So, you’re looking for an Amazon accountant and/or bookkeeper for your Amazon business?
You’ve come to the right place.
My name is Connor Gillivan. I’ve been an entrepreneur in the eCommerce space for the past 10 years and I got my start selling high volumes on Amazon.
I know from personal experience how hard it can be to find a reliable accountant and bookkeeper that truly understands the Amazon business model.
My business partner and I spent years doing the books ourselves. Then we’d dump them on our CPA at the end of the year hoping that he’d be able to make sense of it all and file our taxes.
Warning: This is not a good strategy! We never fully knew our numbers during those years and it hurt our ability to grow.
Luckily, in the years to follow, we figured out the secrets behind hiring stellar Amazon accountants and bookkeepers.
Today, we even run our own online bookkeeping company, EcomBalance, that provides monthly bookkeeping services to Amazon and eCommerce companies.
In this article, I’ll touch upon 6 of the traits that we’ve found to be the most important when looking to hire an accountant or bookkeeper for your Amazon business.
- On-Time Deliverables
- Fast and Clear Communication
- Experience with Amazon Businesses
- Positive Reviews
- Willing to Customize
- Offers Advice and Analytics
6 Traits of the Best Amazon Accountants and Bookkeepers
1. On-Time Deliverables
By far the most important is that the accountant and bookkeeper that you work with can deliver your financial statements or tax returns to you on-time and by due dates every single time.
You don’t want an accountant that is constantly pushing you off or asking you to extend your deadlines after you start working with them.
This is a potential sign that they have too many clients or that you’re not being prioritized with relation to other clients.
Make sure that you find someone that has a strong track record of delivering their reports on time.
2. Fast and Clear Communication
My guess is that you don’t want to know the ins and outs of how to do accounting and bookkeeping for your Amazon business. I know that I didn’t when we were running our Amazon store.
However, you want to know that when you have a question about your accounting or bookkeeping that you’ll get a clear answer within a reasonable amount of time.
Maybe you even want to know that you can text them or hop on a quick call with them.
Whatever the case may be, use the sales process with them to see how they communicate. Are they stalling days before providing the next steps or follows? If so, it might be indicative of how the relationship will go.
Take the time to set the expectations upfront about how you’d like communication to go so that it doesn’t become an issue when you start working with someone new.
3. Experience With Amazon Businesses
This one might seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised. I’ve met hundreds of Amazon sellers that are still working with the local mom-and-pop accounting shop in their home town because they were referred by a family member or friend.
Amazon businesses are unique and they require a specific skill set in order to be able to understand them and properly account for their sales, expenses, and other nuances.
Make sure that you find an accountant and bookkeeper that has experience with Amazon businesses. Better yet, make sure that the person you hire specializes within Amazon or eCommerce businesses specifically.
4. Positive Reviews
Again, another one that might seem obvious, but a lot of us look past researching companies or services because we were referred by someone we trust.
Make sure to take the 20 minutes to Google any of the accountants or bookkeepers that you’re considering working with and read their reviews.
If a company has tons of bad reviews and clients aren’t happy with their services, it might be a sign that it’s not the best fit for your business either.
Go with companies that have 4-5 star reviews across the board and who clearly care about their reputations online. They’ll go the extra mile to make sure you’re happy as a client.
5. Willing to Customize
All businesses are unique in their own ways. Even though there are hundreds of thousands of Amazon businesses, each one of them have unique quirks that cater directly to them and the business owners.
Most accountants and bookkeepers will have their own internal systems and processes that they follow for their clients, and that’s exactly what you want, but make sure that they are also willing to make customizations here and there to their services to best cater to you.
6. Offers Advice and Analytics
Finally, make sure that the accountant or bookkeeper that you’re hiring provides analytics and advice as they deliver reports to you.
For example, if you’re hiring a bookkeeper and all they do is give you the P and L, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement then the rest is up to you to figure out, it may not be the best solution.
As business owners, we want metrics on how our sales are performing to last month and the same month last year. We also want to see how our profits are tracking over the past 12 months. And we want to see how our cashflow is moving throughout the year.
Make sure that whoever it is that you’re going to hire will be able to provide these metrics to you in addition to their basic services.
Final Thoughts on Amazon Accountants
It’s never easy finding the best fit for an accountant or bookkeeper, but if you take the time to really hone in on who your ideal hire is, you’ll thank yourself years down the line for it.
After my business partner and I took our accountant and bookkeepers serious, a lot of stresses disappeared and we understood our numbers better.
When we understood our numbers better, we were able to make smarter decisions and scale faster.
We all want to scale faster, right?
Then make sure that you take the time to pick the right Amazon accountant or bookkeeper for your business.
Want us to handle it for you? Visit EcomBalance and learn more about how we hit all of these 6 characteristics and work hard for all of our clients.
About EcomBalance
EcomBalance is a monthly bookkeeping service for eCommerce companies. EcomBalance handles your bookkeeping and sends you a Profit and Loss Statement, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow Statement by the 15th of each month. EcomBalance also has a sister company, AccountsBalance, that caters to agencies, software companies, coaches, and other online companies.
