An online store’s bank account never shows a sale. It shows a transfer from Shopify, a settlement from Amazon, a payout from Etsy, each one net of fees, refunds, holds and sometimes sales tax, and none of them landing on the day the order was placed. Book that transfer as revenue and the numbers look tidy while the margin by channel, the fees and the tax picture all stay wrong.
An ecommerce bookkeeping virtual assistant does the slow work of taking those payouts apart and putting them in the right accounts, every week. Read on for what the role covers and what it doesn’t, how one payout is reconciled, what Shopify, Amazon and Etsy say about their payouts and sales tax, connector apps, COGS, the month-end close, what it costs and how to hire and onboard one.
Quick Answer
An ecommerce bookkeeping virtual assistant is a remote bookkeeper for online sellers: they reconcile Shopify, Amazon, Etsy and other marketplace payouts to the sales, fees, refunds and holds behind them, keep connector apps such as A2X posting correctly, enter supplier and 3PL bills, record inventory and landed costs, prepare the COGS entry and sales tax reports for your accountant, and close the month. Through VA MASTERS an ecommerce bookkeeping VA costs $7.50–$14/hr, about $1,200–$2,240 a month full-time. It costs nothing to start, and first candidates typically arrive in about 2 business days once the role is agreed.
What Is an Ecommerce Bookkeeping Virtual Assistant?
An ecommerce bookkeeping virtual assistant is a bookkeeper who specializes in the money flows of online selling and works from a remote desk, in your accounting file and your platform reports, with logins of their own. The core bookkeeping is the same as any business: reconciliations, bills, categorization, reports. What changes is the source data. Sales arrive through platforms that pay out on their own schedules, deduct their own fees, hold back part of the money and, on marketplaces, collect sales tax for you in some places but not others.
That is why a general bookkeeper can struggle with a store that sells on three channels. The amount that reaches the bank is the last line of a long calculation, and each platform does the calculation differently. The skill this role needs is the habit of tying every payout back to its parts, every time, so that revenue, fees, refunds and tax land where your accountant expects them.
If your business is not a store, our bookkeeping virtual assistant page covers general bookkeeping; for help in the software itself, see our QuickBooks and Xero bookkeeping VA page.
Who Does What: VA, Accountant and Owner
A clear split keeps the books accurate and keeps the role inside bookkeeping. Write it down before the VA’s first day:
| Part of the work | Your ecommerce bookkeeping VA | Your accountant (or senior bookkeeper) | You, the owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chart of accounts and accounting method | Follows the set-up and flags transactions that don’t fit it | Designs the accounts, chooses cash or accrual and the inventory method | Approves the set-up |
| Payouts and settlements | Matches every payout to its orders, fees, refunds and holds, and books the summary | Reviews the clearing accounts at month-end | Sees payouts that tie out to the bank |
| Inventory and cost of goods | Records purchase orders, landed costs and stock counts you send; prepares the COGS entry | Sets how COGS is calculated and signs off the entry | Shares supplier invoices and count results |
| Sales tax | Prepares sales-by-state and tax-collected-by-channel reports and a filing calendar | Decides where you register and file, and files (or advises) | Signs and pays |
| Money movement | Prepares bills and payment batches for approval; does not release payments | — | Approves and releases every payment |
| Month-end close | Runs the checklist: reconciliations, clearing accounts at zero, reports drafted | Reviews, adjusts, prepares the tax return | Reads the P&L by channel |
The short version: the VA records, reconciles and prepares; your accountant designs, reviews and handles tax; you approve and pay. When a transaction doesn’t fit the rules, the VA asks instead of guessing, and keeps a running list of questions for your review.
