Amazon Business and Your Accounting System

"Connect Amazon Business to QuickBooks" is one of the highest intent queries in this whole category, and the honest answer is more modest than the query implies. What Amazon documents is a good reporting layer with a clean export. That is what we will describe, rather than inventing a connector flow.

The documented reconciliation route

Amazon's steps, verbatim in substance:

1. Select Business Analytics from the Your Account menu.
2. Select the report type from the Reports dropdown.
3. Use the Filter and Transaction Date settings to view the right invoices.
4. Select Generate report to create and download it in CSV format.

Amazon calls out two report types specifically:

• Business Credit Account report — charges and refunds at line-item detail, for reconciling against your Business Credit Account PDF documents.
• Reconciliation report — for comparing order and payment history against your own records.

Line-item detail is the phrase that matters. A card statement gives you a single Amazon charge for a mixed basket; the line-item report gives you the basket. That is the difference between coding one expense line to "Amazon" and coding six lines to the correct accounts.

Roles decide who can do this

Reporting is role-gated, and it catches people out during setup. Amazon states that account administrators and finance users can generate Business Analytics reports, and separately that contacts without finance or administrator permissions cannot access invoices, credit memos, reporting or payment functions.

So if your bookkeeper is an external contractor added as an ordinary buyer, they cannot pull the reports they need. Give them the finance role before the first month end, not during it — see how to add users to Amazon Business.

What makes the export actually reconcile

A CSV of order lines is only useful if it carries a reference your accounting system recognizes. Three settings do that work, and all three are free:

1. PO numbers. Amazon states the PO number displays in Business Analytics reports. Turn PO capture on and mark it required, and every exported line carries your reference. See purchase orders and PO numbers.
2. Groups. Scoping buyers into groups gives you a dimension to code against — site, department, cost center — without any extra data entry. See multi-user accounts and approvals.
3. Shared versus individual payment methods. This determines whose statement the charge lands on and therefore which reconciliation it belongs in. It also determines what survives if the account is ever closed — see how to close an Amazon Business account.

Invoice templates, if you are on a Business Credit Account

If Amazon has invited your account onto the Business Credit Account, the invoicing side becomes considerably more configurable. Amazon states an administrator must set up at least one invoice template before the facility can be used, and that templates control:

• Billing address shown on the invoices.
• Invoice frequency — Amazon names per purchase or monthly as the preference options.
• Invoice recipient — the email address receiving PDF invoices and credit memos, with invoices also accessible from the Your Invoices page.
• Managed groups — which groups can buy using the template.

Amazon explicitly names the use cases templates exist for: decentralized accounts payable departments, multiple business locations, or different purchase order (PO) numbers. If any of those describe you, set up more than one template — see invoices and receipts and Pay by Invoice and net terms.

Setting Amazon up as a vendor

A detail that saves a week of back-and-forth with a finance department. Amazon publishes documents for setting itself up as a vendor or supplier in your system:

• Supplier Setup Document — information for check, wire and ACH payments, including Amazon Business address, banking information, bank address and the virtual bank account (VBA) specific to your customer account.
• Amazon Capital Services W9 — company address, TIN and exemption coding.
• Amazon Capital Affirmation Letter — the official bank letter confirming Amazon's collaboration with Wells Fargo Bank.
• Authorization for Direct Deposit via ACH form.

One warning Amazon states outright, and it is the kind of thing that creates a month-long payment trace if ignored: do not issue wire or ACH payments to the Wells Fargo main account — issue them to the Wells Fargo VBA associated with your customer account.

The QuickBooks discount, honestly valued

Amazon lists 60% off QuickBooks Online Simple Start as a benefit arriving with Essentials at $179/year.

Two qualifications. Simple Start is Intuit's entry plan, so the offer is scoped to the cheapest tier rather than the product range. And as with every bundled software discount, it is worth exactly what it saves on a line you were already going to buy. A business already running a higher QuickBooks plan or a different package saves nothing here. The full set of bundled offers is on Business Prime member exclusives.

A workable month-end routine

1. Confirm your bookkeeper holds the finance role.
2. Run the Reconciliation report filtered to the month, download as CSV.
3. If you invoice through the Business Credit Account, run the Business Credit Account report too and match it to the PDF invoices.
4. Code by PO number and group rather than by guessing from product names.
5. Investigate any line with no PO reference — that is your control working.

For what the reporting layer can and cannot tell you, and where the paid analytics product starts, see Spend Visibility and reporting.