Should I run for the hills? What to consider when taking on an e-commerce accounting client

Welcome to Academy Shorts, where we give you a sneak peek into the content we are covering with our students at the E-commerce Training Academy for Accounting Professionals. This Short is from our Intro to E-Commerce class, which ran in October of 2023. 

If you are approached by an e-commerce seller for bookkeeping here are some Red Flags to watch for before you jump into an agreement with them. 

We don’t think you should run for the hills, but we want you to be aware of possible challenges you may face. We have come across all of these scenarios, but, love a challenge! 

Things to watch for: 

• The #1 thing to watch for is a client that has chosen an integration app and tried to connect it themselves! That often doesn’t go well! There is sometimes a bit of a mess and need an in-depth clean up. 

• Multi-currency – this adds complexity to the bookkeeping and eliminates some of the connector app options 

• Sales Tax – are they charging when they shouldn’t, are they not charging and they should be, how many Sales Tax Return will you as the bookkeeper need to complete for them? 

• Inventory – how complex is their inventory? Are they even monitoring their inventory? Do they know how much inventory they have or what the value is? Do they know their costs? 

• Multi-channel sellers – the more channels the more complexity to the books. Such as selling on amazon, shopify, big commerce all at once. 

• Out of country selling – is more complex and now you need to know the rules in other countries as well 

In summary, it is all about asking lots and lots of good questions. If you don’t, you could get the scope of your project very wrong and your pricing for the work might be way out from what it should be. As an accounting professional you need to decide what level of complexity you want to take on with your clients and e-commerce can be complex or it can fairly straight forward. 

Want more support in choosing the right clients for you? the E-commerce Training Academy is here to help! The academy gives you access to a community of bookkeepers and accountants just like you, who are here to help you make the right decisions for your business.