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Accounting software has regained supremacy in the U.S. for more than 4 decades, whether it is a small or mid-sized organization. QuickBooks now consists of cloud-based functionality and robust financial management features. So, modern evolution has become essential for every business owner. Next, QuickBooks Commerce introduced an e-commerce adjacent platform for online retailers, gaining traction steadily. Therefore, QuickBooks setup helps businesses organize their finances and keep everything in one place. 

Importance of QuickBooks Setup

QuickBooks becomes one of the powerful platforms when used correctly to manage various aspects of an e-commerce business. So, once you have started using QuickBooks for bookkeeping needs, there are many things you will learn. The following points will help you understand the importance of a strong bookkeeping system for your business

• Reconciling Accounts: Maintaining a reconciling account is a crucial task. When you reconcile your accounts in QuickBooks, all the transactions will be recorded automatically. You need to remember that you have to reconcile every business account. Therefore, it indicates that you not only emphasize your bank accounts, but it also includes your lines of credit, loans, and credit cards.

• Bills on QuickBooks: This part of the software allows you to enter the bills and pay them quickly. QuickBooks allows you to manage your accounts payable. In this case, you need to learn how to either use the bill payment online, linked to QuickBooks, or print your checks. First, you need to enter the bill, increasing your accounts payable and your expense account. Second, when a bill is paid off, QuickBooks will decrease accounts payable and decrease checking or cash. Lastly, it will transfer the liability to the credit card.  

QuickBooks for E-commerce

QuickBooks Commerce is the new iteration of a cloud-based inventory as well as order management platform. It consists of the traditional accounting capabilities of QuickBooks Online and advanced features of e-commerce-focused features. These features are the ability to manage sales channels, produce purchase orders, invoice vendors, and monitor inventory coming from one streamlined dashboard. 

Formerly TradeGecko, QuickBooks Commerce allows you to integrate e-commerce business management tools along with standard accounting practices. These practices are receipt capture, employee payroll, tax deduction, and performance reports. Therefore, with a QuickBooks Commerce subscription, the e-commerce retailers can easily track every transaction from anywhere. 

To get into the capabilities of QuickBooks Commerce, e-commerce business owners need to understand the pricing tiers for QuickBooks Online. The four tiers are Simple Start, Essentials, Plus, and Advanced. These tiers are all preloaded with the collection of QuickBooks accounting tools, like income and expense management, tax deductions, and performance reporting. 

However, as the QuickBooks tiers increase in price, users will also gain more from QuickBooks Commerce features. For example, the Simple Start plan allows users to connect to only one channel for $15 per month, whereas the Essentials plan allows users to connect to three sales channels. These channels include three user accounts and provide bill management for $27 per month. 

How to Set Up QuickBooks for the First Time?

To opt for QuickBooks setup in Houston, TX, you need to follow these steps:

1. Connect Your Bank Account

From company bank accounts to business credit cards, connecting all of your financial accounts to QuickBooks Commerce. Thus, it is an important step to complete the expense and income management. 

2. Sync Transactions

After connecting your credit and bank accounts to your QuickBooks Commerce account, sync all transactional data from your sales channels. While QuickBooks Commerce is ideal for all e-commerce owners, users can only sync the transactional data from a handful of sales channels. These channels include eBay, Shopify, and Amazon, directly from the dashboard. 

3. Set up Invoice

Now that both accounts and transactional data have been input into QuickBooks Online, the setup process can move along to invoicing. Therefore, you can either manually develop customer invoices or allow QuickBooks to automatically generate one based on the existing order information in the platform. 

4. Set up Your Chart of Accounts

A Chart of Accounts is how you can categorize your expenses and sales. This is mostly helpful for managing profitability and cash flow, and assessing financial performance in real-time. Furthermore, to ensure complete visibility over your e-commerce finances and avoid missed data that could impact reporting accuracy, follow the Chart of Accounts management tips:

• Keep your books updated to ensure all bank and credit accounts are synced, all receipts are uploaded, and all transactions are assigned to the right account. 

• Avoid mixing your personal and business bank accounts because it will become difficult to differentiate personal expenses and income from business financial data. 

• Reconcile your accounts every month by hiring an accountant to ensure each of your QuickBooks accounts matches your bank statements. 

• Take the help of easily identifiable accounts and sub-account names to streamline your bookkeeping efforts and simplify account reconciliation of your account. 

• Reduce user access to avoid any costly errors and security issues. 

5. Configure Your Reports

There are three essential financial reports for business owners to analyze the performance. First, the profit and loss statements are needed to understand monthly revenue and expenses. Second, the cash flow statements are required to understand the amount of money entering and leaving the accounts. Lastly, the balance sheet is needed to outline the business’s liabilities, assets, and equity. 

6. Configure Account

If your e-commerce business has several employees and vendors who need account access, you must configure account and user permissions in the early stages of setting up QuickBooks Commerce. You can create a primary admin in QuickBooks to add users, manage their roles, and also limit their access to certain tasks. Thus, it enhances the security of sensitive company data. 

If you are having difficulties in setting up QuickBooks effectively, a QuickBooks certified proadvisor in Houston, TX, can be of great help. They are trained and certified accounting experts who can help businesses in dealing with such software. They can train staff members in using this valuable software to its full potential. 

Conclusion

Setting up QuickBooks for an e-commerce business amplifies financial management, boosting accuracy and saving time. So, with the right setup and regular monitoring, it streamlines the accounting, inventory, and reporting processes. Therefore, it ensures smooth operations, better decision-making, and long-term financial stability for the business.