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This September I went to camp. Not the kind with bunk beds and a mess hall bell (okay, a little bit that kind), but Camp A2X, a gathering of ecommerce accounting firms from around the world, held in Toronto and in what Canadians call cottage country.

More on that phrase in a minute. First, what Camp A2X actually is, and why it matters to you if your books run through Shopify, Amazon, or any other sales channel.

What is Camp A2X?

A2X is the software that turns ecommerce payouts into clean, reconcilable accounting entries. If you've ever wondered why the deposit from Shopify or Amazon doesn't match the sales number in your dashboard, A2X is one of the tools that bridges that gap, breaking each payout into its real pieces: sales, fees, refunds, and taxes.

Camp A2X is the company's annual event for the accounting practices that specialize in ecommerce. As A2X puts it, this industry doesn't really have a conference. It has camp. This year's ran September 13–16, starting in Toronto and then heading out to a lakeside setting on Stoney Lake in Ontario.

The format is part working session, part summer camp:

Roundtable discussions with ecommerce accounting firm leaders about the real problems we're solving for clients.
Sessions on ecommerce, AI, and where the tools are headed, including an early look at A2X's product roadmap and a chance to give feedback on it.
Time with the other apps in the ecosystem. This year's partners included QuickBooks, Xero, Cin7, Finale Inventory, and others, many of the same systems our clients run on every day.
Actual camp. Morning hikes and kayaking, campfires, s'mores, cornhole, and ping-pong, all with fall color coming in over the lake.

So what is "cottage country"?

Being an American, I had never heard the term before. It turns out "cottage country" is how Ontarians describe the lake-and-forest regions a few hours outside Toronto, where families head on weekends and summers to their cottages. Think of it as the Canadian version of "going to the lake house," except an entire region of the province is named after the habit.

I can confirm the name is well earned. Quiet water, trees starting to turn, and a view that makes even a conversation about sales tax workflows feel peaceful.

Why an accounting firm goes to camp

It would be easy to file this under "nice trip," but there's a real reason it matters for our clients.

Ecommerce accounting changes fast. Marketplaces change how they report fees. Payment processors change payout timing. New tools show up promising to fix inventory and profitability reporting, and some of them actually do. The only way to stay ahead of that is to spend time with the people building the software and the firms using it every day.

A few days of honest conversation with peers who reconcile the same messy payouts we do is worth more than a stack of webinars. We came home with ideas we're already putting to work in how we handle payout reconciliation, connect inventory systems to QuickBooks, and turn clean books into better decisions for the businesses we serve.

A thank-you to our hosts

What made Camp A2X special wasn't just the content or the lake. It was the hospitality.

A huge thank-you to Jamie McDonald and Jamie Shulman, known to everyone at camp simply as "the Jamies," and to Geoff Gualano. They put an enormous amount of care into every detail, and it showed. From the first night in Toronto to the last campfire, they made a group of accountants from all over the world feel like old friends. I had a genuinely great time, and I'm grateful to them for it.