Bookkeeping for Cross-Border E-Commerce: HK Entity, Mainland Supply Chain

A focused accounting practice for Hong Kong companies selling online with mainland suppliers.

What we keep the books for

The setup is familiar to most cross-border operators. A Hong Kong company holds the storefront, ad accounts, and platform payouts. The supply chain sits on the mainland — factories, trading agents, freight forwarders, and 3PLs — settling in CNY through domestic rails. Between the two sits a stack of platform receivables, marketing spend, and intercompany flows that rarely line up on their own.

Most accounting stacks handle the easy 80%. They do not handle the remaining 20%: multi-currency payouts from Amazon, Shopify Payments, eBay, and TikTok Shop; CNY supplier settlements; ad spend across Meta, Google, and TikTok; and the FX, fees, and withholding that sit underneath.

The operating stack we work with

We keep the books for the full operating loop, end to end:

• HK company (corporate / banks): HK-incorporated entity, typically with a corporate bank account in HKD or USD, holding the platform seller account and the legal contracting layer.
• Platform payouts (platform / payouts): Amazon Seller Central, Shopify, eBay, TikTok Shop, and similar channels, paying out in USD, EUR, GBP, HKD, or other settlement currencies depending on the marketplace and seller-of-record arrangement.
• Supplier payments (supplier / payments): CNY settlements to mainland vendors for goods, tooling, samples, moulds, freight, and warehousing, paid through telegraphic transfer, agent accounts, or licensed cross-border settlement providers.

Everything else — ad spend, SaaS subscriptions, professional fees, intercompany loans, director transactions — gets coded into the same ledger.

The four records that matter every month

Cross-border e-commerce produces a lot of noise. Most of it does not need to be touched. We focus on the four records that actually drive the close:

1. Platform settlement reports — Gross sales, refunds, platform fees, FBA or fulfilment fees, advertising deductions, and net payout per marketplace, per currency.
2. Supplier and logistics statements — Purchase orders, goods received notes, freight invoices, duty and clearance entries, and 3PL storage or fulfilment fees in CNY.
3. Bank and card statements — Corporate bank account movements in HKD and other operating currencies, plus business card statements for ad spend and SaaS.
4. FX and fee memos — Settlement exchange rates, bank wire fees, platform FX margins, payment-processor spreads, and any withholding tax applied at source.

Everything else is context.

FX and fee handling

Multi-currency operations introduce three sources of leakage: the platform's own FX margin on conversion, the bank's FX margin on payout, and the payment-processor spread. Each is recorded separately, not bundled into "fees".

• Platform-side FX: Conversion happens inside the marketplace, often at a rate the seller does not see directly. We reconcile against the disclosed rate where available and flag the gap.
• Bank-side FX: Corporate account receives USD or HKD, converts to operating currency, with a visible bank spread. Recorded as a discrete FX line, not absorbed into revenue or COGS.
• Payment-processor spreads: Cross-border settlement providers and agents take a margin on the CNY leg. Recorded as a transaction cost line.
• Withholding: Where a marketplace, payment provider, or jurisdiction withholds at source — for example, on certain US or EU payouts — the gross, the withholding, and the net are tracked as separate ledger lines so the year-end position is defensible.

Rates are sourced from the actual settlement document; where the rate is not disclosed, we use the bank or platform rate on the payout date and note it accordingly.

Month-end close in five steps

A standard close runs as follows:

1. Pull the four records — Platform settlement reports, supplier and logistics statements, bank and card statements, and FX or fee memos for the period.
2. Capture settlement rates and FX — Record the platform, bank, and payment-processor FX rates applied during the period, along with fees and any withholding, sourced from the settlement documents.
3. Match and bank — Reconcile platform payouts to bank credits, match supplier invoices to purchase orders and goods received, and tie ad spend to platform-reported deductions.
4. Post in operating currency — Record revenue, COGS, fees, and opex in the currency the transaction actually occurred in. HK entity books are maintained in HKD; non-HKD balances are tracked as foreign-currency denominated with revaluation at month-end.
5. Reconcile FX and intercompany — Apply period-end rates for foreign-currency balances, post realised and unrealised FX, and clear intercompany balances between the HK entity and any mainland-side arrangements.
6. Deliver the package — Trial balance, P&L, balance sheet, cash position by currency, and a short variance note. Delivered in the format the directors, auditor, or tax advisor already works with.

How we work

We onboard cross-border e-commerce clients by invitation only, through a concierge onboarding process. Each engagement starts with a short scoping call to understand the entity, the supplier arrangements, the platform mix, and the reporting audience — directors, auditor, tax advisor, or investor.

Waitlist: Join the bookkeeping waitlist

We follow up personally to confirm fit and next steps.