Your Shopify payout
is not your revenue.

It lands net of platform fees, refunds, chargebacks and reserve. Record the deposit and stop there, and four of those five never appear in your books at all.

$10,000 in Gross SalesYou see one number
Deposit
Net Deposit $8,140 Platform Fees $360 Refunds $900 Reserve Held $600
Get a Free Books Diagnostic Show Me What It Costs

Work It Out Yourself

How Much of Your Business Is Invisible?

Move the sliders to match your business. Nothing is submitted anywhere, and the arithmetic is published below so you can check it.

$0
of activity a year that never appears anywhere in your books, if payouts are recorded as deposits
Platform Fees$0
Refunds$0
Sales Tax Treated as Income$0
Revenue Understated By0%
See What's Actually in Your Books
The arithmetic. Shopify Payments is taken at 2.9% plus $0.30 per order on a $65 average order; Amazon at a 15% referral fee. Refunds and sales tax use your slider values. "Never appears" means exactly that: if the deposit is booked as revenue and no fee expense is recorded, these amounts are absent from both sides of the ledger. Net profit may still come out close to right — what breaks is your revenue line, your fee rate per channel, your visible refund rate, and a sales tax liability sitting in your accounts as income. Your real rates will differ. This is an illustration, not a quote.
0HOURS TO YOUR REPORTFrom the moment read-only access lands, not from the moment you chase us.
0COST OF THE DIAGNOSTICNo card, no trial, no obligation. The report is yours whether you hire us or not.
0PLATFORMS RECONCILEDShopify, Amazon, Stripe, PayPal, Walmart and Etsy, settlement by settlement.

What's Inside One Payout

Four Things Hiding in a Single Deposit

Platform Fees

Deducted before the money reaches you, so they never look like a cost. Booked as a deposit, your largest single expense line simply does not exist — and you cannot answer the question that matters: is Amazon or Shopify actually more profitable for this product?

Refunds

Netted out of the payout rather than recorded against the original sale. Both your gross sales and your refund rate vanish. A product returning at 22% looks identical to one returning at 2%, right up until the quarter it takes your margin with it.

Reserve

Money you have earned that the platform is holding — typically a rolling percentage released weeks later. It is an asset you own and it belongs on your balance sheet. Ignored, your cash position is understated and your forecast is wrong in the direction that hurts.

Sales Tax

Collected inside the same deposit. It is not revenue — it is money you are holding for a tax authority. Recorded as income it overstates your earnings, hides a growing liability, and leaves you exposed the moment a registration threshold is crossed.

Six Questions, No Email Required

The Books Check

Answer honestly. Nothing is sent anywhere and there is no form at the end — you either recognise yourself in the result or you don't.

Why This Keeps Happening

The Numbers Look Fine Until the Day They Don't

It is the end of the quarter. You open the dashboard.

Revenue is up. Ad spend is up a little more. Margin is roughly where it was last quarter, so nothing looks broken.

You decide to push harder on the channel that appears to be working.

That decision is being made on numbers nobody has checked.

Because the payouts were booked as deposits, the fee rate on that channel has never once appeared in your accounts. The refund rate on your best-selling product is netted invisibly into the same line. The reserve the platform is holding is not on your balance sheet at all.

None of it is fraud. None of it is even unusual. It is what happens when someone competent at bookkeeping meets a settlement report they have never been trained to read.

Six months later the CPA asks for cleanup before filing. The cleanup turns up the fee rate. And the channel you doubled down on turns out to have been the worse of the two the entire time.

That is the six months you do not get back.

The diagnostic exists so this gets caught in forty-eight hours instead of at year end. It costs nothing, and if your books are clean we will tell you that and leave you alone.

Get the Free Diagnostic

What We Do

Accounting, Bookkeeping and Back-Office Operations

Bookkeeping →

  • Monthly Categorisation and Reconciliation
  • P&L, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow
  • Catch-Up and Cleanup of Neglected Books
  • QuickBooks Online and Xero Setup or Migration
  • Year-End Packaged for Your CPA

E-Commerce Accounting →

  • Settlement Reconciliation — Shopify, Amazon, Stripe, PayPal, Walmart, Etsy
  • A2X Setup and Ongoing Management
  • COGS, Inventory and Landed Cost
  • Sales Tax Nexus Monitoring
  • Margin by SKU and by Channel

Back-Office Operations →

  • Accounts Payable — capture, coding, payment runs prepared for your approval
  • Accounts Receivable, Aging and Collections
  • Expense Management and Receipt Chasing
  • Order and Fulfilment Coordination
  • Vendor and Supplier Coordination

Reporting →

  • Monthly Management Pack with Commentary
  • KPI Dashboard and Channel Profitability
  • 13-Week Cash Flow Forecast
  • Budget Versus Actual with Variance Notes

What We Don't Do: tax returns, tax advice, audit, payroll processing, or anything requiring a CPA signature. We are not a CPA firm. We get the books clean so your accountant can do that part properly — and we are happy to introduce you to one.

