Accrued Liabilities: What They Are (With Ecommerce Examples)
Key takeaways An accrued liability is a cost you’ve already incurred but haven’t been billed or paid for yet, and it sits in current
Plain-English breakdowns of margin, cash flow, inventory, and Amazon economics, written for the operators running the business.
Contribution margin, COGS, pricing, promos
13-week forecasting, CCC, burn & runway
Reorder points, forecasting, landed cost
Budget vs actual, models, scenarios
Margin, CAC, retention & ops benchmarks
Ratios, KPI packs, public-company teardowns
FBA fees, ACoS/TACoS, reconciliation
Ecom accounting, COGS, cash vs accrual
Starting, funding, valuation, finance terms
Key takeaways An accrued liability is a cost you’ve already incurred but haven’t been billed or paid for yet, and it sits in current
Key takeaways Cash accounting records revenue and expenses when money moves; accrual records revenue when you earn it and costs when you incur them.
Key takeaways An inventory costing method is the rule that assigns cost to the units you sold (COGS) versus the units still on hand
Key takeaways The journal entry to record cost of goods sold is a debit to Cost of Goods Sold and a credit to Inventory
Key takeaways Outbound shipping runs about 8 to 15% of revenue gross for most ecommerce brands in 2026, and well-run operations hold net shipping
Key takeaways Burn rate is how much cash a business spends each month; net burn subtracts the revenue you collect, while gross burn counts
Key takeaways Amazon pays you a net deposit every two weeks (or weekly), already reduced by fees, refunds, advertising, and a held reserve, so
Key takeaways An ASIN (Amazon Standard Identification Number) is the unique 10-character alphanumeric code Amazon assigns to every product in its catalog. Most ASINs
Key takeaways ACoS (advertising cost of sale) is ad spend divided by ad-attributed sales; TACoS (total advertising cost of sale) divides the same ad
Key takeaways FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) means Amazon stores, packs, and ships your product; FBM (Fulfilled by Merchant) means you handle storage and shipping
You priced your product with a healthy margin, then the payout landed lighter than the math promised. Amazon’s fees are the reason, and there
Key takeaways Most tools sold as cash flow forecasting software sync to QuickBooks or Xero, not Shopify, so they forecast cash only after it
