A2X: A Case Study with Laura Bond
Laura Bond came to Accountability having just set up a small online jewellery business and having registered for VAT. Despite the best of intentions, they found that the bookkeeping was just spiralling out of control and they had no idea if the VAT was correct or not. They signed up for a Xero Health Check and VAT services.
The Proposal
The Xero Health Check revealed that all payouts into their bank were being processed as receive money transactions with 20% VAT on Income applied. Analysis of the sales showed that this was not accurate as:
a. Too little VAT was calculated as the UK sale was more than the payout
b. Too much VAT was calculated as some sales were overseas
c. Too much VAT was calculated as some sales were for gift vouchers which do not attract VAT at the time of purchase
After discussing the Laura Bond the reporting requirements – how sales were to be split in the accounts, what was desired for tracking cost of goods sold – we decided to implement A2X.
A2X is a specialist software that translates the complexities of online marketplaces (like Shopify, etsy, ebay and Amazon) into simple, accurate information in the accounting system (in this case, Xero). Competitors just did not hold up in terms of the accuracy, features and level of control available, so A2X was the obvious choice.
A2X Grew with the Business
2020 – The first order of business was to get the sales integrated so that VAT could correctly be reported. This was implemented right away. A2X was able to help automate the process, allowing for different VAT treatments for UK and international sales, with gift cards being automatically posted to a dedicated gift card account.
2021 – The second request was that the cost of sales be added in. A2X knows which SKUs are sold from Shopify, and can create a bill which moves the cost of goods sold from the inventory account to the cost of goods sold account. This was more fiddley as it relied upon accurate stock takes and costs in Shopify. Fortunately, Laura Bond was right on the case!
2023 – Laura Bond wanted to track the sales by region so that it was easily apparent how much of their sales came from the UK, EU and the rest of the world. A quick set up of a few accounts and some jiggling of the A2X settings, and suddenly they had full visibility in Xero of the location of the sale.
2023 – Laura Bond transitioned from online only to being both online and brick and mortar. This required another account for the sales from the shop to be separate from the online sales. This included the use of tracking categories to get a good idea of profitability by revenue stream.
2024 – Physical gift cards were introduced. But Shopify initially treated these as normal product sales! We used the SKUs to differentiate between gift card “products” and actual products so that all gift cards went to the gift card account, whether they were physical or digital.
2025 – We added the ability to track the discounts and refunds from the shop separate from the online marketplace. (Useful for those pesky exchanges!)
2025 – Shopify changed the way they report on gift cards making their native reports inaccurate. Fortunately, A2X has a gift card report that is accurate, so the reconciliation could go on.
2026 – (In progress) The latest development is the automation of cost updates from Shopify. Previous solutions relied on manual entry and Google Sheets, whereas the new integration will automatically update the costs in A2X the same day they are updated in Shopify. This will make the costs of good sold much more accurate, as costs change with the exchange rate (USD), which has been fluctuating quite a bit of late due to global circumstances.
Throughout – During the entire engagement, Accountability Edinburgh has been reconciling the sales and gift cards each month. Since 2025 we have also reconciled the stock monthly. Errors are reported to Laura Bond so that they can fix any Shopify issues before they become a big problem. The end result is that Laura Bond has full confidence that Xero accurately shows their sales, gross profit, and
What’s included?
Laura Bond has only seen an A2X price increase when their sales went over the order-volume threshold. The cost of sales is included at no additional cost, even though their SKUs went from a few dozen to a several hundred.
Accountability Edinburgh charges for the sales reconciliation using an average of orders over the past 12 months. This was good news for Laura Bond because Black Friday is a crazy selling period for them at no additional charge from us. Stock reconciliations are part of our management report package.
A2X helps keep their bookkeeping bill low. If there wasn’t A2X, the sales and cost of sales would all have to be entered manually, leading to risk of error, as well as a higher fee from us.
A2X just works.
How the client feels
“Accountability’s use of A2X has been great at providing the granular data to see how different areas of our business perform. It’s important that we track our sales by location of the sale (online UK, online international or UK shop sales). By using A2X and managing our reporting consistently and reliably, Accountability gives us the insight we need to make strong business decisions. It all works so well that we hardly think about it - and can just focus on running our business.” - Doug Bond