As an ecommerce founder, you know that managing your finances is critical to the success of your business. However, with so many accounting tools and software options available, it can be challenging to know where to start.
Building the right accounting tech stack is essential for any ecommerce business looking to optimize its financial management processes.
In this post, we’ll dive into the steps you need to take to build your ideal ecommerce accounting tech stack. We’ll cover everything from choosing the right accounting software to integrating it with your ecommerce platform and other financial tools.
Article Contents
What do you need to consider when building your ecommerce accounting tech stack?
Creating a strong eCommerce accounting tech stack for your ecommerce business helps you cut costs, increase operational efficiency, and automate time-consuming tasks.
If you are a 7-figure eCommerce business, here is the software you should have in your financial tech stack.
Cloud Accounting Software
Online cloud accounting software lets you maintain and access all your financial data where you can conveniently access it from any computer or smartphone — making it easy to run your business on the go.
Additionally, any authorized person in your business can also access the information when they need it. Plus, most cloud-based software provides an option for automatic updates. Your information also is securely stored in the cloud instead of on a hard drive. As a result, even if a computer fails, your data is backed up and safe.
QuickBooks Commerce
QuickBooks Commerce is accounting software designed for ecommerce businesses.
This software provides key automations that help you connect your online sales data to QuickBooks so you can see income and expenses in one place. You can connect with Amazon, eBay, and Shopify. However, the number of sales channels you can connect depends on the plan you choose.
Key features include:
- Robust reporting tools
- Ability to customize reports
- Unlimited invoicing
- Tools to assist with automations
- Inventory tracking in some of the plans
- Bill management and receipt capture
- Calculate sales tax automatically
- Accept credit cards and bank orders
- Track projects, including labor costs, expenses, and payroll on some plans
QuickBooks is often considered the industry standard across businesses. So if you use an accountant, they likely are familiar with the program, and QuickBooks makes it easy to share with your accountant. However, some individuals newer to accounting practices may need time to get used to using the software.
QuickBooks offers four plans starting at $30 per month.
Xero
Xero accounting software offers plans for small, growing, and established businesses.
Xero has an easy-to-use layout that can feel less intimidating to people new to accounting basics. You also can customize the accounting dashboard so you can quickly see the details that matter most to you. For instance, you can track invoices, bills, bank balances, and more.
Unlike QuickBooks, Xero offers unlimited users on all plans, which can be helpful for small ecommerce businesses.
Other key features include:
- Inventory management software to help you track items in stock, view how well items are selling, and preset details in orders and invoices
- Ability to create and send purchase orders, including keeping track of deliveries and orders
- Automatically calculating sales tax
- Track and manage fixed assets to keep your books up to date
- Key analytics such as tracking metrics, checking your financial health, and future cash flow
- Integrations with other third-party software commonly used by ecommerce businesses
For an additional fee, you can also use Gusto payroll to calculate pay and deductions, pay your employees, and more.
Xero offers three pricing plans starting at $13 per month. But businesses that use multiple currencies, track projects, or want in-depth analytics must select the Established plan that is $70 per month.
Payroll Software
Navigating paying employees, contractors, and freelancers can be frustrating and time-consuming, especially if some people live in different countries. However, payroll software can help you save time when processing payroll each month through automations and help you simplify your business taxes.
Additionally, it can help reduce errors. For instance, most software is updated with changing federal and state tax requirements, helping ensure you don’t make a mistake. Plus, you can automate tax filings and often set up alerts so you never miss a tax deadline.
Gusto
Gusto provides payroll, benefits, and HR hiring tools for businesses of all sizes.
It provides full-service payroll features in an easy-to-use format that saves you time and helps reduce errors. Gusto’s key features provide:
- Unlimited payroll runs
- Automations to help file taxes
- Features to assist with tax compliance, such as state tax registration and identifying hidden tax credits
- International contractor payments
- Automatic W-2s and 1099s
- Automations to calculate and sync PTO, employees’ hours, and holidays with payroll
- Ability to track projects
- Mobile time tracking
- Key insights and reporting features, including employee feedback surveys, team insights, and automatic custom reports
Gusto also provides HR and hiring tools, such as hiring documents, automated feedback requests, review progress tracking, performance review templates, and more.
