a2x

Applied Nutrition Saves Hours Using A2X

About Applied Nutrition PLC

Applied Nutrition PLC is a fast‑growing manufacturer and distributor of sports nutrition, health, and wellness products. From pre‑workout powders to whey protein, the UK‑based brand reaches customers in more than 85 countries through a mix of Amazon marketplaces and its own direct‑to‑consumer ecommerce channels.

Industry

Sports nutrition products

Company size

Eight-figure annual revenue – products sold in 85 countries

Pain point

Manual reconciliation of high-volume Amazon & Shopify transactions was consuming half of an accountant’s day and obscuring VAT accuracy

A2X solution

A2X for Amazon & Shopify → Xero – automated settlement posting and VAT mapping

Show Transcript

0:04

My name is Joe Pollard and I’m the CFO at Applied Nutrition PLC. We are a manufacturer and distributor of sports nutrition products. That means anything from pre-workout powder to whey protein and also health and wellness products. And we sell to over 85 countries in the world. We sell both Amazon and on our own website. And we also sell now on Amazon UK, various stores in Amazon Europe and Amazon US.

0:31

Principally, before A2X, we’d begun selling on Amazon, Amazon Marketplace in the UK. And the issues that we were having were the sheer number of different transactions that were coming through from Amazon. Some of them were quite hard to understand – what they were, why Amazon was giving or taking away money. And then there was a significant time requirement in order to, each time Amazon made a payment to us, work out what transactions that reconciled to and where the various postings should go.

Over time, our Shopify orders have increased. Over time, the website has become more complicated to reconcile. So for instance, there are now multiple different ways to pay – for instance on Shopify itself, via Klarna, via Clearpay. And also we now have an Applied Nutrition app which integrates with our website. And also there are now online stores like TikTok which also integrate onto the online shop. Plus, the sheer volume of transactions had grown significantly over time, to the point where, while at the start, it was very easy to manually reconcile the transactions coming through on the website because they reconciled straight into our stock system, it had just become almost someone’s effectively almost half their time per day being spent on reconciling the various transactions coming through on the website, even though web sales are about 10% of our sales, but it was taking 50% of one of the accountant team’s time in order to reconcile all of those.

2:09

A2X is a solution for posting large volumes of transactions on our website and Amazon store. I would say A2X probably saves us, between now, between three and four hours a day.

2:21

The integration is really good between A2X and Xero. It allows us to post various things, differentiate between, for instance, the different Amazon stores, the different types of gateway that we might be using on Shopify, be it the order gateway or the payment gateway. And we can also – one of the big time savings is we’re able to post all the European VAT transactions to their own accounts.

2:44

That means when we’re reconciling the European VAT at the end of the month, it saves a lot of time because the transactions have already been posted to the right code. So instead of going through and splitting them out and analyzing them, actually it’s just making sure that the VAT transaction out of Xero matches the balance that we’ve got on our Balance Sheet at the end of the month.

3:00

Into the future, we’re looking at expanding our Amazon online presence into new jurisdictions. We’re still relatively early in our journey on Amazon Europe. We’re expanding that into other countries. And that’s going to be part of our strategy. We’ll be looking to A2X to make that easier, make sure the VAT postings are correct, make sure we’re all set up. And it’s generally a seamless integration when we go live with a new Amazon storefront.

3:27

The ROI is quite a significant time saving – three to four hours a day of one of my team member’s time. That’s freed them up to run other things that we have to do on a monthly basis or a weekly basis. They’re able to get to them quicker. And also it’s created an ability for us to do analysis quicker.

3:47

We’re really happy with how it’s working, how it’s reconciling, the accuracy it’s giving us, and it really has taken a lot of time out of my team’s day.

The Challenge

As Applied Nutrition’s ecommerce footprint expanded, the finance team faced a mounting reconciliation burden:

High transaction volume – thousands of daily orders across Amazon UK, Amazon Europe, Amazon US, their Shopify website, and the company’s mobile app.
Opaque Amazon adjustments – fees, charge‑backs, and reimbursements were difficult to interpret, creating uncertainty around revenue and costs.
Manual reconciliation – one team member spent 50% of their workday mapping payouts in Xero, splitting VAT amounts, and hunting for discrepancies despite website sales accounting for only ~10% of total revenue.

“Some transactions were quite hard to understand why Amazon was giving or taking away money, and each payment took significant time to tie back to orders.”

- Joe Pollard, CFO, Applied Nutrition

The Solution

Applied Nutrition implemented A2X to automate the accounting flow for both Amazon and Shopify channels.

Seamless A2X → Xero integration – posts summarised settlements with complete order‑level detail.
Channel granularity – separates payouts by Amazon marketplace and by Shopify gateway (Shopify Payments, Klarna, Clearpay) for clear reporting.

Automatic VAT mapping – routes EU VAT on every transaction to dedicated ledger codes, eliminating month‑end spreadsheet work.

Results

	Before A2X	After A2X
Daily reconciliation time	3-4 hours	< 1 hour
Staff utilisation	50% of an accountant’s day	Reallocated to higher‑value analysis
VAT filing & prep	Manual splits each month	Pre‑coded, ready in Xero

Looking Ahead

Applied Nutrition is rolling out additional Amazon stores across Europe and new international marketplaces. The team trusts A2X to:

Help with tax compliance as they enter new jurisdictions
Maintain a seamless Xero sync no matter how many channels are added
Scale with transaction growth (without needing to add headcount)

“A2X will make sure the VAT postings are correct and the integration is seamless every time we go live in a new Amazon storefront.”

- Joe Pollard, CFO, Applied Nutrition

Return on Investment

By automating reconciliation, Applied Nutrition gains:

Immediate payback – labour savings alone justify the subscription.
Timely reporting – faster month‑end closes and real‑time sales visibility.
Confidence in the numbers – accurate, transparent settlement data supports strategic decisions.

Ready to reclaim hours from reconciliation? Discover how A2X can streamline your ecommerce accounting – start a free trial today.