eCommerce Townhall Ep9: Financial Management of an Ecommerce Business with Nathan Hirsch of Ecombalance

0:02 – e-commerce town hall and in today’s
0:05 – episode i got Nathan Hirsch from Ecombalance
0:07 – What Ecombalance helps you do
0:09 – is as a store get your bookkeeping
0:12 – process and financial management process
0:14 – just really really dialed in so that you
0:16 – can make better financial decisions in
0:18 – the business and you know i know
0:19 – bookkeeping might seem you know a little
0:22 – bit boring compared to like email
0:23 – marketing or ads or all these other
0:25 – things that are out there but in the
0:27 – episode Nathan shares some war stories
0:29 – around what can happen to your econ
0:31 – brand if you don’t get the bookkeeping
0:33 – right and you’re not doing it well and
0:35 – so there’s definitely a lot here that’s
0:37 – worth digging into and the bottom line
0:39 – is if you don’t feel like your financial
0:41 – data and the routine that you have as a
0:43 – CEO as you build your brand is really
0:46 – empowering you to be able to take the
0:48 – business to the next level then you’re
0:49 – going to get a lot of key takeaways from
0:51 – this episode so dig in let us know what
0:53 – you learned to take your business to the
0:55 – next level and i hope you find it
0:56 – valuable
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1:33 – now let’s dive into today’s episode
1:40 – hey guys welcome back to the show super
1:43 – super excited to dig into today’s topic
1:45 – we’re going to be talking basically
1:46 – about financial business uh financial
1:48 – management of an econ business um
1:52 – there’s a lot of content out there a lot
1:53 – of episodes a lot of blog posts a lot of
1:54 – everything around marketing and
1:57 – conversion optimization and you know
1:59 – advertising and just all the aspects of
2:02 – growing an ecom business but when it
2:03 – comes to financial management um
2:07 – whether it’s bookkeeping accounting cash
2:09 – flow management all that stuff um it’s
2:11 – not something a lot of people talk about
2:12 – but it’s something that if you don’t
2:15 – manage that part of the business well it
2:17 – can be a huge problem and really frankly
2:19 – causing other parts of the business the
2:21 – fun sides the marketing side can make
2:23 – all those things break very very quickly
2:24 – if the finance side isn’t taken care of
2:26 – and so uh i’m excited to bring Nathan on
2:29 – today to really talk through um the
2:31 – financial side of things more deeply so
2:33 – Nathan is co-founder of Ecombalance
2:35 – and basically what they do at Ecombalance
2:37 – is really help e-commerce stores
2:39 – simplify that process of you know
2:42 – accurate bookkeeping and having the
2:44 – right financial data to really make
2:46 – solid decisions and so we’re gonna
2:48 – dig into a lot um but what i was really
2:51 – excited about when it comes to Nathan is
2:52 – like he’s not just somebody that decided
2:54 – like i think i should build something
2:56 – in e-commerce and bookkeeping and like
2:57 – that seems like a good thing to go into
2:59 – he’s got a unique experience where um
3:01 – you know he was co-founder of Freeup uh
3:03 – which is the number one way to find uh
3:05 – basically pre-vetted freelancers online
3:08 – uh scale that to 12 million dollars a
3:10 – year also he’s run an amazon store
3:13 – also where he drove 25 million dollars
3:14 – in total revenue so he’s got like this
3:16 – wide range of experience of running a
3:18 – big team running a big business doing
3:20 – the merchant thing and now he’s kind
3:23 – of bringing that perspective to how to
3:24 – run you know the bookkeeping and
3:26 – financial side of e-commerce and so
3:28 – really really excited to dig into like
3:30 – what he’s seeing with e-com stores when
3:32 – it comes to the financial side um and
3:35 – really gets you guys to the point where
3:37 – you really see how to run a tight ship
3:39 – on the financial side of e-com so Nathan
3:41 – welcome to the show man i appreciate you
3:43 – making the time
3:44 – Jon thanks for having me i’m excited to
3:46 – be here i’ve been looking forward to
