E-commerce Expense Management Checklist

Export channel-level spend from Shopify Analytics, Amazon Seller Central, Meta Ads Manager, and Google Ads. Roll up into one workbook so categories line up across platforms — direct ad spend per channel, marketplace referral and FBA fees, payment processing, and 3PL fulfillment cost per order. This baseline drives the forecast in the next step.

Use the trailing 90-day baseline plus seasonality (Q4 lifts, post-holiday dip). Forecast separately for Meta prospecting, Meta retargeting, Google Search, Google PMax, and Amazon Sponsored Products — these scale differently and bottom out at different efficiency floors.

Channel ROAS catches per-platform inefficiency; blended MER (total marketing spend / total net revenue) catches whether the business is actually profitable once cross-channel attribution overlap is netted out. Set both. Triple Whale or Northbeam typically reports MER as a daily series — pick the one source you'll hold yourself accountable to.

Daily budget caps enforce the forecast at the platform level. The classic failure is morning budget exhaustion — caps drain by 10am and peak-hour traffic goes to competitors. Use budget-pacing rules and watch PMax campaigns, which share budget pools across asset groups.

Set aside 2-5% of monthly net revenue. Stripe and Shopify Payments hold rolling reserves against disputes; Meta and Amazon can suspend ad accounts without warning, freezing both spend and revenue. The reserve covers a 2-week disruption without missing payroll.

Use A2X, Synder, or direct connectors to push transactions into QuickBooks or Xero. Marketplace fees, refunds, and platform reserves should land in their own GL accounts — not as net deposits. Net-deposit posting hides referral fees and inflates gross margin.

Amazon settlement reports break out gross sales, FBA fulfillment fees, referral fees, advertising charges, refunds, and reserves. Match each line to its GL account. Orphan amounts usually mean a fee category isn't mapped — common with FBA storage, long-term storage, and removal-order fees.

Klaviyo, Gorgias, Yotpo, Recharge, ShipStation, Triple Whale, and dozens of smaller Shopify apps accumulate. Categorize as marketing tech, customer service, fulfillment, or analytics so the contribution margin model stays clean and SaaS bloat shows up at audit time.

ShipBob, ShipMonk, and other 3PLs invoice with separate line items for pick-and-pack, storage, kitting, returns, and special handling. Import as separate cost centers so per-order fulfillment cost stays visible — averaging hides the SKUs that are unprofitable to ship.

Ramp, Brex, and Divvy auto-categorize most transactions but flag missing receipts. Chase any receipt missing more than 7 days — receipts go cold quickly and become a year-end audit headache.

Pull the active subscription list from Ramp/Vendr or your card statements. Tools showing zero usage in 30 days are cancellation candidates. Common offenders are Shopify apps installed for one launch and never uninstalled, and seat-based tools (Klaviyo, Gorgias) that scaled past actual usage.

Pick-and-pack rates compress with volume. If outbound volume has grown 30%+ since signing, request a tier review. Q4 peak-season surcharges are usually negotiable if raised before October.

UPS and FedEx GRI runs 5-7% annually plus surcharges (residential, fuel, demand-based). Audit your effective rate (negotiated minus surcharges) and benchmark against USPS Ground Advantage or regional carriers. Factor DIM weight changes — a packaging redesign often beats a rate negotiation.

Triple Whale, Northbeam, Hyros, Lifetimely — many merchants pay for two attribution stacks running in parallel because no one made the call. Pick one canonical source for MER and decommission the rest.

Track payment terms (Net 15, Net 30, Net 60), preferred payment method, and W-9 / 1099 status for each vendor. Net-60 vendors are working capital wins; missing W-9s become a January 31 scramble at 1099 time.

Confirm the per diem, current-year IRS mileage rate, and the dollar threshold above which extra approval is required. Post to the company wiki and link from the Ramp or Expensify policy page so submitters see it at the time of submission.

Submissions due 5 business days before payroll cutoff. Receipts required for any single item over $25. Late submissions slip to next cycle — communicate the cutoff clearly so it's not a surprise.

Any single reimbursement above the policy threshold (typically $500) needs VP-level approval before payroll runs. Scan this cycle's submissions and mark Yes if any item exceeds the threshold.

Forward each over-threshold item to the VP of finance with the receipt, business purpose, and GL category. Approval must come back before payroll cutoff or the reimbursement slips to next cycle.

Cutoff is typically 2 business days before payroll runs. Approve in Ramp/Expensify, push the batch to payroll (Gusto, Rippling, ADP), and confirm net-pay reflects the reimbursement amount.

Pull 5-10% of approved reimbursements at random. Verify business purpose, category, and receipt against policy. Findings feed the next quarterly policy update.

Channel contribution margin = revenue minus COGS, marketplace fees, payment processing, fulfillment, and direct ad spend. Roll up by channel (DTC Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, wholesale) so unprofitable channels don't hide inside blended numbers.

TACOS for Amazon (ad spend / Amazon revenue), MER for blended (total marketing spend / total net revenue). Compare both to the targets set at the start of the period and capture actuals below.

Identify which channel(s) drove the miss — usually one or two. For each, name the owner, the root-cause hypothesis (creative fatigue, audience saturation, iOS attribution shift, marketplace fee change), and the 30-day corrective action.

Materiality threshold is typically 10% of category budget or $5K, whichever is greater. For each variance, document root cause: forecast error, one-time event, or genuine trend. Trends drive the next-month forecast revision; one-time events do not.

Send the channel contribution margin report, TACOS/MER actuals, variance commentary, and any corrective action plans to leadership before the monthly business review.

Update next month's budget caps in Meta, Google, and Amazon based on this month's variance analysis. Reset ROAS/MER targets if structural shifts (Amazon referral fee change, iOS update, new tariff) require it.