TransactionMerge exists because the problem it solves is real — and frustrating. Manually reconciling eBay payout statements against FreeAgent invoices every month is tedious, error-prone, and just not how you should be spending your time.
eBay sellers using FreeAgent for their accounts have a gap: eBay doesn't integrate directly with FreeAgent the way Amazon does. That means manually downloading transaction reports, working out which sales correspond to which payout, splitting out fees and postage, and entering it all by hand — or paying your accountant to do it.
TransactionMerge connects directly to both eBay and FreeAgent via their official OAuth APIs. It runs automatically every day, pulling your eBay transactions and posting them to FreeAgent as invoices (for sales), bills (for fees and postage), and credit notes (for refunds) — all dated correctly, all mapped to the right categories in your FreeAgent chart of accounts.
The thing that separates this from a basic "dump everything in" tool is the accounting knowledge baked in. Cash-basis sellers (most sole traders) need their income dated to when the money actually arrived in their bank account — the eBay payout date — not when the sale happened. TransactionMerge's payout-date mode does exactly that, matching each transaction to the payout that swept it.
VAT-registered sellers get per-line VAT breakdown. Promoted Listings fees go to Cost of Sales, not Admin Expenses. Postage goes where your accountant expects it. The 4-bucket category system mirrors what FreeAgent's own Amazon integration does — so if you've used that, this will feel familiar.