Ecommerce Bookkeeping Tasks a VA Handles
Weekly and monthly duties of an ecommerce bookkeeping VA, with the result you should see from each:
| Task | What your ecommerce bookkeeping VA does | What you get back |
|---|---|---|
| Payout reconciliation | Ties each Shopify, Amazon, Etsy or marketplace payout to the sales, fees, refunds and holds behind it | Bank receipts that match the books, line by line |
| Connector upkeep | Checks that the connector app posted every settlement, fixes mapping errors and missing periods | No payout left unbooked or booked twice |
| Fee coding | Codes platform, payment, fulfillment, shipping-label and advertising charges to the accounts your accountant chose | Fees you can read by type and by channel |
| Refunds, returns and chargebacks | Books refunds against sales, records chargebacks and reversals, and lists open disputes | Net sales you can trust |
| Bank and card reconciliation | Reconciles bank, credit card and processor accounts every week | Balances that agree with the statements |
| Bills and supplier invoices | Enters supplier, 3PL, freight and software bills and matches them to purchase orders | Payables ready for your approval |
| Inventory and landed cost | Records stock purchases, freight, duties and other landed costs from the documents you send | An inventory value that follows your stock |
| COGS entries | Prepares the monthly cost-of-goods entry from your inventory records for your accountant to approve | Gross margin by month |
| Sales tax reports | Pulls tax collected by channel and by state, and separates tax the marketplaces remitted | A tidy file for your accountant |
| Channel reporting | Builds a monthly P&L by channel and a margin view by product line | Which channel actually earns money |
| Catch-up and clean-up | Works through months of unreconciled payouts, duplicates and uncategorized transactions | Books current before tax season |
| Month-end close | Runs your close checklist and sends the review pack | Books closed on the date you set |
Bookkeeping sits next to store operations. Order processing, listings, suppliers and customer messages belong to an e-commerce operations VA; for marketplace-specific roles see our Amazon virtual assistant and Shopify virtual assistant pages. Some sellers combine part of both in one role; the hours and the rate follow the bookkeeping share.
From Gross Sales to Your Bank: A Payout Example
This is what reconciling one payout means. The figures are illustrative (one week of an own-store payout, not data from a real store), and the account names are examples; your accountant decides the real ones:
| Line on the payout report | Amount | Where the VA books it |
|---|---|---|
| Gross product sales | $12,000.00 | Sales (revenue) |
| Shipping charged to customers | +$800.00 | Shipping income |
| Sales tax collected from customers | +$640.00 | Sales tax payable (not revenue) |
| Refunds issued | −$900.00 | Refunds and returns, against sales |
| Payment processing fees | −$410.00 | Merchant fees |
| Chargeback (order amount plus the processor’s fee) | −$135.00 | Chargebacks |
| Amount held back by the processor, released later | −$250.00 | Funds held by the processor (a receivable until released) |
| Paid out to your bank | $11,745.00 | Bank, matched to this one payout |
Booked this way, the $11,745.00 payout matches the bank, sales show $12,000.00 instead of the amount paid out, $1,445.00 of refunds, fees and chargebacks are visible on their own lines (refunds against sales, fees and chargebacks as costs), the $640.00 of sales tax sits as a liability, and the $250.00 held back waits as money still owed to you until it is released. The VA does the same for every payout, on every channel, and a connector app does much of the splitting automatically when it is set up well.
Shopify, Amazon, Etsy and Other Channels
Each platform pays out differently. What the platforms themselves say, and what the VA does with it:
| Channel | What the platform says (own pages, checked November 2026) | What the VA does with it |
|---|---|---|
| Shopify (Shopify Payments) | Shopify’s Help Center says the Shopify Payments activity report lets you review a breakdown of your transactions, fees and payouts for a date range | Matches each payout to its orders, fees and refunds; books the payout summary through your connector or a journal entry |
| Amazon | Amazon’s own seller payments guide says Amazon settles seller accounts every two weeks in general, typically reserves funds for deliveries for seven days, and that funds can take up to five business days to reach your bank | Reconciles each settlement: sales, Amazon fees, refunds, reimbursements and the reserve; follows deferred amounts into the next settlement |
| Etsy | Etsy’s Help Center says Etsy automatically calculates, collects and remits US sales tax on orders shipped to US recipients (and digital orders from US buyers) in the states it lists, and that the amount appears in the Payment account’s Activity summary as “Sales tax paid by buyer (Remitted)” | Keeps remitted tax out of your sales figure (as your accountant sets up) and reconciles Etsy payouts to orders, fees and refunds |
| eBay, Walmart, TikTok Shop and other marketplaces | Each pays out net of its own fees, with its own payout or settlement report | Same routine per channel: one clearing account, every payout matched, fees coded by type |
| Stripe, PayPal and other processors (own-site checkouts) | Payouts arrive net of processing fees and refunds | Reconciles processor balances; for dispute and failed-payment work see our Stripe payment operations VA page |
Platform rules and report names change, so the VA works from each platform’s current reports rather than last year’s notes. If you sell on Etsy, our Etsy virtual assistant page covers the shop side of the work.
