5 Real Benefits Of Xero For Growing E-commerce Brands

eCommerce

5 Real Benefits Of Xero For Growing E-commerce Brands

Xero has transformed the way small businesses do their accounting. Where before entrepreneurs might have struggled to stay on top of their financial comings and goings, Xero makes it easy to manage.

If you’re an e-commerce business with sights on a bigger slice of the pie, then Xero is an option well worth considering. Read on to discover 5 real benefits of Xero for growing e-commerce brands in 2019.

E-commerce businesses aren’t the only brands that can benefit from Xero.Discover why high-tech firms run better with Xero here.

It helps you manage cash flow better and with greater accuracy

Strong cash flow is imperative for growing eCommerce businesses. Without careful, monitored cash flow management, your eCommerce business could develop financial black holes that, at best, stunt your growth, or at worst, force you to fold entirely.

For many small business owners, their business is borne out of a passion for something: fitness, food, arts, sustainability, or any other passion that one might have.

But while they have the passion, many entrepreneurs lack the financial skill necessary to keep their labor of love going. Keeping track of the regular debits and credits associated with running a business is often out-of-reach for many entrepreneurs.

But Xero does all the hard work for you.

The Xero dashboard is intuitive and easy to navigate. A single glance reveals the financial workings of your business, from monthly profits and sales to budget forecasting and outstanding supplier invoices.

Managing cash flow is an arduous but necessary part of growing an e-commerce brand. Xero does this for you with absolute accuracy, so you can better understand your business and guide it as it grows.

It does so much more than just your basic business finances

Small business finances are a complex thing. It’s about so much more than just the debits and credits that keep your business ticking along. It’s also about how you manage your inventory, payroll, overhead bills, personal expenses, tax, and so on.

There is a myriad of elements to consider when it comes to nailing your finances and preparing a solid foundation for business growth.

Take your stock management for instance. Knowing which products are selling well (and which ones aren’t) is vital for tracking profits and allocating your efforts. Xero provides real-time updates about inventory in an intuitive dashboard. It highlights the value of your stored products and offers useful insights into potential future orders.

But Xero even benefits your business beyond your e-commerce finances — it impacts your branding too. Xero provides branded, professional-looking invoices, receipts, and other financial documentation that speak volumes about your business. They’re slick and high-quality, showing customers that you are a professional brand that they can trust.

It syncs seamlessly with your business infrastructure

A scaling business requires a multitude of things to sustain its growth. Regular sales and a loyal customer base are the wind in your business’s sails, but the tools and apps that comprise its infrastructure are the rudders that guide it.

Xero is not just a separate addition to your business infrastructure — it also augments it. It syncs and integrates with virtually every tool you use in your business, slotting in as seamlessly as a round peg in a round hole.

Take your employee management system — Tanda is a good example that comprises payroll, HR, engagement, and more for small-to-medium businesses. This is a vital component of running a business and keeping staff properly paid, but it also impacts your business finances too. Xero takes your payroll information and syncs it with the rest of your business, so you can calculate with accuracy how your business is running on a holistic level.

And consider the e-commerce platform you use, for example. Every growing online e-tail store needs a scalable solution to get ahead. Shopify Plus, for instance, is a popular enterprise option that many entrepreneurs use to scale.

Xero seamlessly integrates with Shopify to help merchants track their financial impact. It syncs orders, creates invoices, and calculates financial balances from end-to-end, nurturing measured growth all the way.

Xero is a welcome addition that will suit virtually any small business, regardless of the tools, apps, and platforms they use.

It saves you time, effort, and stress

As a growing business, you rely on a lot of resources to help you scale. Staff, products, marketing tools, and so on are just a few examples of the absolute necessities a scaling business needs.

But perhaps the most valuable resource — and the most scarce — is time.

Accounting and other daily financial admin tasks eat into huge amounts of your time as a small business owner. Supplier invoices, bills, payroll, bank reconciliations — these are all necessary but time-consuming tasks that prevent you from completing other, equally pressing tasks.

Xero automates it all for you. It provides a single hub for all of your financial tasks. It’s easy to use, comprehensive and automates all the necessary calculations so you don’t have to.

But above all, Xero lets you manage these tasks in a user-friendly way. For instance, if you find yourself performing the same task over and over, Xero lets you save it as a template for quick completion later on. It’s a simple addition, but one that saves you time (and stress) into the bargain.

It integrates with a whole ecosystem of applications

Every successful business leans on a whole range of tools to help it work. Tax, inventory management tools, payroll — these are just a few examples of the things that every business needs.

Most companies use a range of third-party tools to manage these services. But they often have an impact on accounting, so it’s important that they are able to integrate with your accounting software.

And Xero makes it easy to expand the scope of automating your business processes by seamlessly integrating with a staggeringly wide ecosystem of third-party applications.

For instance, Xero works with the sales tax calculator Taxjar. It helps US e-commerce merchants easily calculate how much they owe in sales tax at the drop of a hat. It’s entirely automated too, helping free up merchants’ valuable time.

Xero also integrates with the inventory management tool Orderhive. It easily syncs to help e-commerce merchants accurately report their spend on stock on a regular basis. Such automation takes the stress out of financial reporting and guides them on their path to success.

And the same applies to your payroll. It’s important to stay on top of your payroll as a growing business. Xero integrates with payroll systems like Gusto to help you stay on top of the daily admin processes like payroll and HR with ease — saving you time in the bargain.

