Every order in Shopify is a sale that belongs in the books: with the right VAT, in the right period, and with a customer who can get a credit note if the goods come back. This guide shows how Shopify sales get into e-conomic correctly, both when you do it by hand and when it happens automatically.
Two ways to get Shopify sales into e-conomic
There are two basic ways to do it:
- Total sales per day or per payout. You book the day's sales as one entry on a revenue account. It is quick, but there is no customer and no invoice to credit against. VAT per country (OSS) has to be worked out on its own, and refunds and gift cards soon become hard to follow.
- One invoice per order. Each order becomes an invoice in e-conomic with customer, lines, shipping, discount and VAT. That gives a trail from order to books: a refund becomes a credit note on the right invoice, VAT is set per order, and the payment from Shopify Payments or MobilePay can close the invoice.
If you have more than a handful of orders a week, or sell to other EU countries, one invoice per order is nearly always right. The rest of this guide is about that.
By hand: one invoice per order
- Find or create the customer. Search your debtors in e-conomic by email or name. If the customer is not there, create them with the billing address from the order.
- Create an invoice with the order's lines. Shopify usually shows prices including VAT, but e-conomic works out the invoice excluding VAT. Divide each price by 1.25 for goods at 25% VAT, and use product numbers that exist in e-conomic, so the goods land in the right product group.
- Shipping on a line of its own. Shipping is part of the sale and carries the same VAT as the goods.
- Discounts. Write the list price and the discount in percent, so the customer sees what was given, instead of writing the reduced price straight away.
- Choose the VAT zone. It depends on where the customer lives and the VAT Shopify charged. See the next section.
- Check the total. The invoice's total must be exactly what the customer paid in Shopify, to the øre. A difference nearly always means a wrong VAT rate or a missing line.
- Book and send. The invoice date is the order date, so the sale falls in the right VAT period.
Example: order #1042
A customer in Denmark buys two bags of coffee beans at DKK 199.00 and a coffee grinder at DKK 449.00 with 10% off, plus shipping at DKK 49.00. The customer pays DKK 851.10. The invoice in e-conomic looks like this:
| Line | Qty | Amount excl. VAT |
|---|---|---|
| Coffee beans, 1 kg | 2 | 318.40 |
| Coffee grinder (list price 359.20, discount 10%) | 1 | 323.28 |
| Shipping | 1 | 39.20 |
| VAT 25% | 170.22 | |
| Total | 851.10 |
The total excluding VAT is DKK 680.88, the VAT DKK 170.22, and the total is the DKK 851.10 the customer paid.
VAT: Denmark, the EU, OSS and export
- Customer in Denmark: Danish VAT, 25%.
- Consumer in another EU country: As long as your total distance sales to consumers in other EU countries stay under EUR 10,000 a year, you charge Danish VAT. Above the threshold you charge the buyer's country's VAT and report it through One-Stop-Shop (OSS). In e-conomic that means one VAT zone per country.
- Business customer in another EU country with a valid VAT number: usually without VAT under the reverse charge. The buyer accounts for the VAT.
- Customer outside the EU: export without Danish VAT.
Shopify works out VAT from the shop's tax settings, so check that they fit your registration, especially above the OSS threshold. The VAT on the invoice must be the VAT Shopify actually charged, not what the customer's old debtor card in e-conomic points to.
Refunds, gift cards and fees
- Refunds become a credit note on the original invoice, also when only part of the order is refunded. The customer card then looks right, and the VAT goes back in the same period as the refund.
- Gift cards sold are usually not revenue when sold. A gift card that can be used on anything in the shop is a multi-purpose voucher, and the VAT comes when it is used. Until then it is a liability on a balance account.
- Gift cards used to pay are a payment, not a discount. The goods on the invoice keep their full price and VAT, and the gift card is deducted as a line without VAT.
- Payment fees (Shopify Payments, MobilePay) do not belong on the sales invoice. They come with the payout; see the guide to Shopify Payments payouts.
If you are unsure about VAT on gift cards or OSS, ask your accountant. The rules depend on what the gift card can be used for and on your total sales.
Common mistakes
- The payout booked as revenue. Shopify Payments pays out sales minus fees and refunds. Book the payout as sales, and revenue and VAT come out too low, and the fees disappear.
- Sales counted twice. If you make an invoice per order, the payout must not also be booked as sales. It should close the invoices.
- Prices including VAT entered as excluding VAT. The invoice then comes out 25% too high.
- The VAT zone from the debtor card. A customer who moves, or buys as a consumer once and as a business another time, needs the zone from the order.
- Forgotten refunds. A refund in Shopify that does not become a credit note leaves revenue too high and a debtor that never comes to zero.
Automatically with 2app
2app makes the same invoice for each order: customer, lines by product number, shipping, discount and VAT per country, OSS too. The total is held against what the customer paid, to the øre, and an order that does not match stops with an explanation instead of being sent. Refunds become credit notes, and gift cards become a payment on a VAT-free product number. You see the first invoices in a preview before anything is sent to e-conomic.