Everything You Need to Know About Migrating to A2X for Shopify from Bold (and Why You Should)
As connector apps, A2X and Bold are important parts of optimized ecommerce accounting automation.
These apps ensure that your Shopify data is calculated accurately and organized. But the way they each do this and the resulting outcomes are quite different.
One of them has a few additional features to offer - features that can transform the way you do business. And you might be surprised to hear that switching is not only easy, but books can be backdated, so it’s almost like the migration never took place at all.
So if you’re looking for an alternative to Bold for Shopify, interested to see the differences between the apps and what a migration to A2X might look like, you’ve come to the right place.
If you’re already keen to get migration started, skip to our step-by-step instructions.
In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of migrating to A2X from Bold, and how to go about this.
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Ready to jump in? After you…
Accurate Shopify Accounting Made Simple
Staying on top of your accounts is just one aspect of running a successful business, but it’s a critical one. Your money is the fuel to your business’ fire and without managing that properly, it’ll soon fizzle out.
Bookkeeping is not, however, the reason most business owners launch a new venture in the first place (unless they’re accountants founding a firm, of course).
If managing the money is taking up too much of your time, how can you think, reflect and strategize growth?
By leveraging the wealth of automation software out there designed to tackle this exact problem, you can gift yourself back the time to do exactly that.
And with A2X, you can take it a step further. Not only will you save hours of time reconciling your accounts but you will have books that you can use for long-term planning with confidence.
Let’s see how.
A2X vs. Bold for Ecommerce Sellers
Below is a comparison of the features of A2X and Bold. These should help you make a decision about which is best for your Shopify business.
| A2X | Bold |
|---|---|
| Connects Shopify with accounting software. | Connects Shopify with accounting software. |
| Multiple subscription options so that you can save while you’re small and invest as you grow. | Multiple subscription options so that you can save while you’re small and invest as you grow. |
| Financial activity is sent automatically from Shopify to accounting software. | Financial activity is sent automatically from Shopify to accounting software. |
| Orders and deposits are recorded with each line item calculated for you. | Orders and deposits are recorded with each line item calculated for you. |
| Deals with settlements rather than individual orders. This keeps accounting software organized, and running at optimal speed and performance without clogging up. This is more scalable. | Deals with individual orders. As you grow, so will the amount of data entering your accounting software which can slow it down. This is not the most scalable option. |
| Works great for any size seller, growing with them. | Works best for smaller sellers and lower-volume sales. |
| A2X supports Shopify, Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Etsy, with easy expansion across these other platforms for sellers wishing to add new channels. | The Bold-QuickBooks Online-Shopify and Bold-Xero-Shopify apps are exclusive to Shopify, so multi-channel sellers may face issues with expanding. |
| Organizes books via the accrual method which gives sellers a more dynamic view of their business and accurate numbers for forecasting. | |
| Auto-matches payouts for quick one-click reconciliation. | |
| The cost of goods sold option allows sellers to keep a basic inventory which is updated automatically as settlements come through. | |
| Can fetch previous payments for backdated books, making it a great addition to an ecommerce tech stack at any stage in a business’ growth. | |
| The A2X accountant directory gives sellers a place to go for quick access to ecommerce specialists across the world that can help them with their books. All are A2X partners and experts. |
A2X doesn’t stop at connection - it goes five steps further.
Both apps help to provide you with accurate numbers at your fingertips, anytime, anywhere - but that’s only half the story for a business owner.
A2X is designed to help you with the next part too.
Your books are organized and presented to you in ways that will save you time and headaches when it comes to actually using the information.
With quick reference to inventory, automatic pairing for reconciliation, COGS for calculating profit margins and accrual-based books for better forecasting, you have the tools to succeed and the map to get you there.
A2X effectively prepares your books for an accountant or bookkeeper so, whether you have one or not, you know that your accounts are organized based on the industry standard. They are accurate, reliable and scalable.
Growing your business should be more exciting than daunting - and with A2X, it is. Accurate, seamless accounting without the fuss.