3:47 – this all day awesome awesome so
3:50 – i would imagine that store owners
3:52 – listening
3:53 – know they need to clean up their books
3:55 – right like every business has books of
3:57 – some sort but very few are like super
4:00 – clean books that an accountant would
4:01 – look like and be like oh this is
4:02 – fantastic but it seems to take a
4:04 – backseat right to marketing it seems to
4:06 – take a backseat to other initiatives
4:08 – until it becomes a huge problem and so i
4:10 – thought a good initial question to ask
4:12 – before getting into bookkeeping is what
4:14 – are some of the nightmares that you’ve
4:16 – seen happen when like a business doesn’t
4:18 – have their books dialed in doesn’t have
4:20 – accounting dialed in like what what does
4:22 – it lead to so people can really
4:23 – understand like this is important to get
4:24 – right it might not be urgent but it’s
4:26 – important
4:27 – yeah and there’s really two sides of it
4:28 – i mean one is being able to to make good
4:31 – decisions every single month
4:33 – with real numbers i can’t tell you how
4:35 – many business owners have no idea how
4:37 – much money they’re making or how much
4:38 – money they’re making per product they
4:40 – might be selling five products but four
4:42 – of them are unprofitable they’re making
4:44 – all their money on one and they’re
4:45 – wasting a good amount of time on the
4:47 – other and unless you actually segment
4:49 – your books it’s really hard to figure
4:51 – out what you’re making and it could be
4:53 – it could be both across multiple brands
4:55 – it could be different skus it could be
4:56 – different marketplaces you could be
4:57 – spending a lot of time trying to push
4:59 – products on amazon japan which isn’t
5:02 – really making you money so that’s kind
5:04 – of the big nightmare is the e-commerce
5:06 – sellers that are making really big
5:08 – decisions make taking out big risks in
5:10 – their business based on just seeing
5:11 – money going to their bank account and
5:13 – their amazon reports opposed to real
5:15 – numbers and the bigger one which i can
5:17 – relate to a lot uh going through a sale
5:20 – of FreeUp which was one of the most
5:21 – stressful six months of my life and and
5:24 – that’s with clean immaculate books i
5:26 – can’t tell you how many people have
5:28 – worked their butt off to get this big
5:30 – payday at the end and they go to sell
5:32 – their business and their books are not
5:34 – in the the right shape to sell their
5:36 – company it hurts their evaluation it
5:38 – blows up the deal and that can be
5:40 – devastating and if you
5:41 – if you if you don’t have clean books
5:43 – going back that takes time and that’s in
5:46 – addition to the due diligence in
5:48 – addition to the lawyers going back and
5:49 – forth the last thing you want to do is
5:51 – then wait two months for a bookkeeper to
5:53 – comb through and clean up all your
5:54 – numbers so
5:56 – to me it comes down to being able to
5:58 – make good decisions every single month
6:00 – based on what the numbers are telling
6:01 – you and putting yourself in position
6:03 – where if you ever do want to sell your
6:04 – business to at least have it be sellable
6:07 – and that’s what books allows you to do
6:09 – totally makes sense um
6:11 – i had a buddy that went through an
6:12 – acquisition process where in retrospect
6:15 – he realized that it wasn’t such a huge
6:18 – issue for the acquirer
6:20 – that his books were messy
6:22 – but it was a huge advantage to the
6:24 – acquirer because they went through the
6:25 – process and said okay we got to clean
6:26 – this up oh we got to add this back like
6:28 – you got to do a whole bunch of stuff
6:29 – where like they control the messaging of
6:31 – the data because his data was garbage um
6:34 – and so they
6:35 – they got what they needed but they used
6:37 – it against him essentially
6:38 – even having your book set up on a cache
6:40 – opposed to accrual and joe valley talks
6:43 – about this all the time from from quiet
6:44 – life i mean that can kill your
6:46 – evaluation so it’s not just having clean
6:48 – books it’s having your books set up in a
