Why Is A2X The Best Ecommerce Accounting Solution?
Once upon a time, ecommerce accounting was an online seller’s nightmare.
Then along came A2X.
Since its release, dozens of products have tried to mimic the way we simplify and streamline the ecommerce accounting process, yet A2X remains the gold standard worldwide.
In this article, we reveal the features that keep A2X ahead of the ecommerce accounting curve and break down how, by prioritizing accuracy and clarity, this app continues to warrant the trust of thousands of sellers across the globe.
In this guide to why A2X is a no-brainer for your ecommerce accounting toolkit:
- What A2X is and who it’s designed for
- An overview of ecommerce accounting and its challenges
- What makes A2X uniquely designed to handle those challenges
- Your free trial link
Let’s get straight into it.
What Is A2X?
A2X is a connector app that goes between your sales channels and your accounting software.
It loads your settlements and breaks them down into tidy journal summaries for faster, more accurate reconciliation.
But more than that, A2X is the best solution out there for simplifying the ecommerce accounting process and producing accurate results.
How do we know this?
For starters, ecommerce accounting automation has been our sole focus from the beginning.
Our dedicated team of experts has spent countless hours refining ways to make the lives of ecommerce sellers and their accountants easier.
Nothing is more important than accuracy when it comes to ecommerce accounting.
We continue to develop our platform with this fact in mind.
Below, we’ll explain just how A2X ensures accurate bookkeeping and tackles the other challenges of ecommerce accounting as well.
Who can use A2X?
A2X is currently compatible with five of the leading ecommerce sales channels:
It is also available for multi-channel sellers thanks to A2X Multi.
The app can connect any of these sales channels with three of the most popular accounting automation software:
A2X is designed to be used by both ecommerce sellers and their accountants, with unique resources and training programs available for each.
“A2X is the go-to accounting software for e-commerce clients. A2X makes bookkeeping and accounting easy. The process is easy, understandable and efficient, the integration with [my accounting software] is outstanding.”
A Breakdown Of Ecommerce Accounting
Ecommerce accounting can be quite confusing without the fundamental knowledge and expertise required to maintain accurate books.
Due to the high-volume nature of ecommerce transactions, there are many unique challenges that must be confronted and mitigated when selling online.
In this section, we’ll break down what those challenges are, and how A2X solves them using the GAAP-approved accrual accounting method.
Unique challenges of ecommerce accounting
Business accounting certainly has its complications.
But ecommerce accounting is a whole other kettle of fish. Even for experienced accountants, it can feel like entering a new world.
We’ve identified four major challenges that are unique to ecommerce accounting:
1. The confusing nature of sales tax
When you sell online, your customer base can stretch as far and wide as possible - right around the world, in fact.
Although this is one of the biggest benefits of opening an online shop, it comes with one significant downside: Your sales tax begins to get more complicated.
Where you sell to and where you sell from, where you store your products, and the value of business you transact can all affect the tax you must pay for each sale.
Understanding your sales tax responsibilities is crucial to avoiding fees and fines that may damage your profit margins.
Thankfully, you’ll find everything you need to stay on top of taxes in the dedicated sales tax section of our Ecommerce Accounting Hub.
2. The complexities around inventory management
Brick-and-mortar stores have the advantage of only selling the stock they have on hand to their customers.
Ecommerce sellers, on the other hand, often wish to sell through multiple sales channels to reach wider audiences. This can make it difficult to gain a clear understanding of how many products are currently sitting in various stages of your supply chain.
Add in third-party logistics, storage fees, delivery fees, and limited space and it can quickly become a real problem for sellers.
An accurate inventory management system is an essential part of keeping accurate financial data, as all ecommerce accountants ought to understand.
When building your ecommerce accounting tech stack, remember that inventory management is one of the core components to ensuring everything is done right.
3. Managing high-volume transactions without sacrificing accuracy
More transactions = more financial data.
It’s not so much the number of transactions that are the real problem, however.
It’s the data within each transaction.
All this information can overwhelm even the best accounting software systems. Without a connector app like A2X there to automatically import clean summaries of these transactions, you’re putting your accounting software at risk.
Along with protecting your integrated software from burnout, A2X will shine a light on some of the less-obvious line items that are hidden away inside each settlement.
This means more visibility, more accuracy, and less manual arithmetic.
4. Understanding the full picture when it comes to numbers
Accuracy and clarity go hand-in-hand. That’s why ecommerce accounting is so tricky.
A common mistake made by accountants that are inexperienced with ecommerce is assuming the bank deposits made by sales channels like Walmart and Amazon are gross sales revenue.
The major issues with this assumption are:
- These are net deposits reflecting a certain sales period; not a single day.
- Each deposit consists of more than just sales - returns, shipping costs, sales tax, seller fees, and more contribute to the final total.
