Experienced accounting services for eCommerce

Wondering how to choose the proper bookkeeping services for your eCommerce business?

Starting your new e-commerce store is, without doubt, an exciting moment for you as an entrepreneur. It all begins with a clever idea that, after months of hard work, develops into a functional business.

Below, you’ll find a detailed guide designed to help you choose the most efficient eCommerce bookkeeping services.

Let’s say you set up an online shop, and now your customers have access to your products 24/7 on an international level. Therefore, you checked the first step in your entrepreneurial journey. Next up, you’ll need to ensure that your product stock is sufficient and your income and expenses are accurately monitored. It’s time to find a solution that will allow you to automate this process in the most efficient way possible.

eCommerce bookkeeping
bookkeeping services for small businesses

First things first – What is eCommerce?

Simply put, electronic commerce, most commonly known as eCommerce, defines the act of buying and trading goods or services over the Internet. Whether it’s retail, wholesale, dropshipping, digital products, or services, as long as it’s carried in the online environment, it falls under the category of eCommerce. The expansion of industry giants such as Amazon or Alibaba, along with the fast growth of the web development industry, has furtherl facilitated the development of this practice. By now, the number of internet users worldwide is over 4 billion. More than half the world’s population is connected to the web, and most of them have instant access to it from their mobile phone. The evolution of technology over the past years has not only redefined customer behavior – it shaped the world economy as a whole.

As the industry expands and increases its complexity, understanding the challenges lying ahead, is vital for the overall success of your business.

What are accounting services for eCommerce?

At a first glance, the bookkeeping and accounting processes in eCommerce are not very different compared to any other retail industry out there. You’ll still have to record all your sales expenses, process your payroll, reconcile your bank and credit cards and file your sales tax returns.However, considering the fact almost your entire business activity takes place online, there are bookkeeping challenges unique to eCommerce.

Why outsource your eCommerce bookkeeping to a specialized company?

Let’s face it. You didn’t choose to start a business to deal with all the bookkeeping and administrative work yourself. Accounting essentials such as payroll, bills, and payments can fill up the majority of your time, stopping you from focusing on other important aspects of your business. Besides, most entrepreneurs lack the technical knowledge and experience in order to complete their bookkeeping in a flawless manner and avoid any eventual troubles. Therefore, you’ll probably need someone who’s specialized in this and can proactively answer questions such as:
t
Am I paying more tax than I should?
t
Is my current business model profitable?
t
Is my eCommerce sales tax managed right?
t
Are all my documents properly tracked and organized?
t
Is my accounting system overwhelmed by transaction volume?
t
What is my most profitable SKU?

While being on the look for the most suitable accounting services for eCommerce, your business can choose it’s better to get to know exactly what you’re looking for. You’ll need someone in your corner that fully understands the challenges of your business and eCommerce specifics while possessing the skills and knowledge to help you overcome those.

What are the benefits of outsourcing bookkeeping services for eCommerce?

Increase Productivity

An experienced and knowledgeable bookkeeping team can help you properly calibrate bookkeeping processes so that you can maximize growth, profitability, and overall productivity levels.

Decrease Taxes

Make sure you claim all the expenses and deductions that your business is entitled to. Having a professional handle your books will probably help you spend less on taxes and more on what’s good for your business.

Conserve Time

When you choose to outsource the ecommerce bookkeeping services of your company, you’ll unlock a considerable amount of time so that you can focus on other areas of your business. Being an entrepreneur, you probably already know by now that time is an extremely rare and valuable resource.

Stay Informed

A professional accountant will do a lot more for you than just overview the compliance standards and file the tax returns. Your bookkeeper can provide you with accurate reports on which you can base your next major business decisions.

What are the challenges of eCommerce bookkeeping?

Confusing Sales Tax Liability

You need to make sure you are in compliance with all the tax regulations while avoiding paying more than you owe. Setting up the right system that works in every Canadian province, including those without HST, can be quite challenging. Besides, if you’re selling in the US, you’ll also have to determine the economic nexus of each state in order to register for tax.

Expensive Fees and Software

Although digital commerce comes up with its own financial benefits, it also requires a variety of fees that you have to pay. These fees are either directed to the platform you’re hosting your store on or to software that you’ll need in order to develop all your business processes.

Problematic Returns

As an eCommerce seller, managing your returns can be without a doubt a challenge worth mentioning. For example, if you’re selling on Amazon, your customers can return your products without any prior justification. Therefore, you’ll have to write off the inventory and ensure that it does not get expensed twice.

Transactions Volume

Due to its wide reach, eCommerce success often means a lot of small transactions from a variety of data points. Most accounting systems cannot handle the high-volume detailed transactions as they should, causing the entire system to slow down. This fact raises the challenge of finding an intelligent way to batch your transactions.

Inventory Management

You need to always keep track of how much inventory do you have and how much it is worth. You’ll also have to determine whether you track inventory levels by SKU or how do you track the inventory that is stored in multiple locations.

eCommerce Reporting

You’ll need to determine exactly what type of reporting you need. Are you more interested in cash flow or profitability based on SKU? Do you prioritize inventory management, month-over-month comparisons, or daily sales?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is bookkeeping, and why do I need it?
Bookkeeping is the process of categorizing all of your company’s transactions into their proper accounting categories and reconciling these transactions to evidence (tidy record keeping), such as sales reports from your eCommerce businesses or invoices and receipts for your costs.
I own a small business. Do I need to collaborate with a bookkeeper?

Choosing professional accounting services for eCommerce will help you save time, improve your quality of work and ensure there are no errors. If your business cannot afford to outsource, you can probably handle your bookkeeping by yourself. We even provide Quickbooks training and support so that you can learn how to do it yourself. Learn more about it here.

Can you operate from a distance?
Due to the extensive evolution of cloud technology, it’s now a lot easier for bookkeepers and accountants everywhere to have access to their clients’ books. Nowadays, you have the opportunity to select the best bookkeeping team based on your specific needs without being limited to local choices.
What kind of accounting services for eCommerce do you provide?
We record all sales expenses, reconcile your bank and credit cards, process your payroll, file your sales tax returns and create and maintain a bookkeeping process to meet all of your company’s needs. More information on this topic can be found here.
Will outsourcing eCommerce bookkeeping services save me money?
Accounting can be time-consuming, even for professionals with perfectly calibrated work processes. Choosing to take care of the bookkeeping and accounting department yourself will more likely take even more time. Professional services will save you precious time that you can convert into capital by investing it into other important areas of your business.
Do I need to clean my books before I pass them over to you?
No, you do not. Cleaning up your books will be included as part of our work estimate. We provide every client with a clean set of books that have been updated and thoroughly checked for any eventual errors as a starting point.
I have a question that is not on the list. Who do I talk to?
Our team is always here to help you through and clarify any questions you may have. Feel free to contact us, and we’d be more than happy to have a no-obligation chat.

Whatever challenges you might face, we can ensure you there’s always a solution.
Schedule a consultation with us, and let’s see how we can help your business.

Talk to us

About AIS Solutions

For many years, our business was based on delivering personalized accounting solutions and tax services to clients. We decided to expand our services and form a team that is able to deliver consistent and reliable bookkeeping solutions, hence having a larger positive impact on our customers’ lives. Over the years, we’ve grown and defined a team just as passionate about changing the lives of our clients as we are.

Click here to discover more about our story and what made us who we are today.

Share this: