Your Shopify store is running smoothly, orders are coming in and invoices are being created in Moneybird. But are you actually booking everything to the right ledger account? Many webshop owners default to a single revenue account for all sales, while properly distributing revenue across ledger accounts gives you much deeper insight into your business performance.
Why ledger accounts matter for your Shopify store
A ledger account is essentially a category that groups your income and expenses. Moneybird comes with a few default accounts like “Revenue” and “Cost of Goods Sold”. But when everything goes into one big bucket, you miss out on valuable information. You know your total revenue, but not which product categories contribute the most.
Imagine you run a webshop selling both clothing and accessories. If everything is booked to the same revenue account, you cannot see that clothing sales are stagnating while accessories are growing. By using separate ledger accounts per product category, you immediately gain insight into which product lines are profitable and which need attention.
Additionally, Dutch tax authorities (Belastingdienst) may require a detailed annual report depending on your business structure. A well-organized general ledger makes preparing this report significantly easier and saves your accountant hours of work.
Setting up ledger accounts in Moneybird
Moneybird offers a limited number of default ledger accounts, but you can create as many as you need. The key is finding a balance between detail and clarity. Too few accounts and you lack insight, too many and you lose the overview.
A practical approach is to create ledger accounts that match your Shopify product categories. If you sell on Shopify in the categories “Electronics”, “Accessories” and “Software”, create three separate revenue accounts in Moneybird. This way you can see at a glance how each category performs without having to dig through individual invoices.
To create ledger accounts in Moneybird, navigate to Settings, then Ledger Accounts and click New. Give the account a clear name that matches your Shopify category and select the type “Revenue”. Do not forget to link the correct VAT rate if it differs per product category, something you can configure through your VAT settings for Shopify and Moneybird.
Structuring your Shopify product categories
The way you organize your products in Shopify directly impacts how clean your bookkeeping looks. Shopify uses product types, collections and tags. For accounting purposes, the product type is most relevant because it is the easiest to link to a ledger account.
Think about what level of detail makes sense before you start. A webshop with ten products probably needs only two or three ledger accounts. But if you sell hundreds of products across different categories, it pays to be more specific. The rule of thumb: if you want to see how a category performs in your quarterly figures, that category deserves its own ledger account.
Also keep in mind that your product categories must be consistent. If you sometimes use “T-shirt” and sometimes “T-shirts” or “Tshirt” as a product type in Shopify, these are treated as different categories. Cleaning up your Shopify product types before setting up the integration saves you headaches in your bookkeeping later.
Automating the Shopify to Moneybird mapping
Manually assigning ledger accounts to each invoice is not only time-consuming, it is also error-prone. For every order, you need to check which products it contains, select the correct account and ensure the VAT rate is right. Do this for twenty orders per day and you quickly spend an hour on work that requires no human judgment.
Schakel makes it possible to automatically map Shopify product types to Moneybird ledger accounts. You configure once which product type goes to which account and from that point on, it happens automatically. Every invoice created through automatic Shopify invoicing contains the correct ledger account per invoice line from the start.
This means an order containing both an “Electronics” and an “Accessories” product is neatly split across two ledger accounts on the same invoice. Your bookkeeping is correct from the first moment, without you having to look at it.
Common mistakes with ledger accounts
The most common mistake is using only one revenue account for all sales. This works fine when you are just starting out, but as you grow and offer more products, you miss the insight you need to make good decisions. When your accountant asks at the end of the year how your revenue is distributed per category, all you can do is guess.
Another frequent mistake is changing ledger accounts midway through the fiscal year. If you decide halfway through the year to reorganize your accounts, you need to update all previous invoices. This is not only a lot of work, it can also lead to inconsistencies in your reports. It is better to start correctly from the beginning and set up your ledger before activating the automatic integration.
Finally, many entrepreneurs forget to book shipping costs separately. Shopify adds shipping costs as a separate invoice line. By using a specific ledger account for this, you can see exactly how much you charge for shipping and compare it with your actual shipping costs. Combined with invoice tags in Schakel, this gives you a complete financial picture.
Practical example: a webshop with three product categories
Consider a webshop selling pet food, toys and grooming products. In Shopify, you set up three product types: “Food”, “Toys” and “Grooming”. In Moneybird, you create three revenue accounts with the same names.
Through Schakel, you map each product type to the corresponding account. When a customer orders a bag of dog food and a chew toy, the invoice is automatically created with two lines: the food on ledger account “Food” and the toy on “Toys”. At the end of the quarter, you open your Moneybird reports and immediately see that food accounts for 60% of your revenue, toys for 25% and grooming for 15%.
With that information, you can make targeted decisions. Perhaps you invest more in marketing for grooming products, or expand your food range because that category is growing the fastest. Without separate ledger accounts, you simply would not have had these insights.
Get started with your ledger accounts
A well-organized general ledger is the foundation of healthy bookkeeping. By smartly mapping your Shopify product categories to Moneybird ledger accounts, you not only save time but also gain the insight you need to grow your webshop. Start by cleaning up your product types in Shopify, set up the corresponding accounts in Moneybird, and let automation handle the rest.
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