Question 1

What is the best accounting software for a marketplace business?

Accepted Answer

Marketplaces have accounting problems generic software is not built for: the principal-versus-agent call under ASC 606, GMV that must never be booked as revenue, seller liabilities and reserves, and payout volumes nobody can tie to the bank by hand. The usual stack is Stripe or Adyen, payout CSVs, Excel splits, and NetSuite. Aleq is an AI accounting platform that is the ledger for marketplaces: it makes the gross-versus-net call per transaction flow with the basis documented, separates GMV, platform revenue, and seller payables into distinct accounts, records every split and processor fee at the transaction level, and reconciles the payout stream to the bank to $0.00 overnight. Read-only connection; live in 48 hours.

Question 2

Does GMV count as revenue?

Accepted Answer

No. GMV — gross merchandise value — is the total value of transactions flowing through the platform; revenue is only what the platform itself earns, usually the take rate. If the marketplace is an agent under ASC 606, meaning the seller controls the good or service and sets the price, revenue is the net fee and the rest is money owed to sellers — a liability. Treating GMV as the top line overstates revenue and is a restatement risk auditors check early. Aleq keeps GMV, platform revenue, and seller liabilities in distinct ledger accounts: $1.24M of GMV at a 12% take rate books $148,800 of platform revenue, never $1.24M.

Question 3

How do you decide between gross and net revenue recognition for a platform?

Accepted Answer

Apply ASC 606's principal-versus-agent test. If the platform controls the good or service before it reaches the customer — sets the price, is responsible for fulfillment — it is a principal and recognizes the full transaction value. If it merely arranges the transaction between buyer and seller, it is an agent and recognizes only its fee. The call is made per transaction flow, not once per company, and getting it wrong restates revenue. Aleq evaluates control under ASC 606 for each flow and recognizes gross or net accordingly, with the basis documented — while the designation itself stays a human decision, staged with the full control analysis.

Question 4

How should a marketplace account for money owed to sellers?

Accepted Answer

As a liability — never as revenue and never as the platform's own cash. When a buyer pays, the seller's share posts to seller payables; holdbacks and reserves are tracked as liabilities and released on schedule. In Aleq's transaction-level model, a $620 order books as $620 cash in, $545.60 to seller payable, $56.00 of take rate to platform revenue, and $18.40 to processor-fee clearing — each split recorded against the right party, so seller payables and net revenue stay exact at any volume, and the platform never reports another party's money as its own.

Question 5

How do you reconcile marketplace payouts to the bank?

Accepted Answer

A settlement arrives as one bank line concealing thousands of underlying transactions — charges, refunds, chargebacks, processor fees, and seller splits netted together — and at marketplace volume no one can tie those out by spreadsheet. Aleq does it automatically: it unpacks each payout into its underlying transactions (one $118,400 bank line becomes 1,742 transactions, with the fee posted on each), matches settlements to bank movements in bulk, and reconciles the whole payout stream to $0.00 overnight, with every settlement traced to a bank line. Chargebacks and refunds post against their original transactions instead of vanishing into a variance.

Question 6

How are payment processing fees accounted for on a marketplace?

Accepted Answer

At the transaction level, against the right party. Netting Stripe or Adyen fees silently out of revenue understates costs and breaks take-rate math; lumping them into one monthly entry hides which flows are actually profitable. Aleq records every processing fee on the transaction that incurred it, alongside the platform-seller split, so net revenue per flow and seller payables are exact. Take rate is then a derived number — net revenue over GMV, straight from the general ledger — rather than a spreadsheet estimate that drifts from the books.

Millions of payouts. One ledger that reconciles them to zero.

GMV looks like revenue until the auditor asks gross or net.

A transaction settles. Principal or agent, decided.

The books for marketplaces, run for you.

And it runs the rest of your close, too.

It speaks your accounting natively.

Questions, answered.

Reconciling payouts by spreadsheet?