If it’s true that you can learn a lot about a craftsman by looking at his tools, then you can learn a lot about an accountant by looking at his technology stack…
OUR INHOUSE TOOLKIT
Gemini is our toolkit of apps that we’ve built to automate the bookkeeping process for ecommerce sellers.
Our vision is to leverage this growing toolkit to scale up the delivery of affordable accounting and finance services to Amazon-centric companies.
SOME OF OUR FAVORITE PUBLIC TOOLS:
Xero — Beautiful cloud accounting software, Xero combines an amazing user interface/experience with built-in efficiencies to knock out huge chunks of manual data entry. It is simply the best accounting software in the small business space right now.
A2Xaccounting — One of the great things about Xero is that it integrates with hundreds of “add-on” software plugins like A2Xaccounting. A2X maps all of the sales data from Seller Central directly into Xero in a slick and automated fashion.
Taxify — Sales Tax is without a doubt one of the most confusing and frustrating aspects of selling on Amazon. Taxify is an automated sales tax reporting solution for all 50 states. This is the go-to option if you need to comply with sales tax in many different states.
Taxjar — Taxjar is quite similar to Taxify. The major differences: Taxjar currently has better reporting if you’re monitoring your business’ sales tax exposure before you register to collect in a state. This tool is also a bit cheaper than Taxify. The major trade-off is that Taxjar still does not “auto-file” for many states yet, and unfortunately those states tend to be more time-consuming.
InventoryLab — Probably the most popular inventory tool in the Amazon space, I tend to favor this solution for sellers who source products via retail and online arbitrage.
Forecastly — On the cutting edge of inventory management, Forecastly uses proprietary technology to automate and streamline the inbound shipping process. Geared toward sellers who source their products from manufacturers, the tool’s predictive analytics is definitely worth taking a look.
Shoeboxed — Let’s face it. Some of us are great with keeping things like receipts organized, and some of us just aren’t. Shoeboxed makes it ridiculously easy to knock this out. And for the most challenged, they will even send you a magic envelope to stuff in all your receipts. Once uploaded, you can keyword search any receipt for future reference, just like an online file cabinet.
ManageByStats — One of the biggest requests I get from clients is a tool to help track the profitability of their inventory items. If you’re not using an inventory management system with built-in analytics, you should probably check out ManageByStats. Built for private label sellers, my favorite feature is how well this tool can slice and dice your inventory to track profitability by SKU, product line, or even whole brands.
Track1099 — Filing 1099’s for all your contractors used to be a pretty big pain… not anymore. Track1099 is a very affordable filing service that integrates seamlessly with Xero. This past year, it took me about 15 minutes to file 1099’s from start to finish.
TaxAct — For all the DIY types, TaxAct is worth checking out for filing income taxes. This past year I paid half of what I would have with other systems, and the questionnaire-style system was pretty simple to use.
If you’re an Amazon seller looking to integrate these tools into your business, I’d recommend checking out our DIY Amazon Accounting courses for more info.