VAT: the silent danger

Do you only sell in the Netherlands? Then it stays manageable. But as soon as you sell through Amazon in Germany, or deliver via Bol.com in Belgium, the playing field changes.

The EU rules for distance sales state that above a certain threshold you pay VAT in the buyer's country. That means different VAT rates, different returns, different deadlines. Per channel, per country.

Keeping track manually works with ten orders per week. Not with a hundred. With a thousand it is a ticking time bomb.

Beyond the Excel phase

Most multichannel sellers start the same way. Export the sales figures from each platform. Paste them into a spreadsheet. Reconcile manually against the bank statements. Book it in Exact Online.

Recognizable? Then you also know how fragile this process is. A wrong column, a missed refund, a commission calculated just slightly differently, and your bookkeeping goes off track. You only notice it at the VAT return. Or worse, during an audit.

This does not scale. Not when you grow from two to five channels. Not when you have seasonal peaks in which order volume triples. And certainly not when you want to add another marketplace.

What does it actually cost you?

Time. That is the honest answer. Hours of bookkeeping every week. A day of VAT preparation every month. Weeks of setting up your booking workflow every time you open a new channel.

But it costs more than time alone. It costs overview. If you do not know in real time what your margin per channel is, you make decisions on gut feeling. Which channel is really profitable after all commissions and return costs? Where are you losing money without knowing it?

You can only answer those questions once all your financial data comes together in one place. Current, correct and automatic.

A central point as the way out

The solution is not working harder in spreadsheets. It is connecting the data at the source to your bookkeeping. Automatically, per channel, with the right rules.

That means every order from your webshop is booked directly as a sales invoice in Exact Online. Every Bol.com payout is split into revenue, commission and any return settlement, and each part lands on the correct ledger account. Every Amazon settlement is translated into bookable items.

No manual work. No export-import cycle. No "I will process that next week."

Curious how that works for Bol.com specifically? Read how the Bol.com connector with Exact Online works.

Inventory: the forgotten link

Omnichannel bookkeeping is not only about money. It is also about goods. If you sell the same inventory through three channels, your inventory management has to be watertight. Do you sell the last item through your webshop and at the same time through Bol? Then you have a problem.

Synchronizing stock levels between all your channels and Exact Online prevents overselling, missed deliveries and angry customers. How that works in practice you can read in inventory synchronization with Exact Online.

What should you look out for with a connector?

Not every integration is the same. Pay attention to these points when you choose an omnichannel connector:

Frequency. How often does the connector synchronize? Once a day is too little for many webshops. Every five minutes gives you current insight.

Commission processing. Are marketplace commissions automatically split and booked to the correct ledger account? Or do you have to correct that manually?

Return handling. How are returns and refunds processed? Are credit invoices created automatically?

VAT logic. Does the connector take different VAT rates per country into account? Are intra-community deliveries processed correctly?

Multiple channels, one provider. Can you connect all your channels from one party? That saves on management, support and costs.

The role of iWebDevelopment

iWebDevelopment is the connector specialist for bookkeeping. We connect WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, Lightspeed, Bol.com and Amazon with Exact Online. Every connector synchronizes every five minutes. ISO 27001 certified. Official Exact Online partner.

No custom work, no implementation trajectory of months. You choose your channel, connect your administration, and the bookings run. Subscriptions start from 9.95 euros per month.

Growing without administrative growth

Selling omnichannel is the reality for every ambitious retailer. But omnichannel bookkeeping does not have to be a nightmare. With the right connectors your administration grows along by itself, without extra hours, without extra people, without extra spreadsheets.

The difference between an entrepreneur who manages three channels and one who drowns in them? Automation of the financial flow behind it.

Do you want to know how to manage all channels centrally? View our webshop connectors →