Ecommerce accountants need to know how to find this information. Otherwise, your forecasting and financial strategizing will suffer (along with many other challenges).
The journal summaries produced by A2X will help you understand what the individual contributors are in any given deposit. But you’ll also need to know what period they reflect.
That’s where accrual accounting comes in.
Accrual accounting vs. cash accounting
Cash accounting and accrual accounting are the two most popular methods used for bookkeeping.
And when it comes to ecommerce, accrual accounting is the clear favorite - with good reason.
The biggest difference between the two methods is timing. Cash accounting records income when money is received (or spent); accrual accounting records income when a transaction is made.
A2X uses accrual accounting to sort settlements into the months the transactions actually took place - matching revenue and expenses in the period they occur.
The benefits of this method are huge for ecommerce stores.
It allows businesses that operate on credit to know what they’re owed and what they owe at any given time. For this reason, it also boosts the ease and accuracy of financial forecasting.
In case you hadn’t picked up on it yet, we are obsessed with accurate bookkeeping here at A2X.
“Previously, I was unable to customize the way of accounting for my payouts … A2X has made a great difference. Now everything has gotten a lot simpler and more accurate as well as less time-consuming than doing this task manually.”
The secret behind A2X journal summaries
At A2X, we only post journal summaries when the settlement data has been released by one of your sales channels.
There’s a good reason for this.
While some other solutions opt for weekly or even daily journal summaries, this can get messy and give your accountants even more work to do.
Daily summaries mean daily reconciliation (and ensuring that multiple entries in your accounting system accurately match up to the payout). To us, this seems an extraordinary waste of time. But worse than that, in the case of certain sales channels such as Amazon, accuracy is no longer being prioritized.
Reliably accurate data isn’t available from Amazon until the settlements are posted.
That means that if you’re posting journal summaries before seeing the settlements, it’s likely to be a messy workaround.
Why A2X Is The Ultimate Solution For Ecommerce Stores
If you’ve read our reviews on Capterra (or any other platform), you’ll already know that A2X is the preferred integration app for ecommerce sellers and their accountants.
In case you’re still in the dark about the main benefits of A2X, we’ve broken them down for you below.
Maximum accuracy
As any good accountant will tell you, accuracy is essential when it comes to bookkeeping.
A2X gives you accurate numbers every time.
We’ve designed our app to be the most reliable and insightful integration tool out there for ecommerce sellers.
No more hoping that all your sales data is correct.
A2X gives you the confidence to forecast your finances so you can make the important business decisions needed to help your store thrive.
Faster reconciliation
Nothing will ever be more important than accuracy as far as accounting goes. But timeliness comes in as a close second.
By breaking down your settlements into tidy journal summaries, reconciling becomes a breeze.
Payouts are automatically matched to your bank deposits. All you need to do is check and confirm everything looks good on your end.
You’ll no longer suffer from the stress of crunching numbers with minimal visibility; all the hard work is done for you.
With A2X, reconciliation is as simple as a click of a button - literally.
Less manual work = more free time
Since knowing what’s going into your settlements and then reconciling them is so much easier with A2X, you’ll soon have plenty of spare time on your hands.
Time that can now be spent searching for new ways to grow your business.
Whether it’s focusing on education, marketing, further automation, supply chain, or product development - you can leave your competitors in the dust as your store continues to thrive.
A2X slices off countless hours from your accounting process every year. We don’t take the term “automation” lightly around here.
“[A2X] makes bookkeeping way easier between your Shopify, Amazon and more by automatically importing all transactions, already categorized perfectly. Saves hundreds of hours of bookkeeping per year!”
Organized and accessible sales data
Automatically downloading your settlements and splitting them into the months the transactions occur is a dream come true for ecommerce accountants. But the accessibility of A2X doesn’t stop there.
Just as useful is the ability to clearly see and understand every element of those settlements, any time you want. You’ll even be able to download historical sales data and import it using A2X.
Knowing what goes into every transaction is crucial for accurate accounting. That’s why so many ecommerce sellers and their accountants choose A2X.
Try A2X For Free
Now that you know how A2X works, is it the right software for your business?
Let’s go over a few of the main points.
A2X allows ecommerce sellers and their accountants to…
- View every income and expense line from each bank deposit in tidy journal summaries that don’t clog up your accounting software.
- Benefit from a reliably accurate picture of your finances thanks to accrual accounting principles.
- Reconcile faster by automatically matching payouts with your bank deposits.
- Save hours of valuable time without sacrificing accuracy.
And guess what? You can start using A2X for free right now!
Simply click on one of the links below to start your free trial today:
“[Signing up for A2X] was the best decision we ever made. It was recommended by our accountant and now I don’t know where we would be without it. It saves time, confusion and effort. All there at the click of a button. The customer service is just wonderful too.”
For more handy resources around ecommerce accounting, please check out our Ecommerce Accounting Hub.
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