Watch a Finance VA, an Inventory VA and a Skills-Test Review
A finance and bookkeeping VA with 8+ years of experience with US and Australian small businesses explains the work: invoices sent and tracked, payments processed on time, accounts reconciled, and QuickBooks or Xero kept clean.
An inventory and logistics VA tracks FBA shipments, prepares shipping quotes, pallet labels and commercial invoices, and keeps stock moving to Amazon facilities. Those shipment records are where the landed cost in your COGS starts.
One of our recruiters scores an actual skills test from an administrative support search, step by step. For an e-commerce bookkeeping role, the test can be built on a payout report and a ledger, where the role needs it.
Connector Apps, Accounting Software and AI
Connector apps sit between your sales channels and your accounting software and turn each payout into a summary entry. A2X, for example, says on its website that it works with Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Etsy, Walmart, TikTok Shop and PayPal, connects to QuickBooks Online, Xero, Sage and NetSuite, transforms uncategorized payout data into organized summaries, and supports COGS workflows (checked November 2026). Other sellers use a different connector, or book payouts by journal entry from the platform reports.
A connector does not make the books right by itself. Someone has to map each fee and transaction type to the right account, check that every settlement posted once and only once, match the summaries to what reached the bank, and deal with what the app could not classify. That is the VA’s daily work. On the software side, QuickBooks appears in 68% of the finance VA roles in our software report (roles opened February to August 2026; 322 roles across all categories), so name your accounting software and your connector in the job description and we screen for both.
AI features in accounting software now suggest categories and match transactions. They help with volume. They don’t yet reliably notice that a settlement is missing, that a reimbursement was booked as a sale, or that a fee type changed on one channel; a person still has to review the exceptions and own the close.
AI wins on speed and simple, repeatable tasks. The moment the work needs judgment, context, or catching an edge case the AI misses, a human pulls ahead fast. In our experience the tipping point isn’t task volume, it’s task ambiguity. The messier the decision, the more you need a human.— Alon Pearl, Founder & CEO, VA MASTERS (AI Skills in Virtual Assistant Job Requirements 2026 report, September 2026)
Inventory and Cost of Goods Sold
Margin is sales minus what the goods cost you, and for a store that number lives outside the sales platforms: in supplier invoices, freight and duty bills, 3PL charges and stock counts. The VA keeps those records in order: purchase orders matched to invoices, landed costs (freight, duties, inbound shipping to a warehouse or to Amazon) recorded against the stock they belong to, and count results from you or your warehouse entered on time.
From those records, the VA prepares the monthly COGS entry in the way your accountant set it up, and sends it for review with the support behind it. The method itself (how inventory is valued, what counts as landed cost, when write-offs are booked) is your accountant’s decision, not the VA’s. If your stock and shipments need their own operator, see our e-commerce operations VA page; the FBA inventory video above shows that side of the work.
Sales Tax Reports for Your Accountant
Sales tax is where e-commerce books get messy first, because the same store can be in two situations at once. On marketplaces, the platform may collect it for you: Amazon’s Marketplace Tax Collection help page says that, as the marketplace facilitator, Amazon calculates, collects, remits and refunds sales tax on third-party sellers’ transactions to states where this legislation is enacted, and Etsy’s Help Center says Etsy automatically calculates, collects and remits US sales tax on orders shipped to US recipients (and digital orders from US buyers) in the states it lists (both checked November 2026). On your own store, no marketplace does it for you.
