A2X, or do it manually? An honest comparison
On one low-volume channel the subscription and the manual work cost about the same, so the honest answer is often no. Here is exactly where that flips — and we earn nothing either way.
A2X is good software. It is also sold to a lot of businesses that do not need
it yet, usually by people who earn something when it is bought. So here is the
case for and against, including the part where the answer is no.
What A2X actually does is narrow: it reads your Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Etsy
or Walmart payouts, breaks each one into its component parts — sales,
fees, refunds, shipping, sales tax — and posts a summarised journal into
QuickBooks or Xero that reconciles exactly to the deposit. It does the job
described in our Shopify and Amazon guides, automatically, every time.
A2X does not fix your books. It stops one specific error from recurring. Those are different purchases.
The arithmetic
The only honest way to decide is to compare the subscription against the time
it replaces, at whatever your time is actually worth.
| Manual | A2X | |
|---|---|---|
| Time per settlement | 15–25 min | 2–3 min review |
| Settlements per year (one channel) | 26 | 26 |
| Hours per year | 6.5–11 | 1–1.5 |
| Software cost | $0 | ~$228–$708 |
| Cost of the time at $50/hr | $325–$550 | $50–$75 |
| Total, one channel | $325–$550 | $278–$783 |
On a single channel the two are roughly level, which is why the answer is genuinely ‘it depends’. Add channels and the manual column multiplies while the software column barely moves.
When A2X is worth it
- Two or more sales channels. This is the strongest case by a
distance. Manual work scales linearly with channels; A2X does not. - You are on FBA with real volume. Amazon settlements have twenty-odd
line types and change as Amazon adds fee categories. Doing that by hand
every fortnight is where mistakes creep in. - Someone else does your bookkeeping by the hour. Then the software
cost is compared against a real invoice, not against your own unbilled
evenings, and it usually wins outright. - You are heading for a raise, a loan or a sale. Consistent,
reconcilable, auditable revenue postings matter far more than the
subscription costs. - You have deferred revenue or multi-currency settlements. Getting
these right by hand every period is real work with real risk.
When it is not
- One channel, under roughly 200 orders a month. A monthly journal
takes twenty minutes. Buying software to save twenty minutes a month is a
fine choice if you hate the twenty minutes, and a poor one if you are
counting costs. - Your books are already wrong in more fundamental ways. If COGS is
inventory purchases and your chart of accounts has forty overlapping
expenses, A2X will post beautifully accurate revenue into a set of books
that still cannot tell you whether you made money. Fix the foundation
first — the software will still be there afterwards. - You are pre-revenue or barely trading. Automating a process you do
twice a quarter is a subscription in exchange for nothing. - You will not review what it posts. A2X maps settlement lines to
accounts, and that mapping needs setting up correctly and checking when
marketplaces add fee types. Unreviewed, it automates a mapping error into
every period instead of one.
What we do, and why we are not neutral. We are not an A2X affiliate
and earn nothing either way. We use it where clients have multiple channels or
meaningful Amazon volume, and we write manual journals where they do not,
because on one low-volume channel the subscription genuinely is not earning its
place. If someone recommends it before asking how many channels you sell on,
they are not answering your question.
The alternatives, honestly
Link My Books does substantially the same job, often cheaper at low
volume, with strong Shopify and Etsy support. Bookkeep and
Synder cover more payment platforms and suit businesses whose complexity
is in processors rather than marketplaces. Doing it manually remains a
perfectly respectable answer at low volume, and it has the underrated benefit
that you learn what is in your own settlements.
The one option with no defence is booking the deposit as revenue because the
software felt expensive. That is not saving $228 a year; it is giving up the
ability to know your own margin.
Questions we get asked
01Do I need A2X if I only sell on Shopify?
02Does A2X fix books that are already wrong?
03Do you get a commission for recommending A2X?
04What are the alternatives?
05Will A2X change my historical figures?
Not sure whether this is happening in your books?
Give us view-only access and we will tell you, in plain English, what is misclassified, unreconciled or wrong — within 48 hours. Free, and you are under no obligation to do anything about it.