Disclaimer: Please note this article is not financial advice. The purpose of our blog is purely educational, so please consult a professional accountant or financial advisor before making any financial decision.
Are you in the stage of your business when you are slowly growing your team? Are you adding a couple of positions to ensure experts handle essential tasks? An accountant is surely one of the spots you want to fill, and an accounting department is one of the teams you want to create. But, what does it take to make a solid eCommerce accounting team? Let us help you out!
In this blog post, we’ll discuss your role as the business owner, the characteristics to look for in an accountant, and the accounting tools that will assist your team. Keep reading to learn more.
Your eCommerce Expertise
Creating the dream accounting team begins with you. As the company owner, you should have expertise in eCommerce or running platforms. You’ll be hiring experts in eCommerce accounting to handle your accounting needs, but you are like the captain of your ship—you need to be well-versed in your chosen business terrain.
Knowledge about the different platforms
You can establish your eCommerce business on several platforms, but to get the best success, go for the most famous ones like Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, Walmart, or WooCommerce. Establishing your stores on these sites exposes your business to an already established audience.
While you have a larger audience, the competition is tougher in these sites too, and that is why you need to be an expert. You need to know how your store and products will stand out. You need to ensure that your products are chosen amongst the competition at the end of the day.
Introduction to accounting
Although it’s not necessary to be an expert, it’s best to have some sort of knowledge in financial accounting. Know at least the following basic concepts:
- The difference between bookkeeping and accounting: Bookkeeping and accounting always come together, but the scope of the two are different. Bookkeepers keep track of all business transactions to keep your books organized, and it is the accountant’s job to make sense of the numbers through financial reports and analysis.
- Income and expense tracking: Know that all your business income and expenses should be accounted for, so be ready to divulge bank accounts, credit card statements, loans, investments, assets, and liabilities to your accounting team.
- Profit: It is only when your financial accounting is good that you can get the most profit. The reports of your accounting team will help you make the best decisions to bring the most profit to your business.
A leader to look up to
Despite your accountants being experts in their craft, you should still be the leader they can look up to. Ensure that your accountants work with integrity and with values essential for their work, by being a role model and creating a company culture that encourages honesty and transparency. Build a culture open to suggestions. Always lend your ears to your accounting team’s suggestions, as their proposals should always be backed by hard financial data.
eCommerce Bookkeeping and Accounting Dream Team
No man is an island, as they say. As you strive to be a leader in your field, you need a team to back you up. So, what should you look for to build an accounting dream team? Check out these characteristics.
Expert in bookkeeping
You can either hire a bookkeeper and accountant separately or find an accountant that can do both. It’s best to hire a Certified Public Accountant who is trained for the position. They know theories and laws to ensure your business is always law-compliant.
You'll be at peace when you have an expert bookkeeper because you know that all the money coming in and out of your business is accounted for. Bookkeepers ensure all information in the books is accurate, so when tax and audit season comes, you can comply with tax requirements.
Accounting expert
After having your books organized, the best accountant makes sure that the data is turned into understandable reports. As the company owner, you need to establish your financial key performance indicators, so the accountant can include them in the report. Nevertheless, here are the essential reports you should get from your accounting team:
- Income statement
- Balance sheet
- Accounts receivable and payable aging
- Revenue
If you are still beginning your business, request more frequent accounting reports, so it’s easier to spot red flags and make adjustments right away.
A team player
Being a team player is a must-have characteristic for your accounting team members, whether in-house or remote. Being a team player ensures smooth communication between the bookkeeper and accountant. Your team can also connect with other departments to coordinate their finances without any issues.
When reporting time comes, your team can work together to deliver a seamless report. When the team works together, tax season will not be as stressful as before because the books are always organized and ready for tax declarations and audits.
The Proper Tools
Thanks to technology and different accounting software, the technicalities and many difficult parts of bookkeeping and accounting are much easier. As a leader, encourage the tools that will assist your team. You will pay for many of the tools, but the investment will be worth it because of their many benefits. Here are some of the accounting, bookkeeping, document management, and taxation software you can use.
Accounting tools
There are many available accounting tools, but go for the trusted ones like Quickbooks Online and Xero. They have features that can assist you with the following:
- Income and expenses tracking
- Invoice generation and scheduling
- Bank integration and reconciliation
- Time and project tracking
- Inventory management
- Payroll and payroll tax management
- Cash flow
With these tools, everything is automated. Your team can save time, effort, and resources, and increase the quality of their work instead. You can even integrate marketing, customer relationship management, sales, and inventory management tools into your accounting software to have all the data in one place.
The best part about these accounting tools is that they are cloud-based. This means that all the confidential financial information about your business is stored in the cloud, secured from any cyber hacking or data corruption. Nevertheless, many tools are also accessible on the phone. As long as there is an internet connection, authorized people can check your company data.
Tools for your documents
Tools like Hubdoc and A2X only require a clear image of receipts, certificates, and other documents, then the printed content can turn into computer text. Your team can skip the hassle of manually inputting data which is time-consuming and more prone to human error. These tools are integrated into your main accounting software, so the data they acquire can be sorted out and included in your books.
Tax assistance software
Tax rules vary per region, per state, and jurisdiction, and they are subject to sudden changes too. These changes will affect you when you are in the eCommerce world as you send orders in different states and provinces. The good news is that tax software systems are always updated with the latest tax rules. They’ll apply the tax computation right away. Ecommerce accounting and bookkeeping are easier with tools like these:
- HelloTax
- SimplyVAT
- Taxjar
- Taxomate
- Avalara
As you continue to expand your business, having these tools to assist your accounting team in tax computation will make tax season stress-free.
Build Your eCommerce Accounting Dream Team with Unloop
Building an accounting team from scratch is a huge challenge, but we hope we have shared enough details to get you started. Remember to familiarize yourself with eCommerce and eCommerce accounting as the company owner. Look for accountants that are experts at what they do. Also, invest in tools that will make your accounting team’s task easier.
If you are looking into having a remote team of accountants, look no further— Unloop might be just what you are looking for. We offer eCommerce bookkeeping services, and we can assist you with your eCommerce set-up, bookkeeping, and tax computation needs. We operate with the help of the most reliable accounting tools like QBO, Xero, Hubdoc, and A2X, and we’d love to apply our expertise in assisting your business.
If you are interested, feel free to give us a call at 877-421-7270. We’d love to hear from you!