How Your 3PL Should Be Supporting Your Ecommerce Accounting Team

Last Updated: June 25, 2025

Most growing ecommerce businesses think of their 3PL as just a shipping partner—but it’s so much more than that. 

Your 3PL isn’t just responsible for getting orders out the door. Because they also manage your inventory—and inventory is cash—they play a critical role in your financial operations. This makes your relationship with your 3PL not only operational but deeply financial, with a direct impact on your accounting, cash flow, and margin clarity. 

There are obvious ways a 3PL or fulfillment provider supports the financial and administrative side of your business: accurate, timely invoicing; reporting on inventory volumes; and clear itemization of costs like storage fees, shipping rates, and special projects. But to really scale efficiently and avoid surprises at month-end, your 3PL should be operating with finance-aligned best practices. 

Below are the core ways your 3PL should be directly supporting your accounting team—and if they’re not, it’s time to start asking for more. 

Inventory Reporting  

Your finance and accounting team will need to have a clear view of your real-time inventory at all times. Some may choose to publish a report at month- or quarter-end, but the more access they have, the better.  

What is in an inventory report? A comprehensive inventory report should account for stock levels across all SKUs, including on-hand, reserved, and damaged inventory. Having this in real-time will help show any inefficiencies or issues. 

What is the benefit of a month- or quarter-end inventory report? Having a report on a consistent basis will give your accounting team a clean report at each designated time. This will help them have accurate COGS and balance sheet reporting.  

How do you ensure accurate inventory reports? The best way to ensure all reports are accurate is to count physical inventory regularly. Most brands need an annual cycle count or physical inventory count, at a minimum. Some will need this quarterly. This is often done in Q1 to account for a year-end audit. 

COGS Support 

The cost of goods sold (COGS) represents the direct costs associated with producing the goods a company sells during a specific accounting period. Understanding COGS is essential for businesses of all sizes.  

Because fulfillment is a cost that needs to be added to the COGS, your 3PL should be supplying specific data and invoice details that helps your accounting team understand every cost going into each product.  

Some key details you should look for in your 3PL’s invoice:  

• Shipping and Fulfillment Data by Order. You’ll want exportable data (CSV/API) showing shipping costs per order, packaging used, and handling fees to allocate fulfillment-related COGS.  
• Custom Project Costs. If kitting, bundling, or repackaging is done, itemize costs by SKU/project to track margins. 

Returns and Write-Off Data 

Managing returns is often an under-considered aspect of ecommerce. So many customers buy online with the full intention of returning the goods. But not everything will be in resell-able condition. It’s important for the accounting team to track what inventory is sellable and what is disposed of.  

Returns reports are detailed logs of returned items. The best case is if they can be sorted or tagged by reason and outcome (disposed, resold, damaged, etc). Associated costs can be deducted and used when balancing the books.  

Write-offs and adjustments should be reported to document inventory losses. This may be from shrinkage, expiration, damage, or other factors.  

Quality Checks and Inventory Accuracy 

Having an accurate report of inventory levels is the most critical aspect of financial accounting for an ecommerce business. And you can’t have an accurate report until you first do a comprehensive quality check.  

Here are some examples of quality reports your 3PL should be doing to support your brand’s accounting team.  

• Inbound Quality Control Reports: When inventory arrives at the 3PL, QC checks (on a percentage of units or full batches) can surface damaged, mislabeled, or non-compliant products. These reports help the accounting team catch discrepancies before goods are booked as available inventory. 
• Ongoing QC Spot Checks: Periodic inventory audits of storage bins or pick stations can uncover mis-picks, incorrect labeling, or product degradation. This supports inventory valuation accuracy and helps reduce costly fulfillment errors.  
• Tied to Write-Offs: QC outcomes should flow into the returns/write-off reporting. For example, if 2% of inbound units fail QC and are deemed unsellable, those units should be flagged for accounting to write down. If you’re paying a manufacturer for 10,000 units, but 3PL QC shows 500 arrived damaged, your accounting team has leverage to dispute the invoice or recover costs. 

Data Access and Tracking

Some 3PLs may not have the technology infrastructure to give you access to real-time data. But the more data you can get, the better you’ll be able to balance your books, forecast, and grow your business.  

Ideally your 3PL will allow the accounting team access to data they can pull on demand. There are two ways to do this:  

1. A self-service portal to pull historical invoices, inventory snapshots, and shipping logs. This gives them the control and flexibility they need to do their job right.  
2. APIs or automated reports to ensure data feeds into the brand’s ERP or accounting system (e.g., NetSuite, QuickBooks, Xero). 

For tax and financial audits, they will need documentation for all transactions for 3–7 years.  

Bottom Line  

Your 3PL isn’t just a logistics partner—they’re a financial ally. From accurate inventory reports and COGS data to return write-offs and real-time tracking, the right 3PL can significantly streamline your accounting operations and help you scale smarter.

If your current provider isn’t delivering these financial best practices, it may be time to raise expectations—or start exploring better-fit partners. Solid financials start with solid operations, and your 3PL is at the core of both.