The eCommerce industry is on the boom. Tracking the fundamentals like sales and costs is only a fraction of the information which you will need to build a pricing strategy, estimate cash flow balances, or decide how to scale up your business. An eCommerce accounting service makes your money work for you by assisting you in understanding the facts and making smart business decisions.
According to eMarketer, “Worldwide retail eCommerce sales will top $5 trillion for the first time in 2022, accounting for more than a fifth of total retail sales. Despite slowing growth, overall spending will approach $7 trillion by 2025.”
But your sales cannot be a part of the above stats if your finances are not intact. You have to deal with many things, everything from managing inventory to fulfilling orders. If you end up focusing on finances as well, you will become one of that 41% of small business owners who manage their books on their own, sales, refunds, supplier payments, and banking fees- all in-and-out money.
Let us help you understand how bookkeeping benefits eCommerce businesses.
5 reasons why bookkeeping is vital for eCommerce business
Bookkeeping is essential to the success of any eCommerce business. Even with record revenues, your business will only succeed if your customer acquisition costs and running expenditures exceed your overall sales.
Keeping up with accounting fundamentals in the eCommerce industry might help you stay on track. Regardless of the platform you use for your eCommerce business, you must have a system in place to handle your cash effectively, and the reasons behind it are:
1. Track transactions
One of the primary reasons why accounting and bookkeeping services are so vital for eCommerce businesses is that they have a lot of transactions.
An eCommerce business may make dozens or even hundreds of sales each day, and each of those sales needs to be properly recorded. Without accounting and bookkeeping services, it would be very difficult for an eCommerce business to keep track of all of its transactions.
2. Track inventory levels
Another reason why accounting and bookkeeping services are important for eCommerce businesses is that they need to track inventory levels.
An eCommerce business needs to know how much inventory it has on hand at all times so that it can properly manage its stock levels.
Without accurate records, an eCommerce business may run out of inventory or end up with too much inventory, both of which can negatively impact the business.
3. Manage finances accurately
An eCommerce business needs to track its income and expenses so that it can make sound financial decisions. When eCommerce business owners know where the money is going, you can avoid overspending.
Without accurate financial records, an eCommerce business may find it difficult managing their finances and making sound decisions about their spending.
4. Pay taxes on-time
When it comes to eCommerce, bookkeeping is essential in helping to ensure that taxes are paid on time.
By keeping track of sales, expenses, and inventory, businesses can ensure that they are accurately reporting their income and paying the appropriate amount of tax.
Without proper accounting and bookkeeping, it would be very difficult for an eCommerce business to calculate how much tax it owes.
5. Comply with regulations
First and foremost, compliance helps to prevent fraud and money laundering. By requiring businesses to maintain accurate records of their financial transactions, government regulators can help to identify and track down criminals who may be using eCommerce businesses to launder money.
The eCommerce businesses must file periodic financial reports with the government, which must be accurate to avoid penalties.
The eCommerce bookkeeping company plays a critical role in ensuring that these reports are accurate by keeping meticulous records of all financial transactions.
Compliance with government regulations helps to protect consumers. eCommerce businesses that fail to comply with government regulations may be subject to fines or other penalties, leading to higher consumer prices. By ensuring that eCommerce businesses comply with government regulations, bookkeepers can help to keep costs down for consumers.
6. Stay financially organized
Bookkeeping service is essential for your large eCommerce business. It assists you in creating a budget, allowing you to have a better plan for future spending. Plus, at times, it can also be useful for tax preparation.
Bookkeeping is necessary because correct accounting records are critical to a company’s long-term viability. Accurate bookkeeping assists businesses in managing their cash flow, meeting their financial commitments, and planning their investments.
Bookkeeping includes checking receipts, putting payments into a bank account, and maintaining accurate records so that all financial information is readily available when needed, and this entire process can help you stay financially organized.
7. Build a stable business model
Your business model is your strategy for turning a profit. It specifies the items or services you want to offer, who you intend to sell to, and other important details about how your company will run.
Bookkeeping assists you in budgeting for your business, preparing tax returns, organizing your firm, and much more. A budget serves as a financial blueprint for your company. With a budget in place, you can prepare for future business spending to aid in development.
Last-minute stress from attempting to locate any disparity in your financial statement might lead to missed deadlines and minor errors slipping in. Businesses of all sizes cannot afford to make mistakes, and regular bookkeeping may assist.
8. Forecast finances well
A financial forecast attempts to anticipate how your company will appear financially in the future. Pro forma financial statements are used to make such forecasts more tangible.
