If you sell on Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify or TikTok Shop, the money that lands in your bank isn’t your sales figure. It’s what’s left after the platform has taken its fees, processed refunds and sometimes dealt with VAT. Link My Books is an app that takes each of those payouts apart and posts it into Xero properly, so your sales, costs and VAT are right without anyone keying in settlement reports by hand.
We use Link My Books with our own ecommerce clients and include it in our packages, so this isn’t a neutral review: it’s how the tool works in practice, where it helps and where it doesn’t. It is general information, not advice for your business.
The short verdict
- Who it’s for: UK sellers using Xero (or QuickBooks) who sell on one or more marketplaces or their own online store, especially if they’re VAT registered.
- What it does: turns every marketplace payout into a summary entry in Xero, with sales, refunds, fees and tax split out, then matches it to the deposit in your bank feed.
- What it costs: from £15 a month plus VAT for the smallest plan in October 2026, rising with your order volume and number of sales channels.
- Who can skip it: occasional sellers with a handful of orders a month, who can record payouts manually.
What Link My Books does
Link My Books connects to your sales channels and to your accounting software. According to Link My Books, it works with Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Shopify, Walmart, TikTok Shop, WooCommerce and Square, and posts to either Xero or QuickBooks.
Each time a channel pays you, it reads the settlement data behind that payout and creates a summary invoice in Xero. Sales, refunds, marketplace fees, advertising and taxes are each mapped to the right account and VAT rate. When the money arrives in your bank feed, Xero matches it to that invoice, so reconciling a payout is one click rather than a spreadsheet. For an Amazon example, see our guide to reconciling Amazon payouts in Xero.
Its other main features, per Link My Books, are:
- Cost of goods sold tracking, so your profit reflects the stock you’ve actually sold
- VAT product grouping, which applies standard, reduced and zero rates to the right products automatically
- Amazon deferred payments, so Amazon revenue lands in the period it was earned rather than when the cash is released
How it handles VAT
VAT is where marketplace bookkeeping most often goes wrong, and where the tool earns its keep.
The common mistake is to treat the net payout as sales. That understates your turnover, because fees have already been deducted, and it gets your VAT wrong both ways: output VAT on sales is calculated on the wrong figure, and the VAT charged on the platform’s own fees is never reclaimed.
Here’s a simplified example of one payout:
| Line in Xero | Amount | VAT |
|---|---|---|
| Sales (including 20% VAT) | £1,000.00 | £166.67 output VAT |
| Refunds (including 20% VAT) | −£50.00 | −£8.33 output VAT |
| Marketplace fees | −£150.00 | |
| VAT charged on those fees | −£30.00 | £30.00 input VAT |
| Payout received | £770.00 |
Post the £770 as sales and you’d under-declare output VAT and miss the £30 you can reclaim. Split it as above and both are right. Real payouts have more lines, such as advertising, fulfilment fees and reimbursements, which is exactly why doing it by hand gets slow. The figures here are illustrative only.
Link My Books doesn’t file your VAT return itself. It gets the right numbers into Xero, and the return is then submitted from Xero, which Xero says is HMRC-recognised software for Making Tax Digital for VAT.
Setting it up with Xero
- Start the trial and connect Xero. Link My Books offers a 14-day free trial with no card required.
- Connect your sales channels. Each marketplace or store is authorised separately.
- Map accounts and tax rates. This is the step that matters most. Each type of transaction (sales, refunds, fees, advertising, shipping) is pointed at an account in Xero with the right VAT treatment for your business.
- Choose how far back to go. Plans include a set number of months of historical payouts, from 3 months on the smallest plan.
- Import and reconcile. Payouts are posted to Xero as summary invoices and matched to your bank feed.
Every plan includes a free onboarding call with the Link My Books team. The mistakes we see most often are VAT rates set up for the wrong scheme, Shopify payouts recorded twice (once from the bank feed and once from the app), and past periods imported into a Xero file that was already reconciled another way.