Gusto’s plans start at $40 per month plus $6 per month per person.
Airwallex
Airwallex provides payment solutions for small and medium businesses that operate internationally.
Airwallex’s multi-currency accounts let you hold, send, and collect money in all major currencies. This feature helps you reduce transfer fees, making local and international transfers easier. It also offers competitive exchange rates.
Additionally, Airwallex provides several features to make expense management easy. For instance, you can create virtual business debit cards, which you can provide to employees to help manage business spending. Employees can upload receipts for approval, and the software makes reconciling expenses and monitoring spending easy.
Airwallex also integrates with popular third-party apps like Xero.
Bill.com
Bill.com makes payroll easier with end-to-end automations and features to streamline your process, whether you’re a small or medium-sized business.
The central dashboard makes monitoring and controlling payments easy, allowing for real-time tracking. Additionally, you can manage your accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash flow management, and more, so you get a complete picture of the money coming in and out of your business.
Additional key payroll features include:
- Auto-sync or data integration with your accounting software to reduce manual errors and simplify reconciliation
- Gather invoices in one place plus automated invoice processing to save time
- Custom approval policies
- Automate approval workflows
- Flexible payment options, including international wire, ACH, credit card, and check
- Integrations with other popular third-party apps
Bill.com’s plans start at $45 per user per month.
Deel
Deel is an all-in-one payroll and HR platform designed for companies with global teams.
The software lets you consolidate payroll and stay compliant no matter where your employees or contractors live. You can incorporate automations to help you pay employees, contractors, and EORs.
Additionally, Deel helps you:
- Manage taxes and benefits
- Provide over 15 global payment options
- Reduce your admin time with automated contractor invoicing
- Run payroll in over 90 countries
The HR features make it easier for you to hire workers, whether local or international and maintain compliance with each country’s needs. Automations and integrations help you streamline your HR workflow and onboarding process. The platform also offers customizations so you can tailor the HR tasks to your needs.
Deel maintains high data protection and security standards, so your information is safe. Plans start at $49.
Expense Management Software
Expense management software helps you monitor, manage, and report business expenses.
Automations help streamline the process, save time, and reduce the risk of errors. It also makes the approval process easier and can help identify violations or false claims.
HubDoc
HubDoc lets you keep all your receipts, statements, and bills in one place so you can convert it into usable data, simplify your paperwork, and go paperless.
This software, which is built-into Xero, helps you save time by making it easy to capture bills and receipts and reducing data entry. You can upload your documents in various ways, including taking a photo, scanning, or using email.
You can easily find the documents you need since everything is stored in one place. It provides auto-filing, automatic sorting, and customizable folders. The search features make it easy to find the documents you need.
You can also share the information with your accountant or sync it with your accounting software using integrations.
HubDoc offers a free 30-day trial and costs $12 per month.
Expensify
Expensify helps businesses of all sizes automate, manage, track, and reconcile expenses. Admins and employees can track and submit expenses using the system. Plus, you can assign multiple approvers.
Expensify provides one-click receipt scanning and the SmartScan automatically captures all details in an expense report. Additionally, businesses can opt to obtain the Expensify Card to further streamline managing receipts.
Additional features include:
- Automatic receipt merging and coding when importing your credit card transactions
- Customized approval workflows and expense policies
- Sync tax rates
- Audit and compliance features, such as detecting duplicate receipts, confirming the validity of transactions, and ensuring exchange rates
- Unlimited receipt scanning and mileage tracking
- Next-day reimbursement
- Integrations and syncing with popular third-party apps
Expensify also offers additional features such as creating and sending invoices, bill pay, and the Expensify business credit card.
Expensify offers plans for businesses and individuals. Some features are free. Paid plans start at $5 per user per month with the Expensify Card.
Forecasting Software
Financial forecasting software helps you analyze past and current sales data and trends, so you can make predictions about the future of your business.
This information lets you make better-informed decisions about your business’s goals, resources, and investments.
Fathom
Fathom is an easy-to-use, all-in-one analysis, reporting, and forecasting solution so you can gain financial insights to help you manage your business.
