If you run an e-commerce or omnichannel business, your general ledger probably looks clean until you reconcile Stripe or PayPal. That is where most teams lose confidence in their numbers. Fees drift. Chargebacks spike after promotions. FX quietly double-counts. Deposits stop tying out. What looked like a solid close turns into a forensic exercise.
This is not a tooling problem. It is a design problem.
At Transcounts, we see this pattern repeatedly with clients across Burnaby, Vancouver, Surrey, and Richmond. The businesses are growing, the sales channels are working, but the accounting model was never designed for how payment processors actually behave. The fix is not heroic effort at month-end. It is putting a few non-negotiables in place so Stripe and PayPal stay boring and predictable.
This article walks through the checklist we use, and why it matters if you care about margins, cash runway, and decisions you can actually act on.
Why payment processors break otherwise good books
Processors are not banks and they are not sales platforms. They sit in the middle and apply their own logic.
A few realities that catch teams off guard:
Fees change quietly. Promotional rates expire. Volume tiers reset. Cross-border mix shifts.
Chargebacks and reversals lag revenue by weeks or months.
FX is applied at multiple points unless you explicitly control it.
Reserves and rolling holds distort cash if you do not track releases properly.
If you record processor activity at a summary level, or worse, net of fees, you lose visibility fast. By the time something feels wrong, you are already past the period where it was introduced.
1. Separate processor fees from platform fees, always
The first rule is simple and often ignored.
Processor fees do not belong in the same bucket as Shopify, Amazon, or marketplace fees. They behave differently, change differently, and signal different risks.
Design your chart of accounts so that:
Stripe fees live in their own account.
PayPal fees live in their own account.
Platform and marketplace fees are separate again.
This lets you spot fee drift immediately. If Stripe fees as a percentage of gross sales move, you know it is a processor issue, not a channel mix problem. That distinction matters when you are diagnosing margin compression.
It also matters in cities like Vancouver and Richmond, where cross-border sales and FX exposure are more common. Without separation, FX effects hide inside “cost of sales” until they are material.
2. Map chargebacks and reversals to contra accounts
Chargebacks are not refunds. Treating them the same muddies both revenue quality and recovery tracking.
We recommend:
A contra-revenue account for chargebacks.
A separate account for chargeback fees.
Clear linkage back to the original transaction where possible.
This design does two things. First, it keeps your gross revenue honest. Second, it lets you track recovery rates over time. If you win disputes and recover funds, that recovery should be visible, not lost in netted activity.
For clients in Surrey and Burnaby running high-volume promotions, this is often the difference between understanding a bad campaign and blaming “marketing” in general.
3. Pick one FX source and respect it
FX is where many otherwise disciplined teams lose control.
The rule is non-negotiable. Pick one FX source and stick to it.
If you are using A2X, respect the settlement currency and rates it posts. Do not re-convert deposits again in your accounting system. Reconcile deposits to zero variance.
Double-counting FX is common when teams:
Convert sales at the order level.
Convert fees again at settlement.
Convert deposits a third time in the bank feed.
The result is phantom gains or losses that no one trusts.
When FX is clean, cash forecasting becomes credible. When it is not, your 13-week cash view is guesswork.
4. Reconcile deposits to zero, every time
A reconciliation that “mostly ties” is not a reconciliation.
Each processor payout should reconcile to zero when you account for:
Gross activity.
Fees.
Chargebacks.
Reserves and rolling holds.
This is where tools matter, but design matters more. Whether you are on QuickBooks Online or Xero, the goal is the same. Deposits should not carry unexplained balances forward.
Zero variance is not pedantry. It is how you know you can trust downstream reporting.
5. Track disputes and reserves with a simple roll-forward
Reserves are predictable once you model them properly. Most teams do not.
We use a monthly roll-forward that shows:
Opening reserve balance.
New holds.
Releases.
Closing balance.
Nothing fancy. The value is clarity.
When releases land cleanly, cash flow surprises disappear. For seasonal businesses in Vancouver and Richmond, where Q4 spikes are followed by quieter periods, this visibility is critical.
Why cadence matters
All of this only works if it runs on a cadence.
At Transcounts, we bundle this into a Day-5 to Day-15 close rhythm. By Day-5, processor data is in and structured. By Day-15, you have a Close Pack you can actually use.
That Close Pack includes:
Channel and SKU-level contribution margins.
A credible 13-week cash runway.
A plain-English list of what changed and what to do next.
This is the difference between accounting as compliance and accounting as management infrastructure.
Who this is for
If you are an e-commerce or omnichannel operator in Burnaby, Vancouver, Surrey, or Richmond, or located anywhere across Canada or the USA, and your processors feel messy, this applies to you.
If you are scaling, running promotions, or expanding cross-border, this is not optional. Clean processor design is the foundation for margin control and cash confidence.
We do not fix this with spreadsheets and hope. We fix it by designing the ledger so reality shows up clearly.
What Next?
We bundle this into your Day‑5 ⇒ Day‑15 cadence. The result is a Close Pack you can actually act on: channel/SKU contribution margins, 13‑week cash runway, and a plain‑English list of what to do next.
If you want the checklist and a quick audit, book the Free E‑commerce Diagnostic—A2X required, QuickBooks Online or Xero supported.