The VA’s part is reporting, not deciding. Each month they pull sales and tax collected by channel and by state, show marketplace-remitted tax separately so it is not counted twice, keep a calendar of the filing dates your accountant gives them, and send it all in one file. Where you need to register, what to file and how to treat each channel are questions for your accountant or tax advisor. This section is general information, not tax advice.
The Monthly Close Checklist
A close checklist turns “the books are done” into something you can check. The one a VA can run each month:
- Bank, cards and processors. Reconcile every bank, credit card, Shopify Payments, Stripe and PayPal account to its statement.
- Every payout and settlement. Confirm the connector posted each one for the month; match each one to the bank; chase anything missing.
- Clearing accounts. Each channel’s clearing account should be at zero or explained by a payout in transit.
- Refunds, chargebacks and reimbursements. Booked, matched and listed if still open.
- Bills and accruals. Supplier, 3PL, freight, software and ad invoices entered; anything missing listed for you.
- Inventory and COGS. Purchases and landed costs recorded; the COGS entry prepared from your inventory records and sent for review.
- Sales tax file. Tax collected by channel and by state, with marketplace-remitted tax shown separately, sent to your accountant.
- Review pack. P&L by channel, balance sheet, open questions; your accountant reviews and adjusts, then the period is locked.
Who Hires an Ecommerce Bookkeeping VA
- Shopify brands with Shopify Payments, PayPal and a few apps, where payouts, refunds and ad spend need splitting every week.
- Amazon FBA sellers with two-weekly settlements, reimbursements, reserves and landed costs on every inbound shipment.
- Multi-channel sellers on Shopify plus Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Walmart or TikTok Shop, who need a P&L by channel to decide where to grow.
- Etsy and handmade sellers who outgrew a spreadsheet and want clean books before tax season.
- Stores behind on their books that need months of catch-up before an accountant can work with them.
- Accounting and bookkeeping firms with e-commerce clients, who want the reconciliation work done before the senior review.
How Big Is Your Bookkeeping Backlog?
Tell us your channels, roughly how many orders you ship a month and how far behind the books are; we’ll suggest the hours before the search begins.
Get in Touch →How Much Does an Ecommerce Bookkeeping Virtual Assistant Cost?
Ecommerce bookkeeping VAs are priced at $7.50–$14/hr, the Finance & Accounting range at VA MASTERS. In monthly terms: $600–$1,120 for 80 hours (half-time) and $1,200–$2,240 for 160 hours (full-time); about 40 hours a month comes to $300–$560. Your rate within the range follows the candidate’s experience and the scope of the role. That rate already includes recruitment, payments to the VA and ongoing account management (details on our pricing page).
Compared:
| Choice | Monthly cost | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| US bookkeeping, accounting or auditing clerk, employed | $24.36/hr median, or about $3,898 in pay for 160 hours, not counting benefits, employer taxes or office space | Median pay from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook, Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks (May 2025 data; page updated August 2026); checked November 2026 |
| Ecommerce bookkeeping firm or subscription | A monthly package, priced by order volume, revenue or number of channels | Ask what the package includes: how many channels, inventory and COGS, catch-up months, sales tax work and response times |
| VA MASTERS ecommerce bookkeeping VA, about 40 hours a month | $300–$560 a month at $7.50–$14/hr | Smaller scopes are possible (see the pricing page) |
| VA MASTERS ecommerce bookkeeping VA, half-time (80 hours) | $600–$1,120 a month | Finance & Accounting rate range; it costs nothing to start |
| VA MASTERS ecommerce bookkeeping VA, full-time (160 hours) | $1,200–$2,240 a month | Finance & Accounting rate range |
At the $24.36/hr median, an in-house US bookkeeping clerk is paid about $3,898 for 160 hours, excluding benefits; once benefits and overhead are counted on the in-house side, a VA can save you up to 80%. To be fair to the alternatives: a single-channel store with a connector and a few hundred orders a month may need only a few hours of bookkeeping, and a firm’s monthly package can then cost less than a VA’s half-time role. A VA earns their place when the work is weekly, the channels are several, or you want the same person on bookkeeping and close every month.
