Why eCommerce businesses must have direct integration from website to accounting system
Why eCommerce businesses must have direct integration from website to accounting system
With the Australian eCommerce Market Value estimated to be worth $32.56 billion dollars last year in 2017 it makes sense that most businesses today also have a strong online presence. An eCommerce store allows businesses to sell outside their normal trading hours and in high volume with minimal staff involvement.
So you've made the move to bring your business online and start selling. Online orders are flowing through and sales are increasing! But now what? That data is useless just being in an eCommerce database. It needs to be in your Accounting Software package.
What data from your eCommerce site needs to go to your accounting software?
- Customer contact details
- Sale and tax values
- Possibly inventory adjustment values
- Customer payment information
And how is that information getting into your accounting software?....and please don't say that someone in admin is manually entering that data in....arrghh! Let's have a quick think about this. One of the biggest reasons for having an eCommerce website is to allow a large volume of purchases with minimal staff involvement. Doesn't really make sense to then have manual staff involvement. If one person orders online, typing that in manually is one thing. If you get 1,000 orders online how's that going to work with manual data entry? It just ain't. And it's not just the time it takes. Think about how much potential you've just increased data entry errors!
So best practice for an eCommerce website is to have direct integration with your accounting software. So what are your options to achieve this direct integration, and kiss manual data entry of online orders goodbye?
- Integration app offered by eCommerce provider. Check with your eCommerce provider if they have an app plug-in that can connect directly with your accounting software brand.
- Third-party integration providers. There are a number of software integration companies that can be the 'middle-man' in your integration, connecting to both your eCommerce store and your accounting software and will then manage and support that integration.
- Roll up your sleeves and work your own integration magic using a tool like Zapier. Once you familiarize yourself with a tool like this you can then connect both your accounts and setup what you'd like integrated. Bit more work, and you then need to manage this yourself, but could work out a little bit cheaper.
After your tee'd up your integration, let those volume orders roll in, and just watch the figures in your accounting system grow!
With rich data being in your accounting system now, what other integrations can we then feed off this to further reduce any manual intervention? Stay tuned :)
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