The financial analysis features help you obtain a clearer picture of your business and its performance. For instance, you can measure and monitor KPIs that matter to you and get visual insights.
You can create custom management reports quickly that you can share by printing or over the web. The editor is easy to use, allowing you to add text, charts, financial statements, and tables to reports.
The cash flow forecasting features help you gain clear insights about future financial results, so you can make informed decisions and make effective plans to achieve your goals. The business roadmap provides visual planning and cash flow forecasting. You can audit every figure in your forecast so you know where your numbers come from.
Fathom also offers a comprehensive help center so you can get help and information efficiently when needed.
Prices start at $48 per month.
Jirav
Jirav uses driver-based financial modeling to help you budget and forecast accurately.
This all-in-one software helps you create budgets, forecast, and make workforce, sales, and business plans. You can use templates or create customized reports fast. And share plans, reports, and dashboards with select editors or an unlimited number of read-only users.
You also can create plans to assess multiple scenarios and track actuals against multiple plans. You can use pre-built reports, industry-specific plans, pre-configured integrations, and features to get historical insights and powerful forecasts. Or you can completely customize it.
The dashboard makes it easy to visualize all data in one place and how you’re tracking against your plan. The driver-based planning can help you build accurate budgets, sales plans, rolling forecasts, and more, so you can confidently accelerate your business’s growth.
Plans start at $10,000 per year and include a 14-day free trial.
Automation
Automation software helps you save time and reduce errors by automating manual tasks to increase efficiency and accuracy.
A2X
A2X is accounting automation software designed for ecommerce businesses so you can automatically create organized summaries that reconcile with QuickBooks or Xero.
This program helps you complete accounting tasks in minutes (not hours), create an accurate account for taxes, and provide detailed financial reporting.
For instance, you can:
- Obtain auto-categorized summaries of your sales, fees, and taxes matched to deposits
- Assign rules to every transaction type, such as if taxable or non-taxable
- Track your profit margins, channel performance, and more with financial statements
A2X provides numerous integrations so you can connect your sales channels with QuickBooks or Xero. Sales channels include Amazon, Shopify, Etsy, Walmart, eBay, and BigCommerce. A2X also provides email and live chat support. And premium plans include 1:1 support.
Plans start at $19 per month. You can select plans based on the channel you use. There’s also an option if you’re in multiple channels.
Zapier
Zapier lets you connect your apps and services so you can automate your workflow, save time, and reduce errors.
Zapier helps you build automated workflows (called Zaps) with an intuitive drag-and-drop editor. You can create single-step Zaps that have one trigger and one action, or multi-step Zaps that have one trigger but multiple actions.
Zapier allows flexible automations based on if/then logic that you can create and customize to fit your needs. This can allow you to create custom accounting workflows, like moving and logging invoices, automating payment reminders, and inputting customer information or contracts automatically.
To do this, you can integrate your accounting software directly with the other tools you currently use. Then create custom integrations in Zapier.
Plans start at $19.99 per month, and there is a free plan for individuals that only need basic automations.
Make
Make is an automation platform that lets you create and automate complex workflows visually with no coding. You can use Make to customize your automations and workflows to fit your accounting needs.
You can create, test, and edit your workflows quickly. The drag-and-drop building makes it easy to build scenarios. And Make allows you to create scenarios (or workflows) with as many steps or apps as needed. You can also build and watch your scenario in real-time. Make also allows you to either run your scenarios instantly or only when you need it.
You have access to thousands of pre-built apps or can connect to any public API.
Paid plans start at $9 per month. Make also offers a free plan.
Sales Tax Software
Sales tax is complicated for ecommerce businesses, especially if you’re expanding into multiple states or internationally. The consequences for ignoring it or getting it wrong can be steep.
Avalara
Avalara helps you automate your tax compliance so you can improve accuracy for domestic and international sales.
This software helps you calculate accurate rates with geolocation, automate returns preparation and filing, and automatically track your sales.
The cloud-native software provides you with regularly updated, address-specific tax rates for over 190 countries. You can also create custom rules that are applied at the point of purchase.
It also offers various third-party integrations.
TaxJar
TaxJar is a cloud-based platform that helps you manage sales tax compliance across all your sales channels.
