Best Ecommerce Accounting

[brain357]

I own a small ecommerce business and am looking to decrease my workload. Let me first explain what I am doing now:

I use QuickBooks pro for my accounting and Paypal payments pro for payments on my site. I receive orders through the website and then enter each order into quickbooks manually as a sale receipt with each different customer having it's own record. After the order is entered I then use QuickBooks shipping manager to print the label and ship. The funds from the order are entered as undeposited funds in QB. Once a week or so I transfer the money from the orders into my checking account from my paypal account and then move the payments in quickbooks from undeposited funds to my checking and subtract the paypal fees. This process works fine, but it is getting more and more hard to keep up with. I want to spend more time marketing and less processing orders.

I'm moving my site over to Bigcommerce in the next month or so and am looking to have a more efficient process. While researching integrations with Bigcommerce and QuickBooks I have found several references to how most people just transfer all orders to QuickBooks as a web order? So the individual customers are never entered in QuickBooks? I've also read QuickBooks slows down with too many customers? I have about 4,000 now. I've searched for more details but am not having any luck. But it has occurred to me that maybe I don't just need an integration, but should change many of the ways I am doing things. With bigcommerce there are several app options for printing labels and quickbooks integrations. So what are most people doing? Is quickbooks pro the right thing? Should I be using an online accounting? I look forward to responses.

[Freelancier]

Yes, what you're seeing is correct: QB does bog down as you add more and more customers to it. I have customers who want to enter every customer into QB and they have to go through a painful process of "shrinking" their QB file every 2-3 years. I have another customer just making all "cash" orders (not PO's or Net 30 invoices) all under a single cash customer and the rest are tracked individually. They are 3x the size of the other customer and have never needed to shrink their QB file.

So, yes, I'd do the process as either an export from your eComm package (should have that!) to QB with a single customer for all credit card customers and any bulk orders where the customer is issued credit terms, those get entered as new customers in QB.

[brain357]

Yes, what you're seeing is correct: QB does bog down as you add more and more customers to it. I have customers who want to enter every customer into QB and they have to go through a painful process of "shrinking" their QB file every 2-3 years. I have another customer just making all "cash" orders (not PO's or Net 30 invoices) all under a single cash customer and the rest are tracked individually. They are 3x the size of the other customer and have never needed to shrink their QB file.

So, yes, I'd do the process as either an export from your eComm package (should have that!) to QB with a single customer for all credit card customers and any bulk orders where the customer is issued credit terms, those get entered as new customers in QB.

Thanks. Do you know of any sort of guide for this? I've still been searching and finding nothing. I posted on the QuickBooks forum and no answers there either.

Thinking I will do it like this. They will all be customer Web Orders in quickbooks. I'll use the memo field for the web order number so I can match it up to a person later if I need to. I'm concerned I'm forgetting something important.

[Freelancier]

I'd use the memo field for the order ID instead of the customer name, otherwise you're on the right track. No guide I know of, it's mostly trial and error and adjusting your process as you go along to match what you need. In this case, the accounting system does not need the names of people who are paying upfront for their goods; it's only if you need to send them a statement later that you want their name and address in the accounting system.

[tallen]

I In this case, the accounting system does not need the names of people who are paying upfront for their goods; it's only if you need to send them a statement later that you want their name and address in the accounting system.

Obviously it depends on whether you anticipate having some kind of an ongoing relationship with your customers, or whether they each just represent a one-time transaction. At the moment, our QB file is our main customer relation database!

[brain357]

Obviously it depends on whether you anticipate having some kind of an ongoing relationship with your customers, or whether they each just represent a one-time transaction. At the moment, our QB file is our main customer relation database!

I sort of thought the same before, but as I am thinking about changing the way I do things I realize I've never used them. I have constant contact for my emailing. I won't delete the customers I have now, and should be able to export any customers info from my website. So I don't think I will lose any info if I ever have a reason to use it. What have you been using your QB customer file for?

[brain357]

I'd use the memo field for the order ID instead of the customer name, otherwise you're on the right track. No guide I know of, it's mostly trial and error and adjusting your process as you go along to match what you need. In this case, the accounting system does not need the names of people who are paying upfront for their goods; it's only if you need to send them a statement later that you want their name and address in the accounting system.

I don't need them for tax purposes either right? I can just record the tax rate under the web orders account i assume. Like a business that accepts a cash payment doesn't know the customer name either but still collects sales tax. Most of my orders are out of state and not taxable.

[Freelancier]

Yes. And you might consider having a taxable and non-taxable account so that you can differentiate on a single invoice how much went which.

Also make sure your accounting package tax calculation matches the tax you calculate on your web site so the numbers balance.

[kel]

I'm a fan of FreshBooks personally!