How to Hire an Ecommerce Bookkeeping VA
Step 1: List Your Channels and Accounts
Write down every sales channel, processor, bank and card account, your accounting software, your connector and your inventory tool, plus how many orders you ship in a month and how many months are unreconciled. That list sizes the role and becomes the VA’s first-week map.
Step 2: Agree the Split With Your Accountant
Use the split table above: what the VA records and prepares, what your accountant reviews and decides, what you approve. Ask your accountant which accounts they want fees, refunds, reserves and remitted tax booked to.
Step 3: Define the Role With VA MASTERS
In a free discovery call we go over your channels, software, hours and the size of the backlog; once the role is agreed, the search begins: custom-built for your role, powered by our database of 400,000+ pre-assessed applicants.
Our 6-stage process is selective: about 1 in 508 applicants is placed (166,350 applications, January 2025 to July 2026; see the statistics report). We can recruit for QuickBooks ProAdvisor, Xero certification or TESDA Bookkeeping NC III where your role needs it, and for experience with your channels and connector, without promising any of them for every search.
Detailed Job Posting
Your job post lists your channels, your accounting software and connector, your order volume, how you hold inventory and the hours you need.
Candidate Collection
Every search is custom-built for the role, powered by our database of 400,000+ pre-assessed Filipino applicants; we look for bookkeeping experience with online sellers.
Initial Screening
AI-assisted screening, then human recruiters, check written English, accounting software experience, care with numbers and a steady internet connection.
Custom Skills Test
Where the role needs a test, candidates reconcile a mock payout report to a ledger, code its fees and refunds, and write up what does not tie out.
In-Depth Interview
Our recruiters probe how each candidate deals with a payout that is short, a fee they have never seen, and a month that will not close.
Client Interview
We present candidates, with first candidates in about 2 business days once the role is agreed. You interview them and choose who keeps your books.
Step 4: Interview With Your Own Payout Report
Give each candidate an anonymized payout or settlement report and have them walk you through it: which lines are sales, which are fees, what should reach the bank, where each line goes in the books and what they’d ask. The choice of who keeps your books is yours.
Step 5: Onboard With Access, Mapping and Last Month
Set up the VA’s own logins before day one, share the connector mapping and your accountant’s notes, and have the VA reconcile the last closed month first, so every difference is found on known numbers. The 30-day plan below shows the pace.
Ecommerce bookkeeping virtual assistant job description template
- Role: Ecommerce Bookkeeping VA (remote), from about 40 hours a month up to full-time (160 hours)
- Hours: we recruit for your hours, in your time zone and on your schedule
- Channels: your sales channels (for example Shopify, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Walmart) and processors (Shopify Payments, Stripe, PayPal)
- Software: QuickBooks Online or Xero, your connector app (for example A2X), your inventory system, Google Sheets or Excel
- Responsibilities: payout and settlement reconciliation, fee and refund coding, bank and card reconciliations, bills and supplier invoices, landed cost and inventory records, the monthly COGS entry for review, sales tax reports by channel and state, P&L by channel, month-end checklist
- Not in scope: filing tax returns, choosing tax registrations, releasing payments, changing the accounting method
- Must-haves: bookkeeping experience with online sellers, comfort with platform payout reports, accuracy, clear written English
- Nice to have: QuickBooks ProAdvisor or Xero certification, TESDA Bookkeeping NC III, experience with your connector and your inventory tool
- How success is measured: books closed by the agreed working day, every payout reconciled, clearing accounts at zero, questions sent as a list instead of guesses
Skills-Test Ideas for Ecommerce Bookkeeping Candidates
- Reconcile a mock Shopify payout to its orders and the bank statement, and explain a $50 difference.
- From a sample Amazon settlement, list each fee type and the account it should go to under a given chart of accounts.
- Given supplier, freight and duty invoices for one shipment, calculate the landed cost per unit.
- Write the three questions they would send an owner after finding an unexplained balance in a clearing account.
