How To Automate Your Shopify Store & Accounting

There’s never been a better time to automate your Shopify store! If you are using Shopify to sell goods online, then you know how tedious it can be to manually submit pricing information or to reconcile your earnings with accounting software.

By automating different aspects of your Shopify business, you can save time and money, and have more time to grow your business.

Below, we’ve listed a number of Shopify and accounting functions that you can automate. We’ve also thrown in handy apps and software that provide all the functionality you need to create a hassle-free, fully automated Shopify store.

How To Automate A Shopify Store: 3 Ways

E-commerce automation is all about using various kinds of software to execute different company tasks at the appropriate time. Need to send out an order confirmation email at 3 am or keep tabs on your stock from across the country? With an automated Shopify store, you can.

Order Fulfillment

Order processing or fulfillment entails acquiring, packing, and delivering your Shopify items to your courier or shipping company of choice. While you can automate this entire process, it may not be financially feasible if you are just starting out.

Instead, we recommend analyzing which areas of your ordering process desperately need to be automated, and then expanding your Shopify automation system as your budget allows. 

When it comes to packing, your team needs to be on the same page when it comes to the status of all your Shopify orders. This remains important even if you are running your Shopify store on your own. You wouldn’t want to repack the same order twice! 

You should know which items are ready to be picked and packed and which orders are ready to be shipped at all times. However, when scaling your Shopify store, this type of information can get harder and harder to keep track of manually.

Rather invest in an e-commerce order management software that automatically keeps track of every order based on their fulfillment phase. With this type of software, you’ll be able to review the status of each order from anywhere. It also allows you to halt the entire order process if an order has been canceled. 

Most e-commerce order management software platforms will give merchants the option to customize orders. This means that by utilizing this type of software, you can easily cater to any special order requests on Shopify.

If you head over to the Shopify App Store, there are numerous order fulfillment apps to choose from like Auto Fulfill, Parcel Panel Order Tracking, or ShipBob Fulfillment. Apps like these can help automate your orders, tracking, and shipping. 

Inventory Management

Sure, you could manually keep tabs on your stock, but it’s risky, especially if you are running low on certain items. One mistake could end up costing you time and money. Seeing as a good amount of your capital is probably tied up in your Shopify inventory, your cash flow will be significantly affected by how well you manage your stock levels.

Ideally, you want to keep your inventory at a manageable level. If you purchase too much stock, your capital could sink to critical levels. On the other hand, if you run out of stock, you could risk upsetting customers if you need to refund their orders. 

The tricky part is that your Shopify store is open all day, every day. This means that new orders are being placed around the clock. In order to keep up with your sales and inventory requirements, you need an automated inventory solution that will do the heavy lifting for you.

Xero is a popular cloud-based suite of online accounting software that is ideal for accountants, bookkeepers, and small business owners. However, it also offers a bunch of cash flow tools and inventory management features that can help you to automate your Shopify store and track your stock levels.

Xero’s inventory software allows you to create invoices, download inventory management reports and see which items are selling really well. You can also import item details into Xero using the platform’s readily available CSV template.

With Xero, keeping track of stock has never been easier. This software solution is available on iOS and Android platforms and can be purchased on a subscription basis.

Accounting & Bookkeeping

If you have been managing your own Shopify store for a while now, then you’ll probably know how important it is to integrate your store with cloud-based accounting software. Accounting software, like Xero or QuickBooks, allows merchants to see exactly how money travels in and out of their business. 

You can review your store’s financial reports, predict future cash flow, and be able to figure out how much stock you’ll need each month. Accounting software allows you to manually oversee a lot of financial transactions on both a daily and monthly basis.

However, manually reconciling and comparing transactions and financial activity to supporting documentation could take up way too much of your time. That being said, this task really can’t be skipped. You need to be able to resolve any discrepancies discovered during the reconciliation process if you want your Shopify bookkeeping to remain accurate.

You also have to keep track of all your overall sales, returned orders, store expenses, sales tax, and VAT charged on each item sold for bookkeeping purposes. Luckily, Reconcilely can help with all of this. This amazing online tool is fully integrable with Xero and Shopify and can automate your Shopify store’s accounting tasks in record time.

Reconcilely sends your Shopify payments, refunds, and fees from any payment gateway to Xero in real-time so you can reconcile your books in seconds. Not only will this save you so much time and effort, but it will also ensure that your books remain error-free and up to date.

Reconcilely comes on a subscription basis but you can try it out for free with a 14-day trial.

The Benefits Of An Automated Shopify Store

If you are looking to automate your Shopify store, then you’ll be happy to know that e-commerce automation can benefit your business in numerous ways. Here are the top three benefits:

Helps You Prioritize Your Customers

E-commerce automation allows you to automate certain discounts and optimize re-ordering and refund requests. This fast tracts customer-related queries which almost guarantees more stellar store ratings. As they say, a happy customer is a returning customer. So, give your customers more reasons to revisit your store by showing them that you value their support.

Saves You Time And Money

Each minute that you are not bogged down by admin tasks, you can use to grow your business. A fully automated Shopify store will allow you to do just that. Free up your time to build more connections within your industry, brainstorm, better your products and services, and market your business. Do what you love to do, and automate the rest. 

Allows You To Scale Your Shopify Store

If you are getting more orders by the day, then you will have to scale your business operations to meet demand. By automating your Shopify store, you can get more orders processed and delivered in less time. And by being more efficient, you can eventually hire more people and increase your store’s annual revenue. 

In Summary

If you want to automate your Shopify store, then there is no better time to do it than right now. By investing in online software and applications that can streamline your business operations, you will have more time to grow your Shopify store.

With so many online tools to choose from, you will have plenty of automation choices that will fit your budget and your functional needs. 

From order fulfillment to inventory and accounting management, almost everything on your Shopify store can be automated these days. Say goodbye to manually entering data, and take the plunge into Shopify store automation!