Most ecommerce sellers can't answer six basic questions about their own business without a 90-minute call with their bookkeeper:
The data lives in ConnectBooks. Settlement reports, FIFO COGS, per-SKU inventory, returns, marketplace fees, advertising spend, sales tax collected. The interpretation layer is what was missing. Crunch is that layer.
Crunch operates on the ConnectBooks data graph. That includes:
Crunch does not have access to the seller's payroll system, the seller's HR data, or any non-financial application. The scope is the business's financial picture, not its operations or personnel.
In the current beta build, Crunch performs well on questions in five categories:
Diagnostics on recent margin movements. "Why is my Amazon margin down this month?" Crunch decomposes the change into landed cost movement, FBA fee movement, advertising spend, and mix shift (more low-margin SKUs sold this month vs last). The output is a ranked attribution, not a vague "could be many things" answer.
Per-SKU profitability ranking. "What are my five worst-margin SKUs that I'm still spending advertising on?" Crunch returns the list with contribution margin per unit, units sold, advertising attributed, and net contribution.
Cash flow forecasting at current pace. "What's my cash position end of next month if I keep ordering at last 30-day pace?" Crunch builds a forward projection using current inventory, expected sell-through, marketplace payouts on calendar, scheduled supplier payments, and tax remittance due dates.
Channel-level P&L answers. "Which marketplace makes me the most money per order on average?" Crunch returns a per-channel contribution margin per order with the inputs broken out (revenue, fees, advertising, COGS, returns).
What-if questions on cost structure. "If my landed cost goes up 12% due to tariffs, what happens to my Amazon margin?" Crunch reruns the contribution margin math on the new landed cost and shows the impact per SKU and per channel.
Three categories of questions are still in active development before the full release:
Open-ended strategic questions. "What should my pricing strategy be next quarter?" Crunch can give you the data inputs for that decision (price elasticity history, competitor pricing changes you've tracked, current margin headroom) but the recommendation itself involves judgment that the beta is being trained to handle with appropriate caveats.
Cross-platform attribution. If you run Google ads for your Shopify store and the customer eventually buys on Amazon, the attribution gets fuzzy. Crunch can answer it for owned attribution sources (the click-through data you've connected) but doesn't manufacture attribution data that doesn't exist.
Inventory ordering recommendations. Crunch can tell you which SKUs are about to run out at current pace and which are overstocked. The recommendation of "order 5,000 units" requires a few more layers: lead time variability, MOQ from supplier, cash availability, freight scheduling. Those are being added to the beta in current sprints.
Crunch is available to a subset of ConnectBooks customers on the Diamond and Platinum tiers, by invitation. The waitlist for the full release is open at connectbooks.com/crunch. Customers in the beta interact with Crunch through a chat interface in the ConnectBooks app, ask questions in plain English, and get answers grounded in their actual data.
Every Crunch answer includes a "show me the data" link that opens the underlying numbers. This is intentional: an AI CFO that the human CFO or owner can't verify isn't useful. The beta is being tuned to never give an answer without the audit trail.
The gap in the ecommerce accounting market is not "more reports." It's interpretation. Sellers who can read their P&L still don't reliably make decisions from it, because the questions they actually have, about cash, about per-SKU margin, about marketplace mix, are not on any standard report. They require analysis.
The traditional answer is a fractional CFO at $5,000 to $15,000 per month, which the median ecommerce seller cannot afford. Crunch is the answer ConnectBooks built for that gap: the analysis layer, on the data that's already in your books, at a price point that scales with the rest of the ConnectBooks subscription. Gold $149, Diamond $199, Platinum $349. Crunch is part of the Diamond and Platinum tiers.
Crunch is in active beta with a waitlist for the full release. A subset of ConnectBooks customers on Diamond and Platinum tiers are using it today.
No. Crunch is an analysis layer on top of clean books. The books still need to be kept correctly (which is what ConnectBooks itself does). Your bookkeeper still owns the close. Crunch answers the questions you would otherwise ask your bookkeeper or a fractional CFO.
Crunch operates inside the same security boundary as ConnectBooks. Your financial data is not used to train external models, and queries are not shared across accounts.
Crunch is part of the Diamond ($199/mo) and Platinum ($349/mo) tiers. There is no additional usage fee beyond the subscription.
Join the Crunch waitlist. The full release is rolling out from the active beta. Get on the waitlist at connectbooks.com/crunch to be in the next invitation batch.
Running an e-commerce business comes with plenty of challenges, but ConnectBooks is here to make your life easier. With real-time insights, seamless integrations, and detailed tracking of your profitability and inventory, you can stay ahead of the game. Whether you’re selling on Amazon, Shopify, Walmart, TikTok or eBay, ConnectBooks helps you manage your finances with 100% accuracy and confidence, so you can focus on growing your business.
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