Imagine not worrying about your ecommerce bookkeeping ever again. Knowing the right processes are in place, and the right person is taking care of them.
That's why we've partnered with A2X to bring you the Essential Ecommerce Bookkeeping Checklist.
We've organized the best practice processes for ecommerce bookkeeping into a handy checklist, based on how we operate as a firm. Use it to manage and document your bookkeeping processes, so you can focus on the future of your business while your team (or our outsourced bookkeeping team) looks after the numbers.
Why is bookkeeping critical for ecommerce sellers?
“Finances are the lifeline of a business. Accounting helps the business owner understand the story of what’s happening.” - Brittany Brown, CEO of LedgerGurus
Bookkeeping is the process of recording and managing the financial transactions of your business. But it’s so much more than that. It gives you real visibility over the health of your business’s finances, which lets you make informed decisions about the future of your operation.
A bookkeeper handles many key financial tasks, including:
- Looking after sales tax
- Staying on top of inventory records
- Managing accounts payable
- Keeping on the pulse of accounts receivable
- Looking after payroll
- Providing sound financial advice
Ecommerce bookkeeping is challenging. Online sellers face a range of differences from their brick-and-mortar counterparts:
- Sales tax rules differ between every US state, and around the world.
- Transaction volumes are higher than in physical retail stores.
- You're managing inventory across multiple channels and locations.
At LedgerGurus, we're experienced at managing the intricacies of ecommerce bookkeeping. While most of it is straightforward, getting it wrong can result in fines, fees, and lost revenue.
That's why we've collated the best practice processes for ecommerce bookkeeping. The Essential Ecommerce Bookkeeping Checklist takes the guesswork out of managing your accounts.
Why you should use well-documented bookkeeping processes
Once you know what bookkeeping processes you need, it's important to record them. Standardizing and documenting your processes is an important part of growing a business. Here's why.
It keeps things consistent. Standardizing your processes means they're done the same way every time. There's less room for error, and your outcomes are more predictable.
It allows you to plan for the future. Once you've put a standard set of processes in place, you'll have a better idea of how long everything should take, so you can plan staff capacity with greater accuracy. Our checklist also includes processes to add at different phases of growth, so you can focus on the most important priorities now while knowing what's coming next.
You can share the load. When your processes only exist in your head, everything has to come through you. Recording your processes makes it easier to hand them over to the right people. You can also train new staff faster as your business grows.
Get your bookkeeping properly setup with our free checklist
The checklist is easy to get started with, and ideal for helping you scale your business. We've explained how to handle each bookkeeping process, including:
- Timeframe: Does this process need to happen weekly, monthly, quarterly, or annually?
- Nature of the work: What area of the business does this task correspond to?
- Priority: At which phase of the business should this process be implemented?
Just download the checklist and add or remove any additional processes, then assign them to the relevant team members.
Frequently asked questions
Why is ecommerce bookkeeping different from bookkeeping for a typical brick-and-mortar business?
Ecommerce businesses deal with sales tax rules that differ by state and country, much higher transaction volumes, and inventory spread across multiple sales channels and locations, all of which add real complexity a typical retail bookkeeper isn't set up to handle.
What does the free checklist actually include?
A breakdown of each bookkeeping task by timeframe (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually), nature of the work, and priority (which phase of growth it should be implemented at), based on how LedgerGurus operates as a firm.
Why does standardizing my bookkeeping processes matter?
It keeps outcomes consistent and predictable, reduces errors, makes staffing and capacity planning easier, and lets you hand tasks off to a team member or outsourced firm without everything depending on one person.
Can I customize the checklist for my own business?
Yes. It's designed to be a starting point, add or remove processes as needed, then assign them to the right team members.
What tasks does a bookkeeper typically handle?
Sales tax, inventory records, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and providing financial insight and advice, well beyond just recording transactions.
Get your free ecommerce bookkeeping checklist
Standardizing your bookkeeping process is one of the simplest, highest-leverage things you can do as your business grows. Our free checklist gives you a starting point built from how we actually operate as a firm.