Pricing
Link My Books prices by how many orders you receive per month across all channels (a rolling 12-month average), and by how many sales channels and months of history you need. Prices are per month and exclude VAT. Figures from the Link My Books pricing page in October 2026:
| Orders per month | 1 sales channel | 2 sales channels |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 15 | £15 | £20 |
| 16 to 50 | £16 | £21 |
| 51 to 100 | £17 | £22 |
| 101 to 200 | £18 | £24 |
| 201 to 500 | £26 | £32 |
| 501 to 1,000 | £35 | £41 |
| 1,001 to 2,500 | £42 | £49 |
The 1-channel plans include 3 months of historical data and the 2-channel plans include 12. Larger plans cover 5 or 10 channels and more history. Link My Books counts regions separately, so selling on Amazon in Europe and North America needs a 2-channel plan.
For eAccounts clients, Link My Books is included in the package, so there’s no separate subscription.
Link My Books or A2X?
A2X is the other app UK sellers most often compare. It also connects Amazon, Shopify and eBay to Xero and QuickBooks (A2X). The practical differences come down to which channels you sell on, how each tool prices your volume, and how well its VAT settings fit your business. Both have trials, so the fairest test is to connect your own channels and check a month of payouts against your settlement reports.
Pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Turns payouts into accurate, VAT-split entries automatically | The initial account and VAT mapping needs care, and mistakes repeat every payout until fixed |
| Covers the main UK marketplaces and stores in one app | Cost rises with order volume and channel count |
| Low entry price for small sellers | Messy historic Xero data can make importing past periods awkward |
| Cost of goods and deferred-payment handling built in | It records the numbers, but doesn’t tell you whether your VAT scheme or treatment is right |
Who should use it, and who doesn’t need it
It’s worth it if you’re VAT registered, sell on more than one channel, or have more payouts than you want to reconcile by hand. It’s close to essential once your order volume makes settlement reports unmanageable.
You can probably skip it if you sell occasionally, for example clearing out unwanted items on Vinted or eBay. In that case the bigger question is usually whether you need to tell HMRC at all, which we cover in our guide to when HMRC finds out about your Vinted, eBay and Etsy sales.
Do you still need an accountant?
Link My Books gets accurate numbers into Xero. It doesn’t decide which VAT scheme suits you, check that your product tax codes are right, or prepare your year-end accounts and tax return. That’s where an accountant who knows marketplaces comes in, and where a correctly mapped setup from day one saves fixing months of entries later.
At eAccounts we set up Link My Books and Xero for our ecommerce clients and include both in the package, which starts at £29 + VAT per month. See how it works for Amazon FBA, eBay, Etsy, Shopify and TikTok Shop sellers, or read more about our Xero accountants service.
Common questions
Does Link My Books work with QuickBooks?
Yes. Every sales channel it supports can post to either Xero or QuickBooks.
Is Link My Books MTD compliant?
It doesn’t submit VAT returns itself. It posts your sales and fees into Xero or QuickBooks, and the VAT return is filed from there using HMRC-recognised software.
How far back can Link My Books import sales?
It depends on your plan: 3 months on the smallest 1-channel plans, 12 months on 2-channel plans and more on larger plans.
Is there a free trial?
Yes, 14 days, and no card is needed to start.
Do I still need an accountant if I use Link My Books?
Not legally, but the tool only records what it’s set up to record. An accountant checks the setup, your VAT treatment and your year-end figures.
Use Link My Books with eAccounts
If you’d rather not set it up yourself, we’ll connect your channels, map them to Xero and run your VAT returns and accounts from the results. Get a quote in about 2 minutes, or see our ecommerce accountants page.
General information as at October 2026, not advice for a specific business. App prices and features change, so check the provider’s site before you buy.
Lewis shares practical guidance for UK businesses on accounting, tax and digital compliance.
