How small businesses can get themselves ready for Cyber Monday

This guest blog was written by the team at ecommerce accounting integration, Amaka.

Cyber Monday was originally an opportunity for ecommerce businesses to dish out huge promotions after Thanksgiving in the United States, but it’s now become a phenomenon around the world. In 2022, Cyber Monday brought in a total of $11.3 billion USD in the United States alone, representing one of the biggest online shopping days of the year. This year, Cyber Monday falls on 27 November and with this huge amount of potential revenue to tap into, it’s critical for small businesses to start planning early.

Proper preparation as a business owner or an accountant with e-commerce clients can help maximise Cyber Monday success. By using apps as part of your workflows, you can save time on monthly admin, which can then be spent on preparing your business for these big moments on the retail calendar. 

In fact, we’ve seen Amaka’s accounting integrations saving businesses around 12 hours of manual work monthly. But what are some of the best ways to make the most of the time? Here are some key steps small businesses can take to ready themselves, as well as ways accountants can support clients.

Set up your sales tracking to save future headaches

The first step you can take to prepare for Cyber Monday is optimising your accounting for precise tracking and visibility into sales results.

Consider running reports for the sales period in Xero–for example, a report that shows your sales by product for a selected date range. This allows you to easily track and report on Cyber Monday sales – unlocking insights that can help inform any future business decisions.

It’s also important to check that your Xero transactions, accounts and inventory levels are fully updated and reconciled prior to the sale. Check with your accountant or bookkeeper first, but it may be helpful to consider creating a separate income account to track Cyber Monday sales distinctly.

Connect an ecommerce accounting solution

Ecommerce accounting solutions help ensure that the data and metrics you have across sales channels are as accurate as possible. Integrations with apps, like Amaka’s, mean you’re able to sync data from your ecommerce store to Xero automatically, saving you valuable time by reducing manual work and human errors in important metrics and reports.

When setting up your integration, you can configure it to automatically track categories, discounts, shipping fees, platform fees and more. Additionally, sales and fees are automatically matched to your payouts, meaning reconciliation becomes lightning-fast.

Using an ecommerce accounting solution to streamline your accounting operations helps ensure your financial data remains accurate and compliant, especially during an influx of transactions due to major sales periods.

Use technology to prep for what’s coming 

To help ensure a smooth Cyber Monday, it’s crucial to prepare across your business workflows ahead of the increase of sales. If you’ve connected your ecommerce platform to Xero through Amaka, you’re able to have access to up to 12 months of historical sales data. This gives you accurate and up-to-date insights when forecasting Cyber Monday sales.

Using your historical sales data, current inventory levels and finances can help you decide on the best promotions to run during Cyber Monday. For example, you could heavily discount an item that has had low inventory turnover, or you could bundle it with your best-selling item. 

Giving your accounting a thorough pre-sale review will provide the foundation to manage finances through the event and gain full insights after. With this preparation in place you’ll be set up not only for Cyber Monday but also for future promotions and holidays. 

Get support from your accountant or bookkeeper

Accountants can provide valuable guidance to ecommerce clients gearing up for Cyber Monday. Through leveraging financial data insights, accountants can help inform budgeting and identify profitable areas and channels from past promotions. They can also provide advisory services on different tools to implement to optimise your operations and offer aid in configuring important tools, such as campaign tracking.

After Cyber Monday wraps up, accountants can help clients with analysing final sales data, providing insight on trends and patterns. Having an accountant in an advisory role focused on campaign optimisation, and data-driven follow up will provide you with invaluable insights and preparedness for Cyber Monday.

Tech-powered prep for tech sales

Cyber Monday provides immense sales potential, but only with the right preparation. By leveraging the right technology with coordinated effort and planning, the heavy lifting can be done ahead of time, so you’re ready to make the most of Cyber Monday (or any other retail milestone).

If you’re unsure or feeling overwhelmed ahead of Cyber Monday, consider consulting an accountant or advisor for advice on each of these preparation steps. There are accountants who specialise in e-commerce who can provide important insights and even recommendations on technology and apps that meet your needs. 

Amaka helps ecommerce businesses automate data entry and fast-track reconciliation in Xero for Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, Squarespace, DocuSign and more. With 1000+ 5-star reviews from verified Xero users in the Xero App Store, see how Amaka can help with your ecommerce accounting today.

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Source: Xero Blog