Accounting for Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, Shopify, and Other E-commerce Businesses

Accounting Solutions For E-Commerce Businesses

If you run an Amazon Store, a Shopify business, or any other type of e-commerce investment, you will need to keep records and store them in a very organized manner. Accounting for an e-commerce business is no different to accounting for a brick and mortar business, but there are several more choices you can look into.

When it comes to the financial side of a business, there are often several common questions that an e-commerce business has. These include the following: 

•   Should you think about incorporating?
•   Should you charge sales tax?
•   Should you charge provincial sales tax?
•   Should you register for sales tax in the US?

Let’s explore these in turn.

Should You Think About Incorporating?

If you have worries about liability then incorporating is a good option. The reason is because it gives you more protection over your assets (personal) from creditors. In addition, if you’re making good profits, you should also consider incorporating, from a tax point of view. 

If you are going to incorporate, you might not have a clue where you should start. E-commerce businesses are truly global, after all. Put simply, you should incorporate in Canada if you do most of your business from there, i.e. that is your location physically.

Should You Charge Sales Tax? 

This depends on the products you’re selling online, and how much money you’re earning. The golden figure is $30,000 per year, and in that case, yes you will need to register and charge sales tax. You could still decide to do so, if you earn less.

When setting up your platform (Amazon, Shopify, etc), you should ensure that your setup allows you to collect this tax from multiple areas.

Should You Charge Provincial Sales Tax?

This depends on the province you’re in. You should check ahead of time to find out the specific areas which demand this, and which don’t.

Should You Register For Sales Tax in The US?

This is a complicated area, and a personal decision unless you decide to incorporate in the US. If you have an office in the USA, whether you are personally there or not, you’ll need to register. If you don’t, then you need to think about the advantages and disadvantages of whether to register or not. 

E-commerce businesses fall into that grey area much of the time, and the US sales tax side of things, when not physically in the US is one of those areas. If you have a lot of customers from the US, this is something you might want to consider registering for.

Overall, ensuring that you cover the absolute basics when it comes to tax and accounting for your e-commerce business is vital. Just because you don’t have a static office and employees, doesn’t mean that you are exempt from the complicated nature of tax requirements, and it actually means you’re more likely to miss something important, if you don’t do your research.

We hope this post helps you cover all bases and helps you pick a platform which allows you to charge taxes whenever necessary.

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

5 Most Important Business Tips for Ultimate Growth and Success!

As Accountants we get to see a lot of small business leaders and small business bosses. The businesses that seem to thrive are the ones with the leaders. Here’s our compilation on the 5 most important business tips.

Running a successful business is not an easy job. It demands passion, time, attention, and most importantly planning. There might have been thousands of books written by authors about how you can become successful in business, and a few thousand about achieving success in life. #AudibleLife

You can find many articles, blogs, eBooks, and other content related to the subject, as content of this type is produced on a regular basis. Taking your business to the top is the ultimate goal of every businessperson, but not many live up to the potential.

So how can you become successful in today’s competitive business world? To begin with, it takes a lot of factors to transform a business into a success. You need to understand the market, study demographics, analyze what the consumers are demanding, and how efficiently you can price your products. And that’s just a start.

If your business is struggling in a specific area, now is the time to work and improve. Let us dive into some of the most useful business tips that you can apply today:

1. Stay Disciplined & Focused

Discipline and focus are two most important aspects for success in just about any field; however, working on distraction has become a challenging task for a majority of the disciplined people. This is something that is going to stay for a long time.

These days, in business, you need to understand the art of shutting yourself off when it matters. Though this process is by no means easy, if you are undisciplined and distracted from improving your business, you cannot reach to the top. And if you are unable to achieve these things, someone else will.

If it was easy someone else would be doing it.

2. Grow As a Leader

Once you tackle your fears and are ready to take the step of starting a business, you have already begun your journey to becoming a leader. Your entire success depends on the factor of how much you are planning to help others find their own. Businesses thrive when people work together, so if you are starting a new business, make sure that you are hiring like-minded people and work together as a team. That way, you will not only grow as a businessman but also as a leader.

A leader is not just about managing a successful business; it’s more than that. You should know the tricks to motivate others to join your team. Always believe in what you say or hear, be confident, and provide money for the services you are offering.

3. Get Competitive

Unless your business has an exclusive monopoly, you will experience a lot of competition in the market. Competition is everything, and the key to successful business growth is all about selling. You should know how to sell to excel and stay competitive in the market.

When running a business and competing with other players in the market, it’s all about having a unique selling proposition or USP. This is the factor that makes you better than your competitors. It can be anything related to your business; your product, price, location, but most importantly you.

4. Calculate Your Success

Everybody has a different concept for success. Some define success with passion, some with increasing wealth, etc. The best strategy to calculate success depends on a few key factors:

•      You should love your job
•      You should regularly achieve your target because It creates an impression that you are aware of your goals
•      You should like your product or service and reach out to the customers efficiently.

If you calculate your success by working on these three tips, you will not just become a successful businessman, but your product will also reach out to a broader group of people.

