Niche Retail Direct - Huge Time and Money Savings for Ecommerce Marketplace Seller
Ecommerce marketplace sellers are one of the business sectors in greatest need of bespoke, cost-effective accounting solutions, to help them maximise their profitability and reduce the amount of time and money spent on their accounting processes.
MWA frequently works with marketplace traders to revolutionise the way they record their sales and costs, utilising the most up-to-date bookkeeping apps in a way that is tailored to each trader’s selling platforms. This ultimately helps them to deliver maximum profit margins, whether they are selling through eBay, Amazon, Etsy or their own ecommerce site.
In this case study, we look at how MWA were able to help Niche Retail Direct Ltd to overcome their accounting challenges, delivering huge time and money savings.
The background
Online marketplace selling is one of the fastest-growing business sectors, and has thrived in recent years thanks to these vendors’ ability to provide dynamic, efficient and well-sourced product offerings through various marketplace channels direct to the consumer’s home.
However, for as innovative as these businesses have become, their financial and accounting solutions have historically not kept pace, resulting in costly and inefficient bookkeeping and recording processes. Historically clunky integration and a lack of understanding of their own requirements have resulted in time-consuming manual processes, errors and a loss of tax savings due to inaccurate recording, leading to a negative impact on profitability.
Moreover, recent changes in taxation law by HM Revenue & Customs have meant that it is now effectively illegal for a VAT-registered marketplace seller to manually enter their sales into the bookkeeping software application they use, rather than importing them digitally. If HMRC discovers that this is happening, it can result in fines, and marketplace sellers are often caught out doing this as a result of inaccuracies in their records created by their improper accounting practices.
The challenge
Niche Retail Direct Ltd is a Manchester-based online marketplace seller that called on MWA’s services in order to address longstanding challenges and inefficiencies with its approach to accounting.
The company was having difficulty manually posting its monthly sales and Amazon and eBay seller fees into its accounting software, spending many hours recording long trading periods in one go, resulting in out-of-date management data.
Bank reconciliations could not be performed effectively, meaning accounts could be challenging to prepare and opportunities for effective tax management were lost; additionally, recording expenses was proving difficult to keep track of, a problem that was often leading to overpayments or underpayments to HMRC, and significant losses of time, money and productivity across the business in general.
How MWA helped
We wanted to provide the client with solutions to their challenges and make sure they had a system that required the least amount of interference from both sides, in order to keep fees low and opportunities for maximising profit high.
In order to achieve this, we recommended and implemented the following strategy:
- Integrated the client’s Amazon Seller account to Xero via the Greenback app, removing a time-consuming manual process and meeting HMRC’s legal requirements
- Deployed and integrated the same marketplace app consistently across the business, facilitating real-time syncing capabilities and up-to-date financial management data
- Implemented OCR scanning, making it possible to auto-read and import all expenses digitally
- Introduced a schedule of regular bookkeeping and bank reconciliations, to deliver up-to-date and timely trading figures
- Provided a named contact at MWA to the client for any questions or queries they might have, either on using the apps or general accounting matters
By taking these steps, we were able to provide an accounting solution that paid for itself through enhanced time management, maximisation of profits and income protection.
Find out more
To find out more about how MWA can support your business with its accounting needs, get in contact with us today. Call us on 0161 826 5259, send us an email at info@mwa-accounting.co.uk, or fill in our online contact form.