Pro forma statements are similar to the financial statements you use each month to assess your company’s performance. The main distinction is that pro forma statements are prepared in advance for future months and years.
If you are making a financial projection for planning reasons, you should construct pro forma statements covering six months to one year in the future based on the income statement, cash flow statement, and balance sheet with the help of a reliable bookkeeping service.
Consider financial forecasting to be a prediction and budgeting to be a strategy. When you construct a financial prediction, you assess where your company is going based on previous performance and other factors and use it to predict the future, and there bookkeeping plays a significant role.
9. Stay protected from fraud
How does your bookkeeper determine whether the items and services for each invoice were received to the acceptable standard? They frequently do not, especially as the firm expands and more customers make purchases. To prevent paying for products or services that have not yet been received, the invoice should be ‘approved,’ indicating that it is ready for payment, and to determine that an efficient bookkeeping service is required.
When you understand your small business finances, it is much simpler to spot an unusual spending or balance-sheet issue that might be linked to suspicious activity by an employee, and then only a reliable bookkeeper can reconcile your balance sheet and examine your finances in relation to the monthly budget.
10. Improve customer service
If you’re like most business owners, you probably think of accounting and customer service as two separate functions. However, good accounting can actually have a huge impact on customer service.
Ravishing your customers with great customer service is only the beginning of delighting them and keeping them coming back for more.
Delivering excellent customer service requires accurate and timely financial information from your accounting department.
Good accounting can help improve customer service in a number of ways, including by reducing the time it takes to process orders, improving inventory management, and helping to identify sales opportunities.
By ensuring that your accounting department is providing you with accurate and timely financial data, you can focus on delivering excellent customer service that will keep your customers coming back for more.
11. Have peace of mind
Your bookkeeper will classify and reconcile your transactions, compile financial statements, and handle other bookkeeping responsibilities for you. This may free up a significant amount of time and give you peace of mind for business owners to devote to other critical duties, such as business growth.
Another method bookkeepers might assist make bookkeeping less stressful is by organizing your money. They may accomplish this by keeping track of your revenue and spending, classifying your transactions, updating your chart of accounts, and generating your financial statements. This gives you a clear view of your company’s finances and where your money is going, allowing you to make smarter decisions about spending it.
A bookkeeper may also be a great resource whether in-house or outsourced, providing advice and direction as required. They can assist you with bookkeeping concerns, advise you on how to conserve money, and offer assistance and peace of mind when facing financial difficulties.
12. Allocation of Strategic Resources
Another evident indicator of good eCommerce accounting practices is well-researched resource allocation. Using scalable outsourced accounting service guarantees, you do not overpay for services you do not require.
Most bookkeeping and accounting operations do not need annual wages. Scalable outsourced accounting businesses enable you to access bookkeeping and accounting services as required.
Proper accounting provides businesses with a trustworthy gauge of their success. It also gives data for broad strategic decisions as well as a baseline for sales and income targets.
Two Types of Accounting for eCommerce Businesses
As your eCommerce firm expands, so will your financial obligations. That means you have a lot on your plate as a business owner. Sales, refunds, supplier payments, banking fees, and every other financial aspect you can think of are getting more difficult day by day as your company expands. So to maintain the effective accounting for your eCommerce business, you need to understand the two primary types of accounting for eCommerce businesses:
1. Cash Basis Accounting
Cash basis accounting tracks transactions as they enter or exit your account as an expense. Your books reflect the transactional information recorded across all of your payment methods and arrangements, and because of its simplicity, cash basis accounting works well for eCommerce enterprises when they first begin. You record money movements depending on your accounts and can see how much cash you have at any time.
You don’t even have to pay income taxes on the money you haven’t received when you use cash basis accounting. This bookkeeping system is most effective for the following businesses:
- Smaller eCommerce merchants
- Maker companies
- On-demand product companies
- Dropshipping businesses
However, cash-basis accounting is less effective for larger or developing organizations. It may not be suitable for such businesses since it needs to account for future receivables or payables.
2. Accrual Method
Accrual accounting captures transactions as they happen, not when money enters or exits an account. The majority of financial organizations use this strategy. At first look, accrual accounting may appear perplexing.
When you account for existing and future commitments, accrual accounting gives a more realistic portrayal of your monthly business income and enables more accurate financial predictions.
The disadvantage of this strategy is that it turns the emphasis away from how much money you have and toward how much money you transfer, and this includes future income and costs in accrual accounting, running the risk of making your finances appear more promising than they are, so you must keep a closer eye on them.