What Experts and Users Say
But what do the verified users and industry experts think of A2X? And perhaps of the Bold-A2X migration process?
Let’s find out.
Reviews of A2X
These are all verified reviews from A2X customers and clients. You can find additional reviews here and more in-depth case studies here.
“When we branched out into ecommerce we started looking for a good app to help us get data from [the platforms] into [accounting software]. We found A2X and I can honestly say it is by far the BEST app we have found!
A2X connects [ecommerce platforms] and [accounting software], and summarizes all of the accounting data into a journal entry to be imported to your books.
You never need to worry about how many transactions are happening in [your ecommerce platform] because it does a summary entry.
It also will create your inventory asset and COGS entry to keep your inventory values accurate in your books.
It matches perfectly to the [platform settlement deposit] payment in your bank account and you are done!
Go have a cup of tea! Yup! Finished! All good! Have a nice day!
Shopify is complex because of the multitude of payment gateways your client can be using. Shopify Payments, PayPal, Stripe, Authorize.net and on and on. The app will create summary journal entries for each payment gateway type.
You have complete flexibility on how you map each entry.
For Shopify Payments you do not even need a holding account because the JE will match perfectly to the payout in the bank feed! Hurray! No holding account to reconcile.”
- Teresa Slack, CEO of Financly.
“We have lots of tools we spend money on to boost our [ecommerce] business but A2X is the best tool yet.
Making money is great, but if you don’t know IF you’re making money, or how MUCH you’re actually making after all the hidden costs… How can you grow?
Best tool out there! It’s a must if you want to grow your business!”
- Lynn T., Capterra.
“This Saas solution connects Shopify to [accounting software] the way accountants and bookkeepers need to see the data – that is daily, by payment method, net of fees (for Shopify payments), and it breaks out sales with GST versus sales without GST.
Shopify + A2X + [accounting software] = Bookkeeping bliss.”
“The software is crucial in our bookkeeping. It is well organized and makes our accounting much easier and automated.
We especially like the customer service and how focused they are on helping to manage the software to make sure it is running smoothly and effectively.
Excellent product and a must have for an ecommerce business!
- Matthew S., Capterra.
Insights into the Bold-A2X migration process
Check out some of the thoughts of accountants who regularly migrate their clients from Bold to A2X below.
“We have taken over many clients [to A2X] that previously used Bold. There were no challenges during the process, we simply stopped the Bold integration, usually at a year end or month end date, and connected A2X to start from the next day.
The ability to fetch previous payouts going back to a particular date is very helpful.”
- Tracey Newman, Founder, CloudCounting.
“Migrations from Bold to A2X are very simple and seamless. Once A2X is set up and the accounting and taxes are mapped, it was just a matter of starting to publish from A2X.
Definitely use A2X! A2X allows you to better understand how your e-commerce business is performing allowing you to make better business decisions. A2X is definitely our go-to product.”
- Emma Fougere, Head of Technology & Onboarding, Connect CPA.
So now you know how easy and painless it is to switch, let’s look at how it’s done.
How Migration Works (Hint: It’s Easier Than You Think!)
Migration consists of just a few steps, but we do recommend that you work with an ecommerce accountant to ensure the process works properly.
You can also get help directly from our team via contact@a2xaccounting.com.
The objective is pretty simple: To stop Bold and have A2X backdate the records for you, so that your accounts aren’t disrupted or missing any information.
- Choose a point in time from which A2X will get to work. It might be when your accounts were last up to date, or when you started using Bold.
- Unreconcile and remove Bold transactions after this point in time.
- Sign up for A2X for Shopify and integrate it with your QuickBooks Online, Xero or Sage account.
- Use the import history feature to bring transactions dated back to the point of time you set.
- A2X will look for the matching deposits so that you can reconcile these past transactions with a few clicks.
That’s it! Easy.
Your Free Trial of A2X for Shopify
Make the swift, seamless switch to A2X for Shopify today for the next level in ecommerce accounting automation.