6:51 – way that’s beneficial for you going into
6:53 – the sale 100 100
6:55 – um what are some of the the mistakes
6:58 – that you see uh c-stores make when it
7:00 – comes to bookkeeping um that kind of
7:02 – leads to you know bad books or just like
7:04 – bad practices like what are some of
7:06 – those mistakes that you see
7:07 – so a lot of people have the top line of
7:09 – their income statement as the the amazon
7:12 – deposit into their bank account when
7:13 – really that that’s not the case this
7:15 – would be any marketplace not just amazon
7:17 – but really that the top line should be
7:19 – the top line what are you actually
7:20 – selling then there’s all these different
7:22 – amazon fees and reimbursements and then
7:25 – it’s the income going into your bank
7:26 – account so not setting it up correctly
7:29 – unfortunately ecommerce
7:31 – e-commerce companies like amazon shopify
7:34 – uh woocommerce that they don’t make it
7:35 – easy for you to grab reports and pull it
7:37 – into quickbooks we live at an age and
7:40 – who knows if this will still be the case
7:41 – in five years where you need that that
7:44 – third-party integration tool we use a2x
7:46 – because they they’re great with accurate
7:48 – data but trying to just get numbers
7:51 – directly from amazon and push that into
7:53 – quickbooks or into xero that’s a big
7:55 – mistake very very hard to get accurate
7:57 – information that will actually reconcile
7:59 – unless you’re small and even then it’s
8:01 – only going to work for a certain period
8:04 – of time uh and the next is cost of goods
8:07 – sold we kind of talked about cash versus
8:09 – accrual you spend fifty thousand dollars
8:11 – in inventory a lot of people throw that
8:13 – in as fifty thousand dollars expense in
8:15 – the month of january well that’s gonna
8:17 – show maybe a loss for january and a huge
8:20 – profit for uh february march april but
8:22 – that doesn’t really tell you anything on
8:24 – how your business is doing so you need a
8:26 – better way to do it on a cruel basis
8:28 – whether it’s cost of goods averaging or
8:30 – getting more accurate uh inventory a
8:33 – different way using a seller boards or
8:35 – whatever it is but those are common that
8:36 – the two mistakes on that top line
8:38 – revenue number and how you handle
8:40 – inventory and cost of goods sold got it
8:42 – got it that totally makes sense um
8:46 – you mentioned the data source problem
8:48 – right of like getting like oh you get
8:50 – your amazon statement just put it in
8:51 – quickbooks right um
8:53 – i would imagine that that’s something
8:54 – that just makes it difficult for stores
8:56 – to be able to run things well from a
8:57 – bookkeeping perspective but but what are
8:59 – some of the other things you’ve seen
9:00 – whether it’s uh you know what banks
9:02 – they’re using or you know the data
9:04 – connections those types of things like
9:06 – what are the the parts that an ecom
9:08 – store should should be focused on
9:10 – solving in order to make it easier to
9:12 – have good books
9:13 – yeah
9:14 – this is something that that’s so
9:15 – overlooked because i feel like a lot of
9:17 – people will chase that that nice extra
9:19 – 0.5 interest rate or um that that 200
9:23 – cash reward you get for opening up a new
9:25 – checking account and some random bank
9:27 – and they don’t factor in the the
9:28 – easiness and i went through this using
9:31 – an online only bank that just made it a
9:33 – nightmare for our bookkeepers and our
9:35 – accounts before switching back to to one
9:37 – of the main ones and i mean
9:39 – even how a lot of these bookkeepers
9:41 – price different clients is is how easy
9:44 – are your banks your credit cards your
9:46 – processors your marketplaces if
9:48 – someone’s using woocommerce which is
9:50 – using could be using five ten different
9:52 – payment gateways opposed to just amazon
9:55 – that takes up more time so doing more is
9:58 – not always better
10:00 – and having five credit cards can make it
10:02 – an absolute nightmare so so for me
10:04 – simpler is better using as little
10:06 – accounts as possible using banks that
