Imagine this: Your business takes off, and now you have to manage a product-based e-commerce store via multiple channels to increase sales. Sounds like quite a hassle, right?
While selling online is relatively easier than selling at a brick-and-mortar store, it comes with its own challenges. Due to the different types of digital channels, you have to maintain individual bookkeeping records for each platform while working on improving customer experience. From tracking inventory and consolidating financial data to managing customer relationships and cutting expenses, you have to be on your toes with several business tasks.
Fortunately, Intuit has developed a robust automated solution for e-commerce businesses. The QuickBooks Commerce platform is designed to help small e-commerce business owners make smart business decisions.
Let’s talk more about QuickBooks for e-commerce integration.
Defining the Role of Automation in E-Commerce
The most popular e-commerce channels include Amazon, Magento, Shopify, eBay, Wix, WooCommerce, etc. If businesses wish to stand out in today’s competitive online market, they must build a strong digital presence on more than one of the platforms mentioned above. However, doing so isn’t always easy. Due to budget and skill constraints, many SMEs often fail to maintain their presence.
This is where QuickBooks comes in. Its robust features make it easier for e-commerce businesses to gain a competitive advantage. The software can integrate data from your e-commerce store into a well-defined, easy-to-understand dashboard.
You can do everything from sales, inventory, utility expenses, and vendor payments to customer feedback and digital payment tracking using QuickBooks Commerce.
As many online businesses try harder to compete in this fierce market, software solutions like QuickBooks have opened doors for easy digital transformation for budding entrepreneurs. Digital Commerce 360 states that the global e-commerce industry accounts for over 50% of sales in the retail industry. And due to the pandemic, this number has increased quite dramatically.
However, as an online business owner, you must stay efficient in basic accounting and bookkeeping practices. Moreover, investing in efficient e-commerce software can help you focus on core business tasks instead of crunching numbers every day.
Criteria for Choosing an E-Commerce Software
Many small online businesses fail to recognize the importance of robust e-commerce software, let alone know how to choose one. Hundreds of e-commerce software products are available, but not all are as efficient as QuickBooks.
When choosing e-commerce software, you must remember a few basic features. One of the most important ones is inventory management.
While hiring an inventory control manager may sound like a good idea, deploying an automated tool like QuickBooks is a better alternative.
The software keeps track of each item available in stock and consolidates day-to-day data on Excel, making recordkeeping as efficient as possible.
When choosing an e-commerce integration software, ensure the tool understands your store’s current financial health. This will produce more accurate projections and keep your business’s accounting unit running smoothly.
Quickbooks Commerce Features
Now that you understand the significance of deploying an automated e-commerce accounting solution, let’s talk about QuickBooks Commerce. This platform is designed to help online and offline sellers streamline their core accounting tasks.
From integrating and streamlining payments, inventory, and orders to collecting and analyzing sales data, QuickBooks can efficiently perform every bookkeeping task. Various features in the QuickBooks Commerce tool can help you level up your e-commerce store.
Here’s what you can do with the QuickBooks Commerce integration:
Order Management
You can sync, analyze, and fulfill orders using QuickBooks without incurring extra downtime. The tool can track your orders, notify you if something’s out-of-stock, and create re-order tabs to increase the sales potential of your e-commerce platform.
Purchase Order Management
You can efficiently keep tabs on the timely creation, assessment, and collection of POs whenever a customer orders via your online store. QuickBooks can also integrate vendor purchase orders at a commercial level.
Backorder Management
QuickBooks lets you maintain optimal inventory levels by allowing you to pre-order products at certain times.
CRM Technology
No one understands building customer relationships more than a new, aspiring e-commerce business owner. QuickBooks CRM technology helps online businesses track customer information, analyze it to create demand triggers, and offer accurate projections.
The software can also collect and assess customer responses and reviews from their buying patterns.
In addition, integrating QuickBooks into your e-commerce business will help you:
- Create inventory reports on a daily, weekly, or annual basis.
- Obtain consolidated sales reports on time.
- Manage and optimize inventory to make smart re-ordering and forecasting decisions easy.
- Perform multi-channel business integration.
- Enhance supply chain efficiency.
- Enhance customer experiences and satisfaction by making digital payment modes safer.
- Use fully-equipped inventory management and accounting software without breaking the bank.
