Multi-Brand Retail Group

The Challenge

Selling the same stock across a Shopify storefront and Amazon marketplace led to regular overselling, manual spreadsheet reconciliation, and canceled orders. On top of that, finance was manually matching Shopify payouts and Amazon settlement reports against Zoho Books line by line every cycle — untangling marketplace fees, refunds, chargebacks, and FX differences by hand, which routinely took days and still left unexplained variances at month-end.

Zoho Products Used

The Solution

Built real-time, two-way stock sync between Zoho, Shopify, and Amazon, with custom Deluge automation handling split shipments and marketplace-specific SKU mapping. Layered on top, a payout reconciliation engine ingests Shopify payout reports and Amazon Settlement Reports automatically, matches each transaction against the corresponding Zoho Books invoice, and auto-categorizes marketplace fees, refunds, chargebacks, and FX adjustments — flagging only the genuine exceptions for human review.

1
Phase 1
2 weeks
SKU and channel mapping
Reconciled the Shopify catalogue, the Amazon listings, and the Zoho item master into a single mapping — including the bundles and multipacks that existed on one channel but not the others, which is where most oversell incidents originated.
What came out of it
• Channel-to-Zoho SKU mapping, bundles included
• Catalogue clean-up list for orphaned and duplicate listings
2
Phase 2
1 week
Stock sync design and buffer rules
Defined how a single physical stock pool is exposed to two channels, including per-channel buffers so a fast-moving SKU cannot be sold twice in the seconds between an order and a sync.
What came out of it
• Stock allocation and buffer policy per channel
• Conflict-resolution rules for simultaneous orders
3
Phase 3
3 weeks
Two-way sync build in Deluge
Built the sync itself: orders flow into Zoho, stock movements flow back out to both channels, with split shipments and partial fulfilments handled explicitly rather than left to overwrite each other.
What came out of it
• Real-time two-way stock and order sync
• Split-shipment and partial-fulfilment handling
• Retry and failure alerting on every sync job
4
Phase 4
3 weeks
Payout reconciliation engine
Automated ingestion of Shopify payout reports and Amazon Settlement Reports, matching each line to the corresponding Zoho Books invoice and auto-categorising fees, refunds, chargebacks, and FX adjustments.
What came out of it
• Automated settlement ingestion for both channels
• Fee, refund, chargeback, and FX categorisation rules
• Exception queue for the lines that genuinely need a human
5
Phase 5
2 weeks
Parallel run and cutover
Ran the automated reconciliation alongside the manual spreadsheet for two full settlement cycles, comparing results before finance was asked to trust it.
What came out of it
• Two parallel settlement cycles with variance analysis
• Finance sign-off and cutover

Before and After

Business Results

• 58% reduction in stockout & oversell incidents
• Shopify and Amazon payout reconciliation cut from days to minutes each cycle
• One inventory count across every channel
• Finance closes the books with fee and refund variances explained automatically, not chased down manually