E-commerce Financial Controller Job Description: Build SKU Costing, 13-Week Cash Forecast, Tax Compliance

The Critical Shift from Bookkeeper to Controller

Many founders ask, “I have a bookkeeper. Isn’t that enough?” For an early-stage business, a bookkeeper is essential for recording the past. But as you scale, a controller becomes necessary for building the financial infrastructure for the present and future. A bookkeeper ensures transactions from Shopify Payments or Stripe are correctly categorized and bank accounts are reconciled. Their work is fundamentally historical, answering the question, “What happened last month?”

A controller, in contrast, designs and manages the systems that give those historical numbers meaning and predictive power. This is a forward-looking function, focused on creating reliable data for strategic decisions. They do not just record sales; they build a process to recognize revenue accurately across multiple channels, accounting for refunds, platform fees, and discounts. They do not just log an inventory purchase; they create a system to calculate accurate, SKU-level landed costs. While a bookkeeper manages the ledger, a controller builds the financial engine of the business.

This distinction is crucial. A bookkeeper's role is compliance and record-keeping, ensuring the books are clean. A controller’s role is operational and strategic, turning those clean books into a tool for decision-making. This function is a core component of e-commerce controller responsibilities.

What Does a Financial Controller Do in E-commerce Startups? The Three Core Domains

In a scaling e-commerce company, a controller’s work clusters into three critical domains. These areas directly address the most common financial pain points for growing online brands, moving the business from reactive record-keeping to proactive financial management.

1. Mastering Unit Economics and Inventory Accounting

The most pressing question for an e-commerce founder is, “Am I actually making money on each thing I sell?” A controller moves beyond blended or estimated Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) to provide a definitive answer. Their primary task is implementing a robust system for calculating landed cost for every single SKU. This figure includes the supplier's purchase price plus all variable costs required to get that specific product into a customer's hands.

These variable costs in inventory accounting for online stores typically include:

• International and domestic freight
• Import duties and customs fees
• 3PL or warehouse receiving and inbound fees
• Payment processing fees (e.g., Stripe, Shopify Payments)
• Product packaging and labels

Consider a company selling specialty coffee beans. A bookkeeper might record a $5,000 payment to a supplier in Colombia for 500 bags of coffee, resulting in a COGS of $10 per bag. The controller digs deeper. They add $500 in international freight, $250 in import duties, and $400 in 3PL receiving fees. The total cost is now $6,150, making the initial landed cost $12.30 per bag. Then, they add per-order costs like fulfillment fees from the 3PL and payment gateway fees to get a true, SKU-level cost of sale.

This granular detail is what enables true profitability analysis. It is often managed in an inventory system like Katana or Cin7 that integrates with accounting software like QuickBooks or Xero. Accurate unit economics inform pricing strategy, marketing spend allocation, and critical decisions about which products to promote or discontinue.

2. Commanding Cash Flow and Financial Operations

Profit on a P&L statement means little if you do not have the cash to pay suppliers. Cash flow management e-commerce is relentless, and a controller’s second domain is to establish discipline and predictability. The main tool for this is forecasting. A standard practice is to build and maintain a rolling 13-week cash-flow forecast. This forward-looking model projects all cash inflows and outflows on a weekly basis for the upcoming quarter.

Key inputs for the forecast include:

• Cash Inflows: Payouts from Shopify and Amazon, wholesale payments, and any other revenue sources.
• Cash Outflows: Supplier payments for inventory, payroll, marketing spend on platforms like Google and Meta, software subscriptions, rent, and loan repayments.

This forecast is vital for navigating the cash conversion cycle. For an e-commerce business, this cycle is the time between paying for inventory and receiving the cash from its sale. If you pay a supplier on Day 1, and the goods take 60 days to arrive and 45 days to sell, your cash is tied up for 105 days. The 13-week forecast makes this dynamic visible, preventing liquidity crunches before a large inventory buy. It answers the question, “How do I ensure we do not run out of cash?” This oversight is a critical part of the financial operations online business needs to master.

3. Navigating Multi-Jurisdiction Tax and Compliance

As sales grow, so does tax complexity. A controller is responsible for building the systems to manage this risk and prevent costly penalties, a key part of tax compliance for e-commerce startups. The challenges vary significantly by geography.

• For US companies: The primary concern is sales tax. Following the South Dakota v. Wayfair Supreme Court decision, economic nexus laws require businesses to collect and remit sales tax in states where they exceed certain sales or transaction thresholds, even without a physical presence. A controller implements tools like TaxJar or Avalara, integrating them with Shopify and your accounting platform to automate calculations and reporting. This is not a one-time setup; it is an ongoing management process. According to US GAAP, this is a critical liability to track accurately.
• In the UK: The focus is on Value Added Tax (VAT). A controller ensures the business is registered for VAT once it crosses the legal threshold. They manage the correct application of VAT rates and oversee the filing of quarterly returns through Making Tax Digital (MTD) compliant software, typically Xero. For businesses selling into the EU, the controller also navigates the distinct EU VAT rules, such as the One-Stop Shop (OSS) scheme. This work falls under FRS 102 compliance for most UK startups.