10:08 – you know are compatible with quickbooks
10:10 – processors that are compatible with
10:12 – quickbooks um using payment gateways
10:14 – that keep it simple you don’t need to
10:16 – offer every little thing under the sauna
10:18 – until you get to a certain point but all
10:20 – of that comes into play when it comes to
10:22 – easiness and and be able to actually
10:25 – get good reports even just accepting
10:27 – payments maybe you don’t need a stripe a
10:29 – paypal and all these other processors if
10:31 – you can stick to one or two it makes it
10:33 – easier across the board
10:35 – got it yeah so keeping it simple is
10:36 – really what i’m hearing of like being
10:38 – able to map out like this is where the
10:39 – money comes from this is where it goes
10:41 – and then it’s logged in quickbooks not
10:43 – some convoluted situation unless there’s
10:45 – a reason if there’s a legitimate
10:47 – business business reason to use a
10:49 – certain process or multiple processors
10:51 – or or whatever it is that’s different
10:53 – than just doing it for the gimmick of
10:55 – this week got it yeah it totally makes
10:58 – sense i’m thinking we just switched our
10:59 – personal banking uh
11:01 – from one to another i won’t name drop
11:03 – but uh it’s been night and day different
11:05 – um and don’t use personal checking
11:07 – accounts or personal credit cards yes
11:09 – yeah i mean i’ve actually so i had both
11:11 – accounts business and personal at the
11:13 – one bank moved the personal over to this
11:15 – bank and now i’m like i got to figure
11:16 – out how to get the business over as
11:17 – quick as possible because it’s just so
11:18 – much better um but i want to dig into
11:21 – kind of workflow so
11:23 – i want to understand what’s like the
11:25 – best practice
11:27 – process for e-com stores when it comes
11:29 – to bookkeeping you know financial
11:31 – management like if you could kind of
11:33 – paint a picture for us of like how
11:35 – should it be structured as far as like
11:37 – the pieces of the puzzle and then also
11:39 – maybe from a workflow perspective like
11:41 – how should it operate from you know the
11:43 – CEO’s perspective not exactly how are
11:45 – they doing the bookkeeping but like
11:46 – what’s the the architecture of the
11:48 – system roughly um from the CEO’s
11:50 – perspective and then also what is the
11:52 – workflow what does the right way look
11:53 – like
11:54 – yeah sure so
11:56 – my overall theory is or my overall
11:59 – philosophy is that entrepreneurs should
12:01 – not be doing their own bookkeeping no
12:02 – matter what size business you are first
12:05 – of all it’s just not a good use of your
12:06 – time you should be focused on sales
12:08 – marketing expansion lots of new products
12:10 – ppc whatever it is growing your business
12:13 – rather than doing your books and second
12:15 – of all nine out of 10 entrepreneurs are
12:17 – not good at bookkeeping and maybe
12:19 – someone listening is but most of the
12:21 – time when entrepreneurs try to take a
12:23 – quickbooks course or do the bookkeeping
12:25 – themselves later on they just have to
12:26 – pay someone to redo it right anyway so
12:30 – not a good use of your time chances of
12:31 – you getting doing it actually right are
12:33 – not that high and one of the best
12:35 – decisions we ever made with FreeUp was
12:38 – getting a bookkeeper in place from day
12:40 – one so our books dating back four years
12:42 – were immaculate even before we were
12:45 – making a profit even before we had
12:46 – revenue we were still getting reports we
12:48 – could see what our expenses were broken
12:50 – down so we could see roi on expenses and
12:53 – how that was going so the real system is
12:55 – the month ends by the 10th 15th of the
12:58 – month you get income statement balance
13:00 – sheet cash flow and you review that with
13:02 – your business partner and you compare
13:03 – that to the month before you compare
13:05 – that to the same month last year and you
13:07 – make decisions based on what the numbers
13:09 – are telling you and that could be
13:10 – comparing brands different segmentations
