If you started from scratch, what routine kept you accurate without overwhelm?
- Cash vs accrual,
- chart of accounts,
- receipt workflow, and
- monthly close checklist.
Hi @Cafn8me! To keep things simple and accurate at first:
- Use cash accounting to avoid complexity
- Keep a minimal chart of accounts (sales, COGS, ads, software, fees)
- Forward all receipts to one inbox for easy tracking
- Do a quick monthly close: reconcile bank + Shopify, check inventory, review a simple P&L
And for clean, real-time tracking, you can use GoProfit to automate revenue, COGS, fees, and profit visibility. Hope this helps
Cash accounting’s fine at the very start, but the moment inventory timing starts distorting your monthly picture (buying in bulk before a big sales month, etc.), accrual gives you a truer read on margin — worth switching before it becomes a headache to unwind retroactively.
For chart of accounts: don’t lump COGS into one line. Split it — product cost, shipping-in, and payment processing fees separately. That’s the single change that makes a P&L actually readable instead of guessing where your margin went.
Receipts: one forwarding email into whatever you’re using (Dext, Hubdoc, even just snapping into QBO) beats any folder system. The habit matters more than the tool.
Monthly close, keep it boring and repeatable: reconcile bank, reconcile Shopify payouts against actual deposits (this is where most errors hide — payout ≠ revenue), check inventory, glance at P&L for anything that moved oddly vs last month. Same four steps every time beats a long checklist you’ll eventually skip.