As a new or established Amazon seller, do you find yourself struggling to keep finances in order? Are you ready to start focusing on growing your business, rather than tedious accounting details? Amazon is a competitive marketplace, which makes balancing finances difficult for many business owners. Investing in a Certified Public Accountant (CPA), who specializes in Amazon accounting, allows you to keep track of every detail with ease. A polished Ecommerce accountant will be well-informed about new accounting software and time-saving tools to help increase efficiency within your business.
Digital businesses are competitive and always changing. If the majority of your sales take place on Amazon, the largest e-commerce marketplace in the world, it’s necessary to hire experienced Ecommerce financial experts. They will manage everything for you without missing important details, allowing you to build a strong foundation for your Amazon business’ future. Accounting services may include forecasting, bookkeeping, tax preparation, balance sheets, income statement production, financial guidance, and more.
In this guide, we will discuss the importance of hiring an experienced Ecommerce accountant to handle your Amazon business’ finances. You’ll learn about the different services offered and how to streamline your cash flow with help from financial experts. We will also briefly review how Amazon has impacted the Ecommerce marketplace and what it means for the future of digital businesses.
How Amazon is Shaping the Ecommerce Marketplace
Amazon is the largest Ecommerce marketplace in the world, allowing businesses to buy and sell products, make money transfers, and transfer data from a device with an internet connection. This is impressive, considering Amazon started as an online bookstore in 1994.
Since then, Amazon has evolved and grown into additional product areas and third-party sales where retailers and individual sellers utilize Amazon to sell goods and services. This is especially beneficial for companies who don’t have as much of an online presence because it allows them to expand their brand, products, and services on an internationally known platform.
Amazon, in a sense, leases an online space to retailers who want to use the platform as a supplemental outlet for their online sales. Large and small companies, such as Target and Nordstrom, use Amazon to sell products, while also selling the same inventory on their company website. This has allowed many businesses to grow exponentially and only continues to do so.
Benefits of Hiring an Amazon Accountant
With so many sellers using Amazon Marketplace, hiring an outsourced accounting firm to gain financial guidance will allow you to make better decisions. As a business owner, you are responsible for all assets and liabilities, so finding a company experienced in the Ecommerce marketplace saves time, stress, and money in the long run.
With help from seasoned experts, you won’t have to worry about the small details. They will manage everything for you, such as forecasting, bookkeeping, inventory tracking, and tax preparation.
Below outlines a few key areas your accountant will keep track of for you.
Cash Flow and Income Tracking
Since there is a higher marginal cost for Amazon businesses that sell physical goods, such as on Amazon, it’s crucial to ensure your cash flow is managed and tracked at all times. An outsourced Ecommerce expert will be able to handle this for you, without losing track of the numbers.
An outsourced Ecommerce CPA will consistently reconcile books on a weekly or monthly basis to accurately forecast the money leaving an account accurately matches the money spent. By using reconciled books, an outsourced accountant will create these forecasts, analyze cash flow, expenses and give your business tailored feedback. A business should always know what money is coming in and coming out of their account. An accounting team will do just that.
Amazon has and continues to change the way people do business by making it easy to gain brand awareness and utilize the Amazon Marketplace to expand their potential for an increase in sales. No matter the business, sales should be a priority. Outsourcing your accounting needs to handle bookkeeping, run reports, and other financial components will allow you to focus on streamlining your business.
Inventory and Expenses Tracking
Amazon accountants can track and manage your inventory. They will also organize operating costs, costs of goods sold, and allow you to easily track other business expenses.
While businesses work on selling products, financial Ecommerce professionals take all the work companies don’t need to worry about and do it for them in cost-effective and efficient ways. They are committed to helping companies accelerate their revenue.
Ecommerce accountants will also track your Amazon selling fees, including Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) fees, storage fees, and shipping fees. The Amazon Marketplace provides business owners with a platform that effectively keeps track of inventory. This includes purchases, cash flow, and returns by using FBA, which expedites wait time by utilizing the Amazon Prime free Two-Day shipping on products. Amazon makes FBA cost-effective and simple by allowing sellers to pay as they go. Since the cost of shipping is included in fees, the financial breakdown is transparent. Although, it is often hard for business owners to track all of the fees on their own. This is where an expert Ecommerce accountant steps in.
Since the inventory is purchased upfront, returns can also make the accounting aspect a little tricky. Returns have to be tracked and processed, which requires an accountant to factor in returns to accurately forecast cash intake and develop projections while ensuring all books are cleared.
Conclusion
When it comes to investing in Amazon accounting services, it’s best to start at the beginning of the selling process, before your business fully takes off. Although, it’s never too late to invest in accounting services. If you are already an established Amazon seller who is struggling to balance the numbers and your business at the same time, we’ve got you covered. At Fully Accountable, our team has the right expertise and experience in the Ecommerce accounting industry to keep your organization ahead of the curve, save you money, and increase profits.
Chris Giorgio is the President of Fully Accountable. Fully Accountable is an outsourced accounting firm specializing in eCommerce and digital businesses. Chris has served as a CPA, CFO and has over 14 years of experience in the accounting and finance industry. Chris has dedicated his career towards helping entrepreneurs and high-level business owners achieve greater profitability through specialized outsource accounting functions.
