Anyone who has been serving retail clients in their practice for a while surely remembers the good old Z tape, right? Retail automation used to be the magic of having a POS system or
pre-programmed register be able to tell you not just your total sales for the day, but also the sales by type, discounts given, sales tax collected, tips offered, etc. Was this data fairly simplistic? Sure! On the other hand, if you ever wanted to know just how much you sold on a particular Friday in July, that Z tape could tell you.
Retail automation has come a long way. Now we have eCommerce: basically buying things online rather than in person or even over the phone or through email but still using traditional ‘ring in’ methods.
At first, this was an innovation, then a revolution. Then with 2020 came the explosion - eCommerce became a bit of a necessity for many businesses if they were going to survive. And even though the shelf-life of the pandemic is uncertain, it looks like the expansion of eCommerce is here to stay.
This is where things get complicated, specifically for accountants and bookkeepers. Something that was already starting to happen organically got put on fast-forward. The fact is that eCommerce is not just for “retail” anymore. In most of the ways that matter to our industry, everything is now eCommerce. Here is how:
We are beyond the traditional sales channels economy.
It’s no longer just a brick and mortar store that is, perhaps, supported by an online shop. The number of platforms a business can choose to market their wares is growing every day. And with each of these platforms comes a new way of tracking and charging things: sales, charging fees, dealing with sales tax, etc.
We are beyond ‘will that be cash, check, or charge?’
The number of ways businesses are allowing customers to pay has increased exponentially. And with every payment method comes new ways in which platforms decide to take their cut.
What these two facts combined mean is that every platform is essentially it’s own POS system or register. In fact, some platforms like square are also actually getting into the banking game! The result: gone is the one ‘Z Tape’ place that sums it up. The GL we facilitate is fast becoming the ONLY place for Z information owners and financial professionals need.
These facts don’t just apply to retail
The truth is, if we take off our accountant/bookkeeper hat and put on our consumer hat, it’s completely obvious! We already know and have experienced this shift as consumers of services, experiences, and even goods that are typically in person only. When was the last time you ordered a meal through GrubHub? Amazon is hardly just a seller of ‘things’ anymore. Even our own industry! Paid for a webinar lately? Maybe a digital download? A course? A subscription to a group or service?
This isn’t going away
Chances are you, as an accountant or bookkeeper especially, have experienced the sting of upset processes and surprise sales channels from clients you never thought of as “eCommerce”. More on this later, but the point is there is no going “back to normal” on this.
Even in your own experience: would you wish to erase these complications in your practice if it also meant you couldn’t buy as many different things in the manner best for you as you do now? Probably not. And that’s why eCommerce accelerating to a point where it affects nearly ALL of our clients is not going to change. Can you imagine someone not opting in to having a website in today’s economy?
That’s where we are headed:
eCommerce isn’t a niche some of us serve, it’s a condition of doing business.
And it’s happening way faster than our industry expected.
Want to hear more?
Join our webinar — "Everything is Ecommerce. Now What?" — Feb. 23, 2 p.m. (EST), featuring Bookkeep CEO Jason Richelson and Totally Booked founder Kelly Gonsalves. You will learn more about accounting automation, as well as get a peek into what Bookkeep is working on in 2022. Register Today