These are just a few examples of the many systems that make up a successful business that Xero connects with. From rental management software like Current RMS to bookkeeping automation like ReceiptBank, there’s a place for Xero is every growing e-commerce business to help you manage it seamlessly.

Xero offers a wealth of benefits for a range of businesses: hospitality, IT services, restaurants, healthcare, franchises, tourism — the list is virtually endless. E-commerce brands are no exception. As the points above illustrate, there are several benefits for e-commerce businesses seeking to scale. If you want to expand your online business in 2019, Xero will surely steer you true.

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eCommerce Accounting Xero

eCommerce

eCommerce is no longer a luxury – it’s a vital part of any successful business strategy. But how do you make the online world work for you? From websites to social media, this guide will help you get started.


eCommerce can expand your business

eCommerce means doing business online. Put simply, it’s using the internet to promote and sell your products or services.

Some small businesses can survive without a strong online presence. For example, if you’re a one-person company working for long-term clients, perhaps you don’t need any extra work – at least not right now.

But for everyone else, being online isn’t just an option. It’s a necessity if you want to reach the widest possible audience.

Run your eCommerce business better with Cloud accounting from Xero

Building out a modern eCommerce system to support your specific requirements can be challenging. Because if you don’t choose the right technologies, you could end up spending more time managing your backoffice platform – and less time building your business. And how to ensure you have one, unified place to see the health of your business at a glance.

How Xero can help your business

Xero – the modern accounting system built in the Cloud for the Cloud – is the ideal hub of your eCommerce technology strategy. Because Xero connects seamlessly with leading shopping cart, inventory management, marketplaces, and sales tax packages, you can choose the backoffice solution that’s right for your eCommerce business. And with Xero’s powerful capabilities – from cash flow and inventory to receivables and payments – you can quickly view the health of your business anywhere, on any device, at any time.

So when you invest in Xero – and its eCommerce partner ecosystem – you can be sure you have the most up-to-date technology that’s robust yet easy to use. And as a hub for your successful eCommerce system – through Xero’s seamless integration with the best of the Cloud – you spend less time maintaining your eCommerce system and more time expanding your product offerings or acquiring new customers. Beautiful.

Five questions to understand your ecommerce goals

If you want to know how to make the best of ecommerce, you need to ask yourself these questions:

1)How important is ecommerce to my business?

If you already have an established ‘real world’ business, maybe you’re looking to expand your customer base online. A modest investment in ecommerce will let you test the waters. On the other hand, perhaps you’re planning an online-only business. In that case you’ll need to invest a lot more time and money.

2)Why?

A simple, open-ended question – so you can think about your motivation. Do you want an ecommerce presence because everybody else has one? Or because you understand how it could help your business? A useful resource here is the ‘Start with why’ TED talk from Simon Sinek.

3)What’s my timeline?

How long do you think it will take for ecommerce to pay off for you? Will it be profitable in three months, six months, or 18 months? Use your accounting software to make some forecasts, so you can budget sensibly.

4)Are my customers ready?

Ecommerce is widely-used and effective. It’s a must-have addition to almost every business. But not all businesses. Perhaps your customers come to you through word-of-mouth or local advertising. If your business is already growing well, the investment might be better spent elsewhere – or postponed for a while.

5)Is my business ready?

This could be the most important question of all. If your ecommerce investment is successful it could change your business almost overnight. Make sure your cashflow is good and all your accounts are in order. Be ready for any new business that comes your way.

Don’t forget your taxes

Doing business online means you might be selling into different jurisdictions – or even different countries.

This can make tax calculations tricky, especially sales taxes, which can vary a lot from one place to another.

Make sure you understand all your obligations when it comes to taxes. Ask an accountant to help you get started, and choose good quality accounting software to process the numbers.

This is something you can’t afford to get wrong, because the legal penalties can be high.

Keep your business compliant

Just because your business is online doesn’t mean you can ignore the real world. Like any other organisation, your business must:

  • Be registered as a business entity

    Such as partnership, corporation or limited liability entity.

  • Keep detailed records

    Of all transactions, sales and purchases.

  • Have suitable insurance

    To protect you, your employees and your customers.

  • Obey all laws and regulations

    Especially those regarding employment, payroll, accounting and taxation.

Don’t forget about mobile

More people are accessing the internet on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. In fact mobile users make up 50 perent of all web traffic – and it’s growing all the time. So your ecommerce website must be accessible and usable on mobile platforms.

This is something you should discuss with your web development company. There’s no need for you to learn the technical details, but make sure the following boxes are ticked:

  • Fast and responsive. Mobile users don’t like to wait for sites to load.
  • Easy to navigate. Don’t force users to tap their way around your site.
  • Big user interface. A finger on a touchscreen is less precise than a mouse click.
  • Uncluttered. Steer customers where you want them to go.
  • Easy to search. Let your customers bypass your navigation to find the product they want.

    Don’t confuse a mobile-optimised website with a mobile app. They are two different things. Start by getting your website right. Then you can move on to getting an app developed if you have the budget for it.

Tie your business together

Ecommerce shouldn’t be a separate part of your work. It should be tightly integrated with the rest of your business.

Whether you’re selling online or through a store, your customers deserve the same great service. Keeping everything together makes it easier to track sales performance and manage your inventory.

So use whatever tools you need in order to keep your business fully integrated. There are cloud applications to handle inventory, accounting, payroll, marketing and more. These will help you keep tabs on every aspect of your online presence.

That way you can make the most of your eCommerce business – wherever you happen to be.

Please contact us if you like to know further.