5. Know How to Get Things Done

Successful people in business understand the skills to motivate others and work towards a common goal. They have a unique personality with strong communication skills. They know how to talk and get things done. People that run a successful business are troubleshooters and problem solvers. They know the outcomes, the risks and obstacles involved in running a competitive business, and solutions to overcome problems.

Conclusion

All the tips mentioned above are successful for running a competitive business. You need to push yourself to the limits and remember it will all be worth it. Remember, everyone can start a business and become a entrepreneur, but not everyone can become a successful entrepreneur. There is a big difference the times are changing and new thought methodologies are now required to sustain your competitive advantage. You can’t expect to do business your grand-father’s way in hope’s of leaving a legacy for your grand-kids. Change is Constant let a Professional accountant help you navigate it!

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

Top 5 Benefits of Cloud Accounting

If you have an email account from Microsoft or Google, then Cloud based technology is not a new concept to you. The technology has finally hit the Accounting industry and is making a huge difference and changing the role of Accountants for years to come. The cloud provides great benefits that save time and money which is re-invested into your business.

Moving your accounting from "On-Premise" to "The-Cloud" can bring significant benefits. Not only is it cheaper, more secure but also accessible comparatively to the desktop counterpart. Below are the Top 5 reasons I think Cloud technology is the best thing after bread.

1.       Accessible anywhere providing the required flexibility - Cloud accounting software allows the user to access their information securely 24/7 from anywhere all that is needed is an internet connection. You no longer have to buy multiple licenses or carry your laptop everywhere. As small business owners are out and about and now have access to the engine room anywhere. That quick report to see how your business is doing. Done.

2.       Cloud Accounting is a time saver. This is taking the traditional method of Accounting and reversing it on it's head. Connecting your online banking to your cloud software package means the bank feeds from your credit card and bank card statements come directly through to the software system. The reconciliation process of accounting used to be a huge headache but with bank feeds your constantly synced to the bank so your reconciliation is never off. No data entry. More strategy.

3.       Build your customized cloud software. In the past building your own customized solution would have been extremely expensive with hiring IT consultants and other experts. Products like Xero and Quickbooks online have an ecosystem of apps to choose from which are called "add-ons". Some add-ons are free while others carry a fee of a few extra bucks monthly. Thinking of automating your Accounts Receivable collection process...Yup there's a app for that!

4.       Sharing and collaboration has been overhauled. In the old days the accountant would spend most of time "converting" a Simply Accounting file to a useable Quickbooks format. Once this conversion was completed the accountant would then move on to the actual year-end process. With the ability of sharing and collaboration the Accountant is now put in a position of having a conversation with clients during the year not just during the year-end. No more copying data to USB drives sharing is effortless.

5.       Improved security. A lot of people object to the security element of financial information in the cloud. Actually cloud-hosted software is more secure than software hosted locally on your desktop or your own server. The data is stored in high security storage facilities and your data is encrypted meaning it is unreadable to hackers. Additionally, your data is backed up multiple times in a day in many different locations to help protect your data. If your laptop is stolen well that's okay just buy a new one because your data is safe. If you are comfortable using online banking, you should be equally comfortable using Cloud technology.

Essentially with Cloud technology you have the ability to compete with bigger companies on a technological level but get to keep that small business owner mindset. I think this marriage of the two principals will help grow businesses. Most businesses see Accounting as a necessary tax compliance, it is but Accounting is the business language and if you know the language well you can really start to realize the benefits the information can provide. 

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team

Why the name Capex?

Quite recently at a networking event I got asked why did you name your firm Capex? Interesting question because I love explaining this one!

Capex is a finance term that stands for “Capital Expenditure” which is money invested by a company to acquire or upgrade, fixed physical, non-consumable assets such as buildings and equipment or a new business. So how does this all tie into the Capex name?

The driving factors of starting this Firm and choosing this name was to help educate small business owners on the benefits of Capex to the bottom line. Embracing change and making the necessary investment into your business is critical to stay cash flow positive. There are many unique challenges in every industry/business and Capex spending is used to mitigate these risks and gaps for the long term. The goal of this firm is to not only do your Governmental compliance work but also work together to build a more profitable business. We want to project the benefits of positive Capex investment which will lead to solid business performance and profitability.

Almost anyone can hire an Accountant for a business to do the taxes or bookkeeping but finding a CFO styled partner is a bit more rare. Apart from keeping the boat afloat we like to coach on business best practices and provide recommendations to better your business. Capex is helping one business at a time to focus on the big picture by laying down the necessary foundation steps in order for our clients to remain future-proof. We believe strongly in education and technology. Technology is part of the Capex DNA and without the efficiencies realized we would not be able to play the business advisory role we do for our clients.

We adore technology such as cloud accounting and cloud storage but more importantly we encourage our clients to also do so.  So to sum it all up in one word, one mission, one vision. Capex.

p.s. Capex is pronounced as "Cap-X" sort of like FedEx except CapEx :) Easy to remember see! 

Contact your Accountants today click on this link —> https://capexcpa.com/contact

- The Capex Team