A2X and QuickBooks Online or Xero for Amazon Sellers
Updated October 2020.
Like all business owners, Amazon marketplace sellers make dozens of decisions every day. Some are minor, while others will affect the business for years to come.
One significant decision is selecting an accounting system, or for those operating in the cloud, choosing between Xero and QuickBooks Online. These are the most widely-used and best-known cloud-based accounting systems most Amazon sellers will go for.
Which is better for A2X Accounting Automation – QuickBooks Online or Xero?
A2X is an application that connects to your cloud accounting system and integrates it with your Amazon Seller Central account. It was first launched to support Xero, and now also connects with QuickBooks Online, making it a game changer for QuickBooks Online accountants.
Both QuickBooks Online and Xero have their pros and cons, depending on the scope of your business and personal preference. However, it’s not as simple as choosing a single system to suit your business – you also need to consider the wider ‘ecosystem’ of connected applications and work out how well they fit with your business overall.
Working with Xero
Our Amazon accounting automation is now available to you whether you do your accounting with Xero or QuickBooks Online, but that doesn’t mean there is no difference between the two cloud accounting systems.
Xero is the number one cloud accounting system in Europe, Australia and is becoming better known in the US. It’s known for its elegant multi-currency handling and the ability to cope with VAT (value added tax), making it a good choice for your business if you’re selling in more than one currency, or through the Amazon Europe marketplaces.
Xero was designed to be used by business owners as well as accountants, which makes it a better choice if you want to manage your own accounting.
Marilyn Parham of The Bottom-Line CPA, specialising in cloud-based accounting sums it up like this:
“Xero started in the cloud, and I feel technologically, they’ve been way more aggressive in designing for the non-accountant. The user interface, user friendliness of the product is clearly evident.”
Working with QuickBooks Online
QuickBooks Online is the leading cloud accounting offering of US-based intuit. Most US accountants know and understand QuickBooks Online, so if you operate a US business, you may end up using QuickBooks Online by default as your accountant’s preference.
Although QuickBooks Online has in the past been criticized for being buggy and difficult to use in comparison with Xero, it is levelling up. Now that A2X support QuickBooks Online - accountants and Amazon sellers who currently use QuickBooks Online will be able to add a new tool to their ecosystem of apps. This results in improved accuracy and a time-saver.
Iona Bird, an Australian accountant working primarily with Amazon sellers and other online retailers (and a proud member of the A2X team), uses both Xero and QuickBooks Online.
“Although Xero is more popular among my clients, both accounting systems have their followers. I’ve got some clients who are QuickBooks Online through and through, and it really suits their business.”
Streamlining data with A2X and Amazon
No matter which accounting software you choose, using the accounting system on its own is not easy to account accurately for Amazon marketplace sales. This is where A2X comes in handy.
Sellers who do their own accounting often find it difficult to reconcile the information Amazon sends. This includes taxes, fees, variations in currency and exchange, which all make the process complicated.
With large transaction volumes, it’s near impossible to reconcile Amazon sales with income revenue each month. Even specialist ecommerce accountants can find Amazon accounting difficult to manage.
Breaking down complicated data from Amazon for your accounting system
This is where A2X comes in to help break down the outpour of confusing data from Amazon’s systems, make sense of it for accounting purposes and posts it into Xero or QuickBooks Online. From there, the accounting system takes over.
A2X helps automate time-consuming processes so you and your accountant have more time to spend on your business strategy. Jeremiah Kovacs, founder of cloud accounting firm MuseMinded, explains the difference A2X has made for his business:
“A2X streamlined one big section of our process and made it really efficient. It made it really simple to serve our clients, so they felt there was huge value there. Our clients knew there was a lot going on and it was pretty complicated, but here we had this tool that was pretty much doing magic for us.”
