Shopify Sage Integration: Your Options Compared

Option 1: a summary for each Shopify payout

Shopify pays your takings into your bank in batches, called payouts. A summary tool posts one entry to Sage for each payout, broken down into sales, fees, refunds and anything else that made up the deposit.

A2X works this way. It turns each Shopify payout into an invoice that reflects the breakdown of the bank deposit, and once it's sent to Sage it's matched to the matching deposit in your bank feed. A2X says it supports Sage Business Cloud UK and Sage One UK on the Plus plan directly, with other Sage plans, including Sage 50, by contacting its customer success team first.

Suits: shops with lots of orders, where what matters to the accountant is that sales, fees and refunds are right and the bank reconciles.

Option 2: an app that sends every order

An order-by-order app creates a record in Sage for each Shopify order.

Sage Accounting by Combidesk, on the Shopify App Store, connects Shopify to Sage Accounting. It books orders as sales invoices or sales entries, books refunds as credit notes, creates new Shopify buyers as customers in Sage, and matches Shopify's tax rates to your Sage VAT rates. Booking Shopify Payments payouts, to help with bank reconciliation, is only included on its "Including Payments" plans, and how often it syncs depends on the plan: every 60 minutes on Standard, almost in real time on Pro and Premium.

Zynk offers Shopify connections too. Its documentation describes a Shopify and Sage 50 UK solution that sends customers, products and orders from Shopify into Sage 50 and sends stock levels from Sage 50 back to Shopify. It needs to be installed on a Windows server or desktop that stays switched on. Zynk's listing on the Sage UK Marketplace describes a Sage Accounting connection covering orders, payments, refunds and stock.

Suits: shops that want to see each customer and order in Sage, at volumes where one invoice per order stays manageable.

Summaries or one invoice per order?

This is the real decision, and it's worth asking your accountant:

• One summary per payout keeps Sage tidy. Each entry matches a deposit in your bank, so reconciling is quick, and fees and refunds are already split out. You don't see individual customers in Sage, but Shopify still has every order.
• One invoice per order gives you every customer and order in Sage. That's useful if you sell to trade customers on account, or if your accountant wants that detail. The cost is volume: thousands of invoices a month, each of which has to match a payment, and more for an app to get wrong.

Neither is better in general. For most shops selling to the public, payout summaries are simpler to live with. For shops with trade accounts or detailed reporting needs, order-by-order can be worth it.

Option 3: a custom sync

A custom sync is built around your rules rather than an app's. It makes sense when:

• your VAT is more complicated than an app handles, such as mixed rates or items that need recording in a particular way
• you run several Shopify stores into one Sage business, each with its own rules
• stock or prices are managed in Sage and need sending back to Shopify
• you need both: summaries for the bank and order detail for trade customers

It costs more up front than an app, but it does exactly what you and your accountant agree, and failures are caught and flagged rather than quietly skipped. See Sage Accounting integration, and for prices, what a Sage integration costs.

Sage Accounting or Sage 50?

Sage Accounting is Sage's cloud software, with an API (version 3.1, for the UK and Ireland) that apps and custom integrations use. Most of the options above connect to it.

Sage 50 is Sage's desktop software. It connects to other systems differently, so check that any app you're considering says it supports Sage 50 specifically. If you use Sage 50, tell me which version and how it's set up, and I'll advise on the options.

Before you connect anything

Make sure Shopify is set up the way you want it in your books: tax settings, payment methods and how refunds are handled. Any problem in the shop will be copied straight into Sage. If the store itself needs work, see Shopify fixes, or for a new store, Shopify web design.

If you'd like a price for a custom sync, send a short spec by WhatsApp, text, email or the form: which Sage you use, how many stores you run, and what you copy into Sage by hand now. See Sage Accounting integration for the details.