Recording E-Commerce Orders

For DISTILL x 5 users in jurisdictions where direct-to-consumer or e-commerce sales are permitted, we understand that the need to maintain accurate inventory records (and account balances) are critical and can be onerous without a direct integration.* To assist, below is our best practice recommendation for keeping Dx5 records and accounting transactions up to date.

Note: This article assumes Shopify and an active accounting integration, but the fundamentals hold irrespective.

• Create a customer called "Shopify" (or something similar) to track all e-commerce orders. Shopify (and your accounting system) will have the itemized order information, so there's no risk of missing records on these transactions.
• On a periodic basis (we'd recommend weekly to maintain accurate inventory levels), create an order for all product shipped via Shopify since the last order.
  • As the income has been recorded in your accounting system, set all unit prices to $0.00.
  • If desired, include all applicable order numbers in the order notes.
  • Caveat for US-based distilleries: if your period crosses Excise Tax reporting cutoff dates (e.g. quarterly or semi-monthly), then you must take care to ensure your shipments are logged with the correct dates to ensure you are recording your Excise Tax liability in the correct period.
• Ship the order as normal. This will decrement inventory, record the COGS transactions in your accounting system, and create an invoice ($0) for the full order in the accounting system. You may either delete the invoice altogether or leave it for record purposes. 

*If you're interested in joining a Special Investment Group (or SIG, a coalition of interested parties) to share the cost of building a direct integration with Shopify (or another product), please reach out to us!