Where Everyone Starts

The Free Books Diagnostic

We look at your actual books and tell you what is wrong with them. No charge, no obligation, and the report is yours whether or not you work with us.

1  Grant Access

Read-only accountant access in QuickBooks or Xero, or send an export. Our NDA is signed before we look at anything.

2  We Review

Reconciliation status, categorisation, settlement handling, COGS and inventory, and sales tax exposure.

3  You Get a Report

Two to three pages in plain language within 48 hours. Every finding quantified with your own numbers.

4  You Decide

A fixed price to fix it and a monthly figure to keep it right — or take the report and fix it yourself.

Request Your Diagnostic

Read-only means we can see the books. We cannot move money, change banking details, or alter anything. Revoke access in two clicks.

Pricing

Published, So You Can Work Out the Answer Yourself

Set it to your business. No quote form, no "contact us for pricing".

Your Tier
Standard
Monthly Bookkeeping$549
E-Commerce Add-On$400
$949
per month · annual prepay saves 10% ($10,249 a year)

Cleanup Projects

Fixed price, quoted from your diagnostic. From $750 for up to six months of backlog. Multi-channel cleanups $3,500–7,500.

Dedicated Seat

A named full-time bookkeeper or operations associate embedded in your business. Quoted after the diagnostic.

Service Businesses

Agencies, contractors and professional practices use the same tiers without the E-Commerce add-on.

Cleanup is completed before any monthly retainer begins. We will not take on messy books at a monthly rate and quietly do a worse job.

Security and Trust

You Are Handing a Stranger Access to Your Books

So here is exactly what that access is, and what it isn't.

Read-Only, Always

Accountant access in QuickBooks or Xero. We can see the books. We cannot move money, change banking details, or alter records.

NDA Before Access

Signed before we look at anything, including for the free diagnostic. A written data security policy is available on request.

One Named Person

Your account is handled by a named individual, not an anonymous pool. You will know who is in your books.

No Money Movement

We prepare payment runs. You approve and execute them. We never hold, transfer or disburse client funds.

Your Data Stays Put

We work inside your QuickBooks or Xero file. Nothing is copied to our systems, and no bank credentials are ever shared with us.

Revoke In Two Clicks

Access is granted by you and removed by you, instantly, from inside your accounting software. You are never locked in.

About

Where the Team Is, and Why It Matters

Workostic is a team of accountants and operations specialists based in Islamabad, Pakistan, working your business hours wherever you are. We are straightforward about that, because it is the reason the pricing works and because you would find out anyway.

In practice: work sent at the end of your day is usually finished before you are back at your desk. What it does not mean is a call centre. Your account has a named owner who knows your channels, your inventory and your close.

We would rather you judged us on the diagnostic than on the postcode. That is precisely why it is free.

Questions People Actually Ask

How is this cheaper than hiring in-house?

A full-time in-house bookkeeper runs well into five figures a year once benefits and employment costs are counted. Our team is in Islamabad, so the same work costs a fraction of that. We are not the cheapest option available and do not try to be — you can always pay less for someone who has never seen an Amazon settlement report.

I already have a bookkeeper.

Most of our clients did. Worth asking them one question: when were your platform payouts last broken out into gross sales, fees, refunds and reserve? If the answer is vague, the Free Books Diagnostic is a useful second opinion. If your books turn out to be clean, we will tell you so.

Can you file my taxes?

No. We are not a CPA firm and we do not provide tax advice, prepare returns, or sign anything. We prepare clean, reconciled books so your CPA can do that work properly and quickly. If you need one, we can introduce you.

Do you handle payroll?

No. Payroll is a specialist function with its own compliance exposure and it sits outside our scope. Gusto and Rippling handle it well for businesses your size and we are happy to introduce you. We will reconcile the payroll entries into your books either way.

What software do you work in?

QuickBooks Online and Xero primarily, with A2X for settlement reconciliation, and Dext, Ramp or Expensify for expenses. We work inside your existing file — no migration required unless you want one.

How quickly can you start?

The Diagnostic takes 48 hours from access. Cleanup projects typically start within a week of the quote being accepted and run two to six weeks depending on backlog and volume.

Request It

Start Your Free Books Diagnostic

Six fields. We reply within one working day with the access instructions and our NDA. Nothing happens to your books until that NDA is signed.

No card, no obligation. We reply within one working day. Your details are used only to run the diagnostic and are never shared.

Find Out What Is Actually in Your Books

Read-only access, 48 hours, a written report. No charge and no obligation.

Request Your Free Diagnostic
See what's in your books — free, 48 hours. Get Started