Daniella Ng | Harvest Accounting

Singapore cloud-based firm streamlining small business digital operations using A2X

Discover how Singapore accounting firm Harvest Accounting is using A2X to streamline eCommerce client operations, saving hours on month-end processes, and uncovering financial insights that will help business owners make better decisions. Advocates of the Xero ecosystem, the firm has made A2X a part of its “gold standard” accounting tech-stack alongside Google Business, Dext, Practice Ignition and Futrli.

Bringing cloud-based accounting to Singapore

Back in 2018 when Xero first launched into Singapore, Matthew Phua saw a business opportunity. He’d spent the previous 10 years working with small businesses in New Zealand and had witnessed first-hand the transformative power of the Xero ecosystem.

When his wife introduced him to Bryan Zhao, who had both banking and finance experience, they decided to start a cloud-based accounting firm. Harvest Accounting has been partnering with small businesses for two years now, helping business owners make better decisions and transform their operations.

Growing firm takes on eCommerce clients

Daniella Ng and Jacintha Lim joined Harvest Accounting a year ago as Assistant Account Managers, and today they work closely with some of the firm’s eCommerce clients.

Daniella’s client Little Blossom is an online baby food retailer, well-known for its signature organic brown rice puffs. It’s currently expanding into the Southeast Asia region including wholesale into Singapore’s supermarkets.

Jacintha works with 81 Brands, an Amazon store that sells a huge range of products in the UK, US and Japan – everything from pet nail clippers to baby pillows. It’s a UK-based company in the middle of moving its operations to Singapore.

Before: time-intensive month-end process

When Daniella first linked her client’s Xero account with its Shopify store, each invoice was generated automatically and “heaps of sales invoices started coming through, causing a bit of a headache when it came to reconciliation and inventory management.”

“We’d heard of A2X, but we didn’t have any clients using the application. Little Blossom decided to test out two add-on applications and eventually settled on A2X for Shopify because it was so easy to use,” Daniella explains.

It wasn’t long before Jacintha’s client came on board, who was already using A2X – an integration it didn’t want to give up.

After: summaries simplify reconciliations

Almost immediately after integrating A2X, Daniella could see the time saved. She says it’s made her client’s month-end process “really simple” by importing sales summaries – rather than individual transactions.

“It probably takes us 10-15 minutes to import everything from A2X into Xero, and then another 5-10 minutes for the bank reconciliation. It’s cut a lot of time because we’re not trying to match information across different platforms.”

For Jacintha’s client, the biggest improvement was with stock transfer.

“They’re able to see which sales have been recorded in the UK versus Singapore using historical data, which means a more accurate representation of the financial year.”

Digital tools that help small businesses win

Harvest Accounting is a digital-first accounting firm, passionate about identifying operational bottlenecks, reimaging workflows and connecting clients with suitable add-ons and technology from the Xero app ecosystem.

It’s made a name for itself as an expert in streamlining digital operations, and A2X has become part of its “gold standard accounting toolbox” for eCommerce clients alongside other cloud-based tools like Google Business, Practice Ignition, Dext and Futrli.

“It’s important that you have the right digital tools to run your business. A lot of our clients seek our opinion on the best digital solutions to help them save time, so we’re glad to be able to offer more integrated solutions,” Jacintha says.

When introducing new digital tools to your business, Daniella says there should always be a worthwhile “trade-off between time and money.”

“Sometimes it’s better to pay for a system that will give you more time – for a little extra cost.”

And as Jacintha adds, it’ll be those seamless integrations that help you grow your business more efficiently.

“One more good thing about A2X is my client is constantly looking to expand the business to other platforms, and I’m glad A2X is set up to support so many.

“He’s also been using it for such a long time and he’s very confident with it, so I know it won’t complicate things.”