This domain ensures the business can scale across borders without accumulating significant, unseen tax liabilities that could threaten its financial health or complicate a future sale.

Hiring Triggers: When Do You Need an E-commerce Controller?

When it comes to hiring finance roles in e-commerce, the right time is dictated by operational complexity, not arbitrary revenue milestones. There are three clear triggers that signal it is time to hire a controller.

1. The Inventory Trigger: A critical trigger is placing inventory orders more than 90 days in advance of a key sales season. Managing the cash required for these large, long-lead-time purchases purely on a spreadsheet is highly risky. A controller can build the cash flow models needed to plan these buys safely, preventing preventable cash shortages during peak periods.
2. The Operational Trigger: An operational trigger for hiring is when the financial close process takes more than 15 business days. If it takes until the 20th of the month to understand what happened last month, the data is too old to be useful for making timely decisions. Your financials become a historical archive instead of a strategic tool. A controller implements processes to shorten the close cycle, providing actionable insights faster.
3. The Strategic Trigger: A scenario we repeatedly see is the third trigger. A strategic trigger for hiring is planning to raise capital or sell the business within the next 12-18 months. Investors and acquirers expect clean, auditable, and well-documented financials. A controller is essential for preparing the business for this level of due diligence, ensuring all your numbers, from revenue recognition to inventory valuation, are defensible.

How to Write an E-commerce Financial Controller Job Description

To attract a candidate who understands the unique challenges of e-commerce, your job description must move beyond a generic list of accounting tasks. It needs to be framed around the specific problems they will solve. Instead of listing “manage month-end close,” frame it as an outcome. For example, a key performance outcome is reducing the monthly financial close process to 10 business days. This shows you understand the operational goal.

Structure the responsibilities around the three core domains. Use bullet points that speak to outcomes and systems-building to attract candidates who think like operators, not just accountants.

Example Responsibilities:

• Develop and implement a standardized methodology for calculating and tracking landed costs on a per-SKU basis to ensure accurate profitability analysis.
• Own and maintain a rolling 13-week cash flow forecast to guide inventory purchasing and operational spending decisions.
• Manage US sales tax or UK/EU VAT compliance across all sales channels, including Shopify and Amazon, ensuring timely and accurate filings.
• Oversee the monthly financial close process, delivering an accurate reporting package with analysis to leadership by the 10th business day.
• Partner with operations to reconcile inventory between 3PL reports and the accounting system (QuickBooks/Xero).
• Develop processes for multi-channel sales reporting to provide clear visibility into performance by channel.

This approach signals that you are looking for a strategic partner to help scale the business, not just a compliance function. It answers the question, “How do I write a job description that attracts someone who understands e-commerce?”

Conclusion: Moving from Bookkeeping to Strategic Finance

The decision to hire a financial controller is a pivotal moment for a growing e-commerce startup. It represents a shift from simply recording financial history to actively building a financial future. This role is not an extension of bookkeeping; it is a strategic function focused on building robust, forward-looking systems for the three pillars of e-commerce finance: SKU-level profitability, cash flow management, and tax compliance. Rather than waiting for a specific revenue target, watch for the operational triggers. When your inventory cycles get longer, your financial close gets slower, or a strategic transaction is on the horizon, the time is right. By defining the role around the unique problems of your business, you can attract the right financial leader to navigate the next stage of growth.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I hire a part-time or fractional controller for my e-commerce startup?
A: Yes, hiring a fractional or part-time controller is a very common and effective strategy for pre-seed to Series A startups. It provides access to high-level strategic expertise in areas like inventory accounting and cash flow management without the cost of a full-time executive salary, making it an ideal first step.

Q: What is the difference between an e-commerce controller and a finance manager?
A: A controller is primarily focused on accounting systems, compliance, and accurate historical reporting. A finance manager typically focuses more on financial planning and analysis (FP&A), such as budgeting and forecasting. In many startups, a senior controller will often handle both responsibilities until the team grows.

Q: What qualifications should I look for in an e-commerce controller?
A: Look for a qualified accountant (CPA in the US; ACCA or CIMA in the UK) with direct experience in an e-commerce or product-based business. They must have deep expertise in inventory accounting, landed cost calculation, and hands-on experience with platforms like Shopify, Amazon, QuickBooks, or Xero.

Q: How does a controller improve multi-channel sales reporting?
A: A controller designs and implements the systems needed to consolidate data from Shopify, Amazon, wholesale, and other channels into a single source of truth. This ensures revenue is recognized correctly according to accounting standards (US GAAP or FRS 102) and allows for accurate profitability analysis by channel.