A2X vs Link My Books: An Honest Comparison from Ecommerce Accountants

If you’ve been trying to work out whether to use A2X or Link My Books for your ecommerce accounting, you’re not alone. It’s one of the questions we get asked most often by clients who are setting up Xero for the first time or switching from a system that wasn’t working.

Both tools do the same core job: they take the messy payout data from platforms like Amazon, Shopify, and eBay and turn it into clean, structured entries in your accounting software. Without something like this, you’re either manually reconciling every settlement or your books are a mess. Neither is a good option.

We’ve used both with clients across different types of ecommerce businesses. We’ve also asked a number of those clients which they prefer and why. Here’s our honest take.

What both tools actually do

When you sell on Amazon or Shopify, the money that lands in your bank account isn’t just “sales.” It’s a net figure after platform fees, refunds, advertising costs, FBA charges, and various other deductions have been taken out. That single bank deposit needs to be broken down properly in your accounts, otherwise your numbers are meaningless.

A2X and Link My Books both automate that breakdown. They pull in your settlement data, categorise each component, apply the right VAT treatment, and post a summary entry to Xero or QuickBooks that matches your bank payout exactly. Reconciliation then takes seconds rather than hours.

Where they differ is in how they do it, who they’re designed for, and how much they cost.

A2X: what it does well

A2X has been around longer and has a strong reputation among accountants. It’s used by over 13,000 ecommerce businesses worldwide and has won Xero’s UK Practice App of the Year. That’s not nothing.

From an accountant’s perspective, what we like about A2X is the level of control it gives you over how data is mapped to your chart of accounts. You can get very precise about where each transaction type lands, which matters when you’re dealing with multi-currency sales, COGS tracking, or complex VAT situations. For larger, more complex sellers, that granularity is genuinely useful.

It also handles a wide range of platforms including Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Etsy, and Walmart, and supports multi-channel setups well. The accrual accounting approach it uses is technically the more accurate method, which is another reason accountants tend to favour it.

The honest downside: it takes longer to set up and configure properly. Initial mapping requires some accounting knowledge to get right, and it’s priced per sales channel, which adds up if you’re selling across multiple platforms. Pricing starts at around £20 to £30 per month per channel depending on order volume.

Link My Books: what it does well

Link My Books came along a bit later and positioned itself as the more seller-friendly option. Setup is faster, the interface is cleaner, and you don’t need to understand accounting deeply to get it working. For ecommerce sellers who handle their own books and want something that just works without much configuration, it’s a solid choice.

It’s also generally cheaper, particularly for multi-channel sellers. Rather than charging per channel, it uses an order-based pricing model which tends to work out better value for businesses selling across Amazon, eBay, and Shopify simultaneously.

VAT handling is a strong point too. Link My Books has clearly been built with UK and EU compliance in mind, and it handles the automatic application of different VAT rates across platforms without much manual input. For sellers who find VAT confusing, that’s reassuring.

The trade-off is depth. For straightforward businesses with one or two channels and consistent product types, Link My Books does everything you need. But for sellers with complex setups, COGS tracking requirements, or nuanced VAT situations, the level of control A2X offers becomes more relevant.

What our clients actually think

We asked a few clients who’ve used one or both tools what their experience has been. The honest answer is it splits fairly cleanly along the lines of how hands-on they want to be.

Clients who manage their own books tend to prefer Link My Books. The setup took them less time, the interface made more sense to them without accountancy training, and they felt confident using it independently. A few mentioned that A2X felt a bit more technical during setup and they weren’t sure they’d configured it correctly until we checked it.

Clients who leave the bookkeeping entirely to us, particularly those with higher order volumes or multiple channels, tend to be on A2X. The additional setup time is handled on our end and the payoff is data we can trust completely, with the level of detail we need to produce accurate management accounts and handle year-end efficiently.

One client selling across Amazon, Shopify, and eBay tried Link My Books first on their own, then moved to A2X when they took us on. Their comment was that Link My Books “did the job” but A2X gave their accountant (us) much cleaner data to work with. That’s a fair summary.

Our view as ecommerce accountants

We don’t have a blanket recommendation because the right tool genuinely depends on your situation. But here’s roughly how we think about it.

If you’re a smaller seller managing your own books, selling on one or two platforms, and you want something quick and affordable to get set up, Link My Books is a sensible starting point. You’ll get accurate reconciliation without needing to understand the accounting detail behind it.

If you’re working with us or another ecommerce accountant, have higher order volumes, sell across multiple channels, or need detailed management reporting and COGS tracking, A2X is the better tool. The setup takes longer but the data quality is higher, and that matters when you’re making decisions based on your numbers.

Either way, using one of these tools is significantly better than not using one. If you’re currently manually reconciling your ecommerce settlements, that’s time you shouldn’t be spending.

Not sure which is right for your setup?

We help ecommerce businesses get their accounting software set up properly, whether that’s A2X, Link My Books, or a combination of tools that fits how you operate. If you’d like a second opinion on what would work best for your store, get in touch and we’ll take a look.