Understand report differences between QuickBooks Online and sales channels

Learn about the differences reports have between QuickBooks Online and connected sales channels.

Sales channels may report on sales differently than QuickBooks Online. This is typically because the sales channels have different reporting needs from what you need in your books in QuickBooks. We’ll help provide some pointers on understanding any differences you see in your reports. 

Best practices for accurate information in QuickBooks

• Only categorize your imported transactions from one place - either Banking or App transactions, not both. 
• If there are third-party transactions on your sales channel that don't import, be sure you manually add those. 
• If you disconnect a sales channel, review your transactions. Undo any transactions you don’t need. 
• If you reconnect a sales channel, choose a date so you only import new transactions, not transactions that you may have imported previously.

Best practices for comparing reports

In your sales channel, open your preferred sales report. Depending on your sales channel, there are some key differences to note: 

• Shopify: Shopify shipping rates use a different accounting method than QuickBooks Online. For example, Shopify doesn’t record anything for free shipping, but QuickBooks Online reports show debit $X shipping income and credit $X sales discount.
• eBay: eBay sales report doesn’t include sales tax because eBay has collected and remitted sales tax on your behalf. QuickBooks reports show sales tax. 
• Amazon: Amazon sales report doesn’t include sales tax because Amazon has collected and remitted sales tax on your behalf.  QuickBooks reports show sales tax. 

In QuickBooks Online, open the Profit & Loss and Balance Sheet reports. It’s best to use these two reports since they pull information from accounts. 

• Profit & Loss: includes the income account (channel sales) and expense account (channel selling fee).
• Balance Sheet: includes the liability account (channel sales tax payable) and asset account (Amazon reserve balance).