Two great app integrations for e-commerce
JOE VIRTUE, from our cloud accounting team, describes the benefits of apps for running a successful ecommerce business. And he points to two in particular that you should actively consider.
These days, many consumers tend to make purchases using online platforms. As a result, businesses have had to adapt and migrate to digital sales and expand their reach across the multiple ecommerce platforms to remain competitive and maximise revenue.
Most businesses initially struggle with this change, especially since without the correct tools, consolidating transactional data across multiple ecommerce platforms to accurately represent revenue, fees, shipping, COGS etc, can be extremely time consuming and daunting. This only worsens with the logistic requirements that come with inventory management. It is almost inevitable to make mistakes throughout these processes, which will ultimately lead to incorrect financial data, uninformed decision making and supply chain inefficiencies.
No matter the size or accounting requirements of your ecommerce business, you can be assured there is an ecommerce app available, which can be integrated with your sales channels and payment processers to do the heavy lifting for you. It will give you valuable insights into your business in real time, without the need to dedicate countless hours towards it. Here are two examples of e-commerce apps that have the potential to revolutionise your e-commerce accounting function.
Dext Commerce
Dext Commerce is an innovative ecommerce accounting application that can be integrated with your sales channels and accounting software, with the sole aim to make managing your digital sales data simple.
Most e-commerce platforms allow you to export transactional data, but they tend to be formatted differently, so it can be quite a laborious task to consolidate them all individually ready for import into your accounting software. This is where Dext Commerce's multi-channel fetch feature can help.
Once you have connected Dext Commerce to your ecommerce platforms and your accounting software, all your sales data will be gathered into simple, consolidated and standardised data, with the option to set up custom automatic exports into your accounting software with as much or little detail as you like. With the option to split your sales into itemised data such as customer details, shipping fees, general fees, payments methods, discounts and more, you can be assured that you can create reports that meet the demands of your business, allowing you to make well-informed decisions based upon up-to-date data that meets your criteria.
To summarise, Dext Commerce gives you reassurance that your data is transferred to your accounting software correctly, with itemised data suitable for comprehensive reporting, giving you the chance to focus more of your time into the growth of your business.
CIN7
One of the most overlooked elements of the supply chain for many ecommerce businesses is inventory management. It is vital to adopt a thorough inventory management process, especially if you wish to increase your scalability, eliminate backorders, deadstock and stockouts. With multi-sales channels in place, inventory management can be a logistical nightmare, but with modernised app innovations such as CIN7 – which has the capability to introduce real-time inventory management across all your ecommerce platforms – it has never been so easy.
Once CIN7 is integrated with your sales channels, you can use its comprehensive array of real-time forecasting tools and reports that will deliver valuable insights and aid you to make informed decisions on the right amount of product units (SKUs) required in stock at any given time. Ultimately, this will help you reduce stock outs, backorders, and deadstock. There are countless benefits to your business, from greater customer service through to better purchase order management, but most importantly an improvement on your bottom line.
As computer systems and communications have advanced significantly over the last decade, more information has been exchanged between businesses electronically. If you are looking to significantly scale your ecommerce business, it may be worth looking at capitalising on the benefits of using an EDI system, which refers to the transfer of electronic data between computers via electronic data interchange. (This can either be internally within your business or with other businesses, such as one of your suppliers.)
For example, if you have set a certain threshold for inventory levels for a specific product unit, you are able to use CIN7's EDI tools to automatically create purchase orders and send them to your suppliers electronically, once inventory levels have dropped below the set threshold amount. If implemented into your inventory management system correctly, CIN7's EDI tools can significantly accelerate your business' supply chain functions and reduce your administrative burden, ultimately enhancing your overall operational efficiency.
These benefits are just scratching the surface of what you and your business can access while using e-commerce apps, If you would like to find out more, please get in touch now by calling us on 0115 955 5500 or emailing enquiries@pagekirk.co.uk