The First 30 Days With an Ecommerce Bookkeeping VA
| Week | Focus | What done looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | Logins and the map of your money | Own logins with the access the role needs (accounting file, connector, platform reports, bank feeds read-only); the VA lists every channel, processor, bank and card account and the clearing account each one uses |
| Week 2 | One channel end to end | Your largest channel reconciled for the last closed month, payout by payout; mapping errors in the connector listed for your accountant |
| Week 3 | All channels and inventory | Every channel reconciled, bills and supplier invoices entered, landed costs recorded; the first COGS entry drafted for review |
| Week 4 | First close | Month-end checklist run, clearing accounts at zero, P&L by channel and the sales tax report sent to your accountant; reviews move from every entry to a sample |
Numbers to Track
Six numbers show whether the books are under control. Agree targets in the first month and look at them at every close:
| Number to watch | What it tells you | Target to agree |
|---|---|---|
| Days to close | How long after month-end the books are ready for review | A fixed working day, for example the 7th |
| Unreconciled payouts | Payouts or settlements not yet matched to sales, fees and refunds | Zero at close |
| Clearing account balances | Money the books expect from a platform that has not arrived (or the reverse) | Explained to the cent at close |
| Uncategorized transactions | Items parked in a suspense account | Zero at close, with a list of questions for you |
| Fees by channel | Platform, payment, fulfillment and ad costs as a share of each channel’s sales | Reviewed monthly; spikes explained |
| Gross margin by channel | Sales minus refunds, fees and COGS for each channel | Reviewed monthly with your accountant |
Access and Controls
- Set up the VA as a separate user in your accounting software, connector and platforms, with the role their work needs (reports and bookkeeping, not account ownership); never share the owner’s login.
- Bank and card access read-only or through bank feeds; the VA prepares payment batches and you release them, so the person recording transactions never moves money.
- Turn on two-factor authentication everywhere and write down the offboarding steps (accounting user, connector, platform users, shared drives) before day one.
- Keep supplier and customer data inside your systems and shared drives, not in personal email or chat apps.
- Every VA is required to sign written confidentiality undertakings; the details are on our security page.
Ecommerce Bookkeeping Mistakes to Avoid
Mistake #1: Booking Payouts as Sales
A payout is sales minus fees, refunds and holds, plus tax that is not yours. Book it as revenue and both your sales and your costs are understated. Every payout gets taken apart.
Mistake #2: Trusting the Connector Without Checking It
A connector posts what it is told to post. Mapping errors, a missing settlement or a duplicated period can sit in the books for months. Check that every payout posted once and that each clearing account is at zero.
Mistake #3: No COGS Until Year-End
Without a monthly COGS entry, gross margin is a guess for eleven months. Record landed costs as shipments arrive and book COGS every month.
Mistake #4: Counting Marketplace Tax Twice
Tax a marketplace reports as collected and remitted is not your revenue. Keep it separate in the reports so your accountant sees what was already remitted and decides what, if anything, you still report.
Mistake #5: One Person Records and Pays
When the same login records transactions and releases payments, mistakes and worse go unnoticed. The VA prepares; you approve and pay.
Hiring Lawrence as a QuickBooks Expert and Lery as a Real Estate Administrative VA has completely transformed how I run my real estate business. Lawrence efficiently manages all our financial records, ensuring everything is organized and accurate, while Lery handles property documents, tenant coordination, and administrative tasks. This powerful combination allows me to focus more on investment strategy and growth. … The cost savings compared to local hires are substantial, and the efficiency they bring is unmatched. …
More From Clients Who Delegated Their Books and Their Store
Real Messages from Real Clients
Hear From Our VAs
Working as a VA yourself? See our open positions.
More finance roles, from accounts payable to controllers: see all finance and accounting virtual assistant services, or the store side in our e-commerce virtual assistant services.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does an ecommerce bookkeeping virtual assistant do?
An ecommerce bookkeeping virtual assistant keeps the books of an online store current, remotely: reconciles Shopify, Amazon, Etsy and other marketplace payouts to the sales, fees, refunds and holds behind them, codes platform fees, enters supplier and 3PL bills, records inventory and landed costs, prepares the monthly COGS entry and the sales tax reports, and runs your month-end checklist. Tax returns and tax decisions stay with your accountant; the VA prepares the work for them.