13:12 – marketplaces but whatever it is you as
13:15 – an entrepreneur you don’t actually have
13:17 – to log into quickbooks or log into xero
13:19 – and you should be getting those reports
13:21 – sent to you and having a meeting on your
13:23 – calendar every single month to go
13:25 – through it with your business partner
13:26 – your leadership team your bookkeeper
13:28 – whoever it is and whoever it makes sense
13:30 – to to go through it with so that’s kind
13:32 – of the system what you don’t want to do
13:35 – is what i did with my amazon business
13:36 – back in the day where you wait until the
13:38 – end of the year then you dump everything
13:40 – on your account and they’re scrambling
13:42 – to put everything together and even then
13:44 – they’re just doing it a way to file your
13:45 – taxes they’re not doing a way to display
13:48 – information to you so that you can make
13:49 – decisions and by then by the time they
13:51 – finish those books it’s too late to make
13:53 – any real decisions anyway so have a
13:56 – system set up with the bookkeeper by the
13:58 – 15th of the month you get the reports
14:00 – and you review them together and you
14:01 – look for trends and make real decisions
14:04 – got it one of the things that i remember
14:06 – from my first business is i did do the
14:08 – bookkeeping initially myself
14:10 – i didn’t think about like what secure
14:12 – information i’m using because it’s my
14:14 – money and my information so it’s like i
14:15 – just did the bookkeeping but then that
14:17 – became a nightmare to like transition
14:19 – the process to a bookkeeper because i
14:20 – didn’t have any
14:22 – clarity around um data security and what
14:24 – they should have access to
14:26 – um
14:27 – what are some things that you guys do
14:29 – with clients to basically make it so
14:31 – it’s like hands off for them as a
14:33 – merchant but you have everything you
14:35 – need and it’s still secure for them like
14:36 – how do you balance that particular part
14:39 – yeah and this is why i mean integration
14:41 – is the name of the game when it comes to
14:43 – bookkeeping that the point on which a
14:45 – client adds a payment method uh and
14:47 – starts working with us to when we can
14:48 – actually start doing their books and
14:50 – this has actually been a big focus of
14:52 – mine over the past 60 days we just hired
14:54 – a full-time integration person and this
14:56 – person’s job is to integrate clients not
14:59 – only as fast as possible because we want
15:01 – to get started they want to get started
15:02 – but as easy as possible and making it
15:04 – with clear easy directions now we also
15:07 – don’t want to have to go back later and
15:09 – ask the client for statement or whatever
15:11 – it is and this is also why what banks
15:13 – you use is important the banks should be
15:15 – able to add bookkeepers ad accounts as
15:17 – view-only access so part of our
15:19 – integration process is collecting
15:22 – documents whether it’s articles of
15:23 – incorporation tax returns making sure we
15:26 – have what we need there um getting view
15:27 – only access to all banks credit cards
15:29 – processors marketplaces and then
15:31 – connecting everything to quickbooks so
15:33 – that the only time that we need to reach
15:35 – out to a client is to clarify maybe a
15:38 – new transaction that has come up that
15:39 – we’ve never seen before
15:41 – it’s not to chase them down hey send me
15:43 – your statements this month our goal is
15:45 – to spend a little extra time up front
15:47 – getting all the access we need so that
15:49 – saves a boatload of time as we go and
15:52 – that’s really the the name of the ball
15:53 – game like i said and why we hired a
15:55 – full-time person and and why even though
15:57 – we have a full-time person we’re looking
15:59 – to improve that process and make it
16:00 – shorter and easier and hands-on and
16:02 – offer calls to just walk a client
16:04 – through it and if you’re a client and
16:06 – and if i’m i’m a long-time entrepreneur
16:09 – the last thing i want to do is sit on
16:10 – the call with an hour sit down and zoom
16:12 – with an hour with the bookkeeper giving