This program works well for multichannel sellers and is easy to set up. You can select from a number of built-in integrations. And the TaxJar API allows you the flexibility of custom solutions.
TaxJar lets you instantly calculate the accurate sales tax at checkout using up-to-date rates. You can get detailed reports on sales and sales tax collected by state and jurisdiction. You can also automatically submit returns and remittances to each jurisdiction.
Plans start at $19 per month.
Inventory Management Software
Inventory management software helps you track your inventory levels, sales, orders, and deliveries. As a result, you can easily maintain the right level of stock, quantities, and help ensure you meet the level of demand without creating overstock.
Finale Inventory
Finale Inventory provides multichannel inventory management for ecommerce businesses, including those with high volumes.
Finale Inventory provides centralized inventory to help you get an up-to-date count of all of your products even if you use multiple warehouses. You can also coordinate across warehouses, locations, and online sales channels so your inventory is managed effectively.
The multichannel integrations let you streamline across multiple channels by keeping listings in sync and continuously updating stock levels automatically. So you don’t oversell your products. The software also has wireless barcode scanning and advanced batch picking methods to improve efficiency and reduce errors.
The order management features help you oversee stock management from purchase to sale. And the inventory accounting features and reports give you a full picture of transactions. You also can quickly sync bills, asset valuations, and sales invoices to QuickBooks.
Plans start at $75 per month.
DEAR / CIN7
CIN7, which merged with DEAR, offers ecommerce businesses a cloud-based all-in-one inventory management solution.
CIN7 helps you automate the receipt, tracking, and management of your stock across any number of locations and sales channels.
This platform lets you track and control inventory with barcode, batch, FIFO, and serial tracking. You can also track incoming stock, finished goods, product bundles, consignment, and dropshipping. It also helps you track returned inventory.
You can optimize stock levels with accurate inventory, inventory planning, and full visibility to ensure you can meet demands. CIN7 also offers 3PL and EDI integrations and integrations with QuickBooks and Xero.
Plans start at $325 per month.
Security
Keeping your digital accounts and information secure is a necessity. But as your tech stack grows, it can be challenging to create powerful passwords and manage them. Fortunately, password managers can help you keep your login credentials safe and create strong passwords that are securely stored for you to reuse later.
OnePassword
OnePassword makes it easy for you and your team to generate, store, and autofill strong passwords. This helps you simplify your security operations in one place and ensure compliance.
OnePassword provides you with a comprehensive overview of your security, including letting you generate reports, manage your team, and see who is traveling. This software also helps you monitor password health, identify potential breaches, and your team’s usage. You can also create security policies and custom rules and monitor sign-in attempts.
OnePassword engages in regular third-party audits to ensure your information is safe. They use unique dual-key encryption and a trusted Single Sign-on (SSO) device model, so your information is secure.
Business packages start at $19.99 per month.
LastPass
LastPass helps you simplify employee password management, provide customizable security policies, and advanced reporting so your information is safe.
LastPass provides every user with their own personalized vault to make managing passwords easy. Additionally, the integrated password generator ensures employees don’t reuse passwords. You can also share credentials and passwords securely by groups when employees or clients need access.
You can also set security policies, like password requirements, to ensure employees follow the practices you set. LastPass also offers multifactor authentication and Single Sign-on (SSO). The admin console lets you manage all tasks in one spot, including overseeing password management, producing security reports, and more.
Business plans start at $4.00 per user per month.
Dashlane
Dashlane is a secure, easy-to-use business password manager that provides complete end-to-end protection.
Dashlane provides complete protection for your whole organization with proactive monitoring so you get early warnings. Additionally, you have visibility across all employees and will be notified of breached passwords. Dashlane continuously scans over 20 billion records so you aren’t taken by surprise and uses 2FA policy to ensure maximum protection.
The password generator tool helps your employees create strong passwords. Dashlane also provides fixes for breached passwords so you have continuous protection.
It uses bank-grade encryption technology to protect passwords and data, and they never see your data.
Business plans start at $2 per seat per month.
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By building the right accounting tech stack, you can streamline your accounting processes, gain better visibility into your financials, and make data-driven decisions that drive growth.