How much does an ecommerce bookkeeping virtual assistant cost?
An ecommerce bookkeeping VA is $7.50–$14/hr through VA MASTERS. That is $1,200–$2,240 for a full-time month (160 hours), $600–$1,120 for half-time (80 hours), and roles of around 40 hours a month also work ($300–$560). It costs nothing to start. For comparison, the US median pay for bookkeeping, accounting and auditing clerks is $24.36/hr (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025), before benefits and overhead.
Can a virtual assistant reconcile Shopify and Amazon payouts?
Yes. A bookkeeping VA can match each Shopify Payments payout and each Amazon settlement to the orders, fees, refunds, reimbursements and reserves inside it, book the summary through a connector such as A2X or by journal entry, and keep a clearing account per channel at zero. Give the VA their own logins: report access on the sales platforms and a bookkeeping user in your accounting software; releasing payments stays with you.
How can Amazon sellers outsource bookkeeping while keeping financial oversight?
Keep three controls: the VA prepares and you (or your accountant) approve, so nobody who records transactions also releases payments; every settlement is reconciled to the money that reached the bank and the clearing account is at zero at close; and you read a short monthly review pack (P&L by channel, open questions, unreconciled items). Give the VA their own logins: report access on the sales platforms and a bookkeeping user in your accounting software; releasing payments stays with you. Have your accountant review the close. For what else Amazon sellers delegate, see our outsourcing playbook for Amazon FBA sellers.
Does Amazon or Etsy collect sales tax for me?
For orders on their own marketplaces, both say they collect it in the cases they describe. Amazon’s help page says that, as the marketplace facilitator, it calculates, collects, remits and refunds sales tax on third-party sellers’ transactions to states where this legislation is enacted. Etsy’s Help Center says Etsy automatically calculates, collects and remits US sales tax on orders shipped to US recipients (and digital orders from US buyers) in the states it lists. Sales on your own store are not covered by either. Whether you still need to register or file anywhere is a question for your accountant; your VA prepares the reports they need. This is general information, not tax advice.
Do I still need an accountant if I hire an ecommerce bookkeeping VA?
Yes. The VA records, reconciles and prepares; your accountant sets the chart of accounts and the inventory method, reviews the close, handles sales and income tax and signs off anything that needs a professional judgment. Clean, reconciled books also make their review faster. For general bookkeeping without the channel work, see our bookkeeping virtual assistant page.
How quickly can I hire an ecommerce bookkeeping VA?
First candidates typically arrive in about 2 business days once your role is agreed; you then interview them and decide. The search is selective: about 1 in 508 applicants is placed (166,350 applications, January 2025 to July 2026). Plan about a month for the VA to learn your channels, connector and close (the 30-day plan on this page shows how).
Are there any upfront fees?
No. There are no upfront fees, no setup fees and no recruitment fees: it costs nothing to start. You sign the agreement and we run the search at no cost. If you’re not satisfied with your VA, you get a replacement, free of charge.
Hire an Ecommerce Bookkeeping VA, From $7.50/hr
Payouts that tie out, fees you can read by channel, a COGS entry ready for review and a sales tax file your accountant can work from. VA MASTERS recruits and supports the ecommerce bookkeeping VA who keeps your books current.
- It costs nothing to start: no upfront fees, no setup fees
- First candidates in about 2 business days once the role is agreed
- Custom skills test on a mock payout report, where needed
- Ongoing account management, and a free replacement if it isn’t a fit
Anne is the Operations Manager at VA MASTERS, a recruitment agency specializing in Filipino virtual assistants for global businesses. She leads the end-to-end recruitment process — from custom job briefs and skills testing to candidate delivery and ongoing VA management — and has personally overseen the placement of 1,000+ virtual assistants across industries including e-commerce, real estate, healthcare, fintech, digital marketing, and legal services.
With deep expertise in Philippine work culture, remote team integration, and business process optimization, Anne helps clients achieve up to 80% cost savings compared to local hiring while maintaining top-tier quality and performance.
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: +13127660301