16:14 – them access to all my stuff but it’s
16:16 – worth it to get those reports every
16:17 – single month and make sure you’re
16:19 – getting accurate information and not
16:20 – have a bookkeeper that needs to chase
16:22 – you down every month for for lots of
16:23 – little things over and over
16:25 – got it yeah completely makes sense
16:27 – walk me through um
16:30 – a little bit more from the CEO
16:31 – perspective on like how they should be
16:33 – using the data like what do you see once
16:36 – once brands have solid data in place
16:39 – what are they doing on like a you know
16:40 – whether it’s daily weekly monthly basis
16:42 – i’m sure it’s going to vary a ton
16:43 – depending on like where their business
16:44 – is at and cash flow and all that stuff
16:46 – but like what what are uh what are some
16:48 – of the things that a CEO is empowered to
16:50 – do
16:51 – when they have the data really well
16:53 – taken care of
16:54 – yeah i mean i’ll give you an example we
16:55 – work with an eight-figure seller that’s
16:57 – very seasonal so during the summer they
16:59 – do very very little business so an
17:02 – important add-on that we did with them
17:03 – is projecting out cash flow because they
17:06 – they need to be able to pay their people
17:08 – through the summer without running out
17:09 – of cash to make it through till the end
17:12 – of the summer where they’ll make a
17:13 – boatload of money so cash flow
17:14 – production is is key and we need to be
17:17 – able to predict within a thousand
17:18 – dollars or so hopefully less of how much
17:20 – cash they’re going to have august 15th
17:23 – when we’re recording this on may 17th so
17:26 – doing that is really important um we
17:29 – kind of talked about the income
17:30 – statement and the segmenting there uh
17:32 – balance sheet becomes more important
17:33 – with an e-commerce business as opposed
17:35 – to a FreeUp which is very cash flow
17:37 – positive where there’s no inventory
17:39 – there’s no overhead there’s no office um
17:41 – we’re not we’re not or we’re collecting
17:43 – cash before we’re paying the freelancers
17:45 – businesses like that are way different
17:46 – than e-commerce business where you need
17:48 – to understand a balance sheet in your
17:49 – inventory so those are kind of the three
17:52 – that we provide the income statement the
17:53 – balance sheet and the cash flow every
17:55 – business is a little different on what
17:57 – what becomes more important there are
17:59 – plenty of e-commerce businesses that get
18:01 – away without spending much time on their
18:03 – balance sheet and there’s others where
18:04 – it becomes incredibly important same
18:06 – thing with cash flow
18:08 – got it got it what are some of the
18:10 – other uh you know big obstacles that you
18:13 – see or anything else you think is is uh
18:15 – helpful for listeners to understand
18:16 – because i want to go into like
18:17 – specifically what does it look like
18:19 – working with Ecombalance like how does
18:20 – integration work all that stuff in a
18:22 – second but like are there any other big
18:23 – obstacles you think are helpful to uh to
18:26 – touch on during the conversation here
18:28 – yeah so the chart of accounts is one of
18:31 – the most underrated things and i’ll be
18:33 – honest i was probably a newbie to this
18:35 – just because i’ve created them for my
18:37 – own companies and i guess FreeUp and
18:39 – even my amazon business because we
18:40 – started way back um we’re a little
18:42 – simpler but creating a good chart of
18:44 – accounts is something our controller is
18:46 – really good at and be able to break it
18:48 – down so you know what the different
18:50 – expenses are you can get very general
18:52 – with chart of accounts so you can get
18:53 – very detailed and there’s a chance you
18:56 – can go overboard too like we’re auditing
18:58 – a company right now or going through and
19:00 – pricing them and and their income
19:01 – statements like 20 plus pages and that’s
19:04 – a little bit insane so but having a
19:06 – chart of accounts that you can easily
19:07 – reference that that’s numbered there’s a
