Has your business grown out of spreadsheets?

What should you do when your ecommerce business has grown out of spreadsheets?

You know it’s time to move on when orders are being mismanaged and you are struggling to keep on top of all of the spreadsheets stored in various different places. Running an ecommerce business is not guaranteed to be like floating peacefully down a lazy river; it can be an exciting, stimulating and sometimes tense, adventure.

What can you implement to make it an easier ride?

Automation. It’s so much more efficient to use automated software for your ecommerce business. You can minimise human errors and waste less time, getting the most out of your systems and processes. The greater visibility enables you to generate more substantial and relevant reports, helping to improve the accuracy of forecasting. Doesn’t that sound great?

Start by identifying what you use spreadsheets for, then you can create a list of actions, for example:

• Your accounting spreadsheet can be replaced with an MTD approved software.
• Your inventory tracking spreadsheet can be replaced with an intuitive stock management system.
• Your customer spreadsheet can be replaced with a customer relationship management system.

Investing in automation will help your ecommerce business to grow and scale accordingly. The above replacements are a great place to start implementing this type of software, especially if it is cloud-based.  Automation could boost your business dramatically.

What are the benefits?

You can advance your ecommerce business and boost profitability with the automation of your key systems. And, benefit from:

Greater flexibility and improved security.

Working using cloud-based software improves the security of your business. For example, the cloud-based accounting software Xero, has internet banking-level security. You don’t have to worry about losing all of your data in the event of theft or damage because it’s all on one computer, nor do you have to be chained to a desk to ensure you have access to your important information. Cloud-based technology is designed to keep you informed, no matter where you are, and no matter what time it is. Being able to access your key data whether you are in or out of the office, ensures you have all of the facts and figures in order to make the best decisions for your ecommerce business.

Accurate real-time reporting – insights that genuinely help.

Sifting through spreadsheets. Not being sure if your numbers are correct. Getting confused and distracted by a mass of information poorly laid out in a spreadsheet. – Does this sound familiar?
Moving to automated software that integrates with all of your other systems helps you to get more intuitive and helpful reports. Often, software will have standard reporting templates that can self populate – saving you heaps of time and delivering to you a better report that is actually user-friendly.

These are, of course, only a few of the benefits automation can bring to a business – if I listed them all this post would go on forever!  Get in touch if you would like to find out more.