Despite the drawbacks of accrual accounting, it makes sense for an eCommerce firm to employ this system. It is because cash basis accounting is only permissible for businesses with an average annual growth receipt of less than $5 million. So, suppose you intend to grow your firm. In that case, the accrual technique is in your future.
8 Benefits Of Outsourcing eCommerce Accounting Services
Many eCommerce businesses are still determining whether they should outsource their business procedures or maintain them in-house. While there are certain advantages to handle everything in-house, as the volume of orders and customer inquiries rises, eCommerce outsourcing may be the best solution.
Aside from that, it will save you time, money, and resources, allowing you to concentrate on vital business areas. This article will highlight the benefits of eCommerce outsourcing that online businesses are experiencing as they grow their commercial operations.
So, eight enriching benefits of outsourcing eCommerce accounting services are:
1. Cost-effective
One of the most significant benefits of eCommerce outsourcing is the reduction of operational and infrastructure costs; hence outsourcing bookkeeping is cost-effective, as you do not have to focus on employing new staff or occupying additional space for new infrastructure.
Existing workers will save money and time since they can devote full attention to their assigned tasks. You might split the budget among your primary business sectors to generate different business prospects.
2. Saves time
Business owners and senior management may save significant time by outsourcing their accounting functions to a professional accounting/bookkeeping service provider. This time would be better spent strengthening their core business procedures and operations.
3. Assistance of professional accountants
By outsourcing bookkeeping services, you would be working with seasoned accountants who are well-versed in the conventional processes and practices of the eCommerce business. It implies that a corporation is not required to educate or supervise outsourced accounting specialists because they already have considerable accounting and tax expertise to provide effective counsel.
4. Access to updated financial and accounting statements
When you outsource your accounting function, you can collaborate with and connect with accounting and finance experts, the most up-to-date accounting and finance knowledge, and current information on various laws and regulations changes. You get 24-hour access to a skilled team of accounting, tax, and financial specialists. These experts are dedicated to providing you with the best accounting and financial services.
5. Reduce the risk of financial discrepancies
Today, businesses must operate in a complicated regulatory environment and adhere to tight rules and regulations, particularly in taxation. Companies that are found to violate any applicable laws and regulations may face severe penalties. As a result, businesses have been reluctant to expose themselves to the danger of financial misconduct, which might result in significant financial and operational consequences.
When you outsource your accounting to a professional accounting company, you hand over all of your accounting and financial affairs to accounting and tax specialists who ensure that your accounts and business operations follow all applicable rules and regulations. Furthermore, entrusting your funds to a third party may help you improve your controls, preventing your employees from being careless or committing fraud, whether on purpose or by accident.
6. High efficiency
Suppose a company has an in-house accounting department. In that case, there will be efficiency concerns if there is a temporary human resource deficiency due to long-term medical leave, maternity leave, or employee departure. The aforementioned situations may place you in a difficult position, forcing you to hire and train new staff while providing layoff compensation to present employees, such as a gratuity. As a result, your operating expenses will rise while your profit margins will fall.
You do not have to worry about such things if you use outsourced accounting and bookkeeping services, since a team of qualified accountants will handle your financial concerns with the highest care and detail improving the efficiency of bookkeeping.
7. Regulate expert business decisions
The key responsibilities of senior management are to focus on core corporate operations, acquire new clients, increase earnings, and make crucial business choices to ensure the organization’s long-term growth and financial viability.
You will receive a timely balance sheet, statement of profit or loss, cash flow report, a summary of expenditures, reports highlighting current market trends, and all other important information if you outsource your accounting function to qualified bookkeeping professionals with multiple years of experience in the eCommerce sector.
8. Provide you with a stable financial model for your business
Bookkeeping and accounting ensure the financial integrity of your company. They provide a dependable system for all records and can assist you in gaining insight without interfering with processes such as payroll and tax audits. eCommerce accounting keeps you up-to-date and prepares for your company’s logistical needs.
Why IBN Tech for Ecommerce Bookkeeping?
Outsourcing bookkeeping can have many benefits and as an eCommerce business owner, you must step into unfamiliar ground. With constantly changing tax rules, numerous prospects for expansion, and distinct business models and structures, you want an equally versatile eCommerce bookkeeping service provider to take care of them.
IBN Technologies Limited is an outsourcing specialist co-op with a client base covering the USA, UK, Middle East, and India. Go for such a service and witness the difference.