19:09 – specific way that bookkeepers numbered
19:11 – it from 101 to 405 all the way down uh
19:14 – labeling different income and expenses
19:16 – but being able to make sure that the
19:18 – average entrepreneur who isn’t a
19:20 – bookkeeper who might not think
19:22 – financials are the most fun thing in the
19:23 – world can actually read it and
19:25 – understand their business to me that is
19:27 – the most underrated part of this whole
19:29 – thing and there’s a little bit of
19:31 – feedback that goes with it i mean if we
19:33 – get someone a chart of accounts and they
19:34 – have massive feedback that we’re doing
19:36 – something wrong but there are tweaks you
19:38 – can put in there so that someone can
19:39 – understand their numbers
19:41 – better maybe some way that they’ve done
19:43 – it for the past four years or some way
19:45 – that they have a mental note of they
19:46 – call and expense a certain thing
19:49 – doing that with the client within that
19:50 – first 60 to 90 days can be really
19:53 – helpful to make them actually spend the
19:55 – time to go through the numbers and
19:56 – understand it when we send them reports
19:58 – down the line
19:59 – got it got it that makes sense anything
20:01 – else like that because that’s something
20:02 – i think a merchant listening to wouldn’t
20:04 – wouldn’t think of as like maybe i should
20:05 – restructure my chart of accounts like
20:07 – anything else like that that you see
20:08 – that’s just kind of uh things people
20:10 – realize as they dig in
20:12 – yeah so what i like to do just with
20:14 – entrepreneurs is go through the income
20:16 – statement go through the balance sheet
20:17 – go through the cash flow with them and
20:19 – and kind of try to pinpoint things that
20:21 – they should be watching in terms of
20:22 – trends i i kind of mentioned comparing
20:24 – it to the same day last month same day
20:27 – la or same month same
20:29 – comparing it to the last month and the
20:31 – same month last year those are really
20:33 – good trains to watch because your
20:35 – expenses might be going up way faster
20:37 – than your revenue or a certain product
20:39 – might have been doing great last year
20:41 – and now it’s tailing off so being able
20:43 – to to compare it um to me that’s the key
20:45 – i mean if you’re if if you’re having
20:47 – that meeting and you’re reviewing it
20:49 – every month and you’re looking at trends
20:50 – and you have a chart of accounts you can
20:52 – understand you’re ahead of 99 of the
20:54 – entrepreneurs out there
20:56 – got it got it yeah this is super super
20:58 – helpful i think there’s a lot of little
21:00 – nuggets that people are going to pull
21:01 – out um but i want them to i want people
21:03 – to be able to understand like what
21:05 – what specifically uh does Ecombalance
21:08 – help with like what is it like working
21:10 – with you guys like help us understand um
21:12 – for for merchants listening that realize
21:15 – okay like i need to button this stuff up
21:17 – what does it look like working with you
21:18 – as far as the integration onboarding and
21:20 – getting to the point of like okay things
21:22 – are now dialed in like i never have to
21:23 – do my books again
21:25 – yeah and i think our unique value
21:27 – proposition is my business partner
21:28 – connor and i we’re entrepreneurs first
21:30 – we’re e-commerce sellers first we’re not
21:32 – bookkeepers first we’re good at hiring
21:34 – we’re good at processes we’ve built a
21:36 – great e-commerce bookkeeping team that
21:38 – can even handle non-e-commerce
21:40 – businesses but our core is making it so
21:42 – that we speak entrepreneur a lot of
21:45 – bookkeepers are not able to do that they
21:46 – just speak bookkeeper so for us and and
21:49 – keep in mind we’re new we’re trying to
21:50 – get this process even simpler and
21:52 – simpler but right now you create a free
21:54 – account on our site you submit our
21:56 – pricing quote form and send us access to
21:58 – your current books we’ll give you a
21:59 – quote assuming you agree to that you add
22:01 – a payment method our integration person
