Run your eCommerce shop without an Accountant

The only things of certainty are Death and Taxes" - Benjamin Franklin

When getting your Shopify store up and running, you might not need an accounting system at first. But once the sales start coming in, you'll be glad you did.

Shopify makes it easy for small business owners to start a new, or transform their old business. New updates are added frequently and merchants are able to take advantage of them immediately.

For most, learning new systems and implementing new processes can be a challenge. Especially when you, the business owner, needs to outsource.

Quickbook has been around since the early 80's. And there's a lot of people who already know how to use the system, in one form or another. Shopify on the other hand, has only been around for about 10 years, and there's a good chance that your accountant never used it.

So when it comes time to prepare those taxes, your accountant will be happy to know that all of the payments from Shopify can be reconciled in Quickbooks.

Shopify is great for processing transactions

Using Shopify is great because it takes the headaches of managing a site. Imagine for a minute that customers couldn't buy from you because your site went down, or worse, got hacked. Having the peace of mind that your store can operate 24/7 is well worth the monthly service fee.

But it's not good for accounting

Shopify let's you process transactions that occur offline and display it on your dashboard. That's why you should be weary of the all those "get-rich-quick" drop-shipping videos you see on YouTube.

There are 2 methods of accounting - Cash Based, and Accrual Based.

Cash based is easy. You record income and expenses when the cash is received or paid. Shopify pays merchants after they are paid.

Accrual based accounting on the other hand, can become challenging for merchants because a customer may not pay an invoice for a few days. In this method, the merchant records the sale when it occurs, and has an accounts receivable for the same amount. When the customer eventually pays, the receivable goes away.

But for most, tracking this level of detail, synchronizing 2 systems, can create too much overhead, in trying to figure out the debits and credits.

Gaps in the market

When my wife started generating sales for her store, it quickly became apparent that there was a gap in the market.

I spent hours searching the Quickbooks store for a solution to backfill the historical transactions. Eventually, I found 2 solutions, but I had to subscribe to an app, manipulate spreadsheets in their pre-defined templates, upload them into Quickbooks, and reconcile them to make sure that the orders, shipping, and taxes matched.

As a merchant, we were faced with the challenge of getting the data right and security. And there was something about these spreadsheets that made me cringe. Maybe it was the copy and pasting that gave me heartburn, or the fact that I was uploading sensitive customer data into apps I never heard of.

I had also found an app that seemed promising. The company ( a venture backed startup) had build a great looking solution, but when I called the help desk, and the analyst didn't know what a debit or a credit was, I knew it was time to build my own app.

So I built the app instead

I'm not saying the analyst was at fault, he did the best he could, but let's be honest. When it comes to accounting, you have to know what debits and credits are, and the impact each has on the balance sheet and income statement.

Merchants are time crunched and have to wear lots of hats. Between sales and operations, accounting is the last thing that a merchant wants to deal with. Manipulating spreadsheets, reconciling transactions, and managing taxes shouldn't be that complicated.

That's why I built an app to integrate Quickbooks and Shopify, using the Shopify Payout data to process the transactions in Quickbooks.

Now, with the push of a button, merchants can backfill their historical Shopify data and maintain their accounting books and records going forward.

Accounting with a Click of a Button

Now, when merchants need to update their Quickbooks accounting data, they can simply log into their Shopify account, open the Qwibo app, click Process payout, and boom, synchronized transactions between your merchant account, and your books and records.

Now what can be better than that?

If you're interested in learning more about using Quickbooks Online and Shopify add a comment to this article. I would be happy to help.

I'm Todd Kovalsky and I'm the CEO of Quibo, a Shopify app for Quickbooks. I also operate TKO Solutions, a product design consulting agency in New Jersey. I came up with the idea for this app when I quickly become the COO of my wife's eCommerce store, A Spirit Animal.

I designed this app for merchants who needed help synchronizing their Shopify stores with Quickbooks, as a cost-effective, easy to use solution.

If you and your team needs help defining new products, prioritizing projects, and managing the design, development, and go-to-market strategy, please connect with me and I would be happy to chat.

Don't forget those taxes

I thought managing taxes would be easy. Ha! It's anything but.

When I set out to build an accounting app, I was focused on getting the transactions processed. But now that we are processing Shopify Orders in Quickbooks, Taxes are next on the roadmap.

So while Quibo can make it easy for you to process your accounting transactions and reconcile Quickbooks and Shopify, I suggest finding an accountant that will work with you to make sure those taxes are paid on time!