22:03 – will jump in to get you integrated as
22:05 – fast as humanly possible and then we’ll
22:07 – have a kickoff call make sure we’re on
22:08 – the same page make sure we really
22:10 – understand your business and hit the
22:12 – ground running from there and from there
22:14 – just depends how far back we go we have
22:16 – people who come to us that haven’t done
22:17 – their books in two years and we have
22:18 – other people who are caught up and we
22:20 – can hit the ground running and uh it
22:21 – just depends how much time we need to
22:23 – get everything caught up but right now
22:25 – that’s our process and we we love
22:27 – feedback we’re continuing to make it
22:28 – more streamlined every week
22:30 – awesome awesome this is helpful is there
22:32 – anything else you think is uh important
22:34 – for people listening um before you wrap
22:36 – up like anything else either about the
22:37 – service or just about you know
22:39 – bookkeeping in general and financial
22:40 – management like anything you think is
22:42 – important to kind of um make sure that
22:43 – they’re aware
22:45 – yeah well overall i love connecting with
22:47 – other entrepreneurs i feel free to
22:49 – connect with me Nathan hirsch on any
22:50 – social media channel and if you do
22:52 – decide to sign up for Ecombalance make
22:54 – sure you mention this podcast and you’ll
22:56 – get two months free on our site it’s one
22:58 – month free as a trial you’ll get an
22:59 – extra free month to try us out and we
23:01 – really appreciate you uh having having
23:03 – me on
23:04 – awesome awesome i will get uh a link for
23:07 – that um in the show notes but yeah for
23:10 – everyone listening i think the big
23:11 – takeaway is
23:13 – this is not urgent until it becomes a
23:16 – big big problem and so it’s a type of
23:18 – thing where like it just serves you to
23:20 – spend some time you know whether whether
23:22 – it’s buttoning it up yourself which
23:23 – nobody ever does that’s why it takes so
23:24 – long or working with a company like econ
23:27 – balance just say look let’s get this
23:28 – taken care of spend spend a little bit
23:30 – of time with their integration team
23:31 – getting it done um and that way you end
23:33 – up in a position where where not only
23:35 – does it not become a problem for you but
23:37 – you have really solid access to data to
23:40 – be able to make better decisions and
23:41 – that’s something in this environment you
23:43 – know we’re about midway through 2022 um
23:46 – things are tighter now e-comm’s a little
23:47 – bit different now and the world’s a
23:49 – little different than it was over uh you
23:50 – know the coveted boom from for ecom and
23:53 – so it’s really important to know your
23:54 – numbers otherwise you wake up at the end
23:55 – of a quarter and you can’t make payroll
23:57 – and uh you’re definitely not reloading
23:59 – your inventory um so really really
24:01:00 – important to have these numbers right
24:02:00 – and i think Ecombalance can uh can help
24:04:00 – you do that but i hope that some of the
24:05:00 – things that Nathan’s talked about in
24:07:00 – this episode uh just give you kind of
24:09:00 – the framework that you can use so uh
24:11:00 – check the show notes uh we’ll have a
24:13:00 – link over to Ecombalance there
24:15:00 – to get that second month free but Nathan
24:18:00 – thank you so much for your time today
24:19:00 – man i really appreciate it yeah thanks
24:21:00 – for having me a lot of fun
24:22:00 – take care
24:24:00 – thanks for tuning in to e-commerce town
24:26:00 – hall for more resources related to
24:28:00 – today’s episode visit e-commerce hall
24:32:00 – and don’t forget to check out HelpFlow
24:35:00 – HelpFlow provides 24 7 live chat teams
24:38:00 – to over 100 e-commerce stores and can
24:40:00 – drive more sales while providing an
24:42:00 – awesome customer experience through
24:44:00 – their live chat agents
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24:59:00 – good to visitors
25:01:00 – ultimately they’re going to provide an
25:02:00 – overall amazing brand experience to your
25:04:00 – customers learn more today at
25:06:00 – HelpFlow.com