Congrats - you're on the home stretch of your 5-day Shopify automation journey. If you missed days 1-3, hop back to Day 1 or Day 2.
Day 4: Take Control of Your Finances: Automate Bookkeeping, Reporting, and Tax Compliance
Given the choice between bookkeeping data entry and banging my head against a wall…Give me the wall.
1. Automate Bookkeeping: Never Manually Enter Numbers Again
Why It Matters:
Extremely Low ROI. Will suck the soul from your body.
Sync Shopify with QuickBooks or Xero
- What to Automate:
- Automatically import Shopify sales, fees, and taxes into your accounting software.
- Categorize transactions automatically based on predefined rules (e.g., revenue, shipping costs, taxes).
- Quick Setup Tip:
- Use Shopify’s QuickBooks or Xero integrations to connect your store with your bookkeeping software in minutes.
- Pro Tip:
- Use Zapier to create a new product in Quickbooks when a product is created in Shopify to eliminate duplicate data entry.
Track Expenses And Pay Bills
- What to Automate:
- Link your business credit card to QuickBooks or Xero to automatically track and categorize expenses.
- Pro Tip:
- Automate accounts payable. Set up rules for your bookkeeper regarding bill payments. Ask your vendors to include your bookkeeper on future invoices. Allow your bookkeeper to pay all invoices under your dollar threshold.
2. Automate Financial Reporting: Get Instant Insights
Why It Matters:
The devil is in the details. If you’re not using all of the data available to make better-informed business decisions, you’re flying blind in a snowstorm. Automating financial reports gives you real-time data to optimize spending, track profitability, and forecast growth.
My team specializes in data and dashboards. If you want to press the easy button, let us build custom dashboards for your business.
Build Automated Dashboards
- What to Automate:
- Use tools like Google Sheets and Looker Studio to create real-time visualization dashboards for key business metrics.
- Quick Setup Tip:
- Use Zapier to connect Shopify and QuickBooks to Google Sheets. Send all sales and expenses into an organized spreadsheet.
- Connect Google Looker to visualize the data with tables, charts, maps, and more.
- Pro Tip:
- Incorporate data from marketing and ad channels into your Google Sheets templates to provide deeper insights into customer acquisition costs.
3. Simplify Tax Compliance
Why It Matters:
If you thought bookkeeping was soul-sucking, you should try sales tax compliance.
Your business is likely now responsible for paying sales taxes in multiple states (U.S. Only). Each state has different rules, but generally, if you meet a minimum sales threshold, or if you have a nexus (like an office or warehouse) in that state, you will need to file and pay sales tax in that state. In most states, the threshold is $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions over 12 months.
The tax filing steps in each state are completely separated, and there is no central place to file all state sales taxes at the same time. Once you cross a state’s threshold, you’ll first need to apply for a resale certificate in that state, to earn the privilege of filing sales tax returns there.
Use Tools Like Shopify Tax, Avalara, or TaxJar
- What to Automate:
- Automatically calculate and collect the correct sales tax for every transaction. Shopify does this for you, thankfully. Make sure it’s enabled for physical products.
- File sales tax reports automatically for states where you’re registered. This is where services like TaxJar or Avalara come in to automate the filing process with each state.
- Note: Avalara can be a bit clunky and expensive. Its filing costs don't include the cost to register in each state.
- Quick Setup Tip:
- If your store qualifies, try Shopify Tax - the new native tax service from Shopify for filing sales tax returns.
Call to Action
Automate your monthly bookkeeping reconciliation and accounts payable process. If you don’t have a bookkeeper, find one on Upwork for $15/hr.
Day 5: Delegate What You Can’t Automate: Build a Team That Multiplies Your Time
Some tasks—creative direction, customer relationships, or high-level strategy—require a human touch. The key to scaling your Shopify business isn’t doing everything yourself; it’s delegating effectively to free up your time for what only you can do.
1. Identify What to Delegate
Why It Matters:
Delegation isn’t a cost—it’s an investment in growth. The most common resistance to the idea of delegation is “Well, I can get it done so much faster if I just do it myself”.
Well…Duh. Don’t get sucked into the productivity myth. Busyness is not productive.
You’ll never accomplish deep work if you’re constantly trying to check things off the to-do list.
Important: Before diving head-first into delegation mode, consider eliminating the task. It sounds obvious, but what would happen if this task went away? In more cases than you realize, the answer is: Nothing.
Define Repetitive Tasks
What are tasks that you complete repetitively? Make a list.
- Examples of tasks to delegate:
- Uploading new products to Shopify.
- Basic customer support tasks (e.g., responding to FAQs).
- Data entry (e.g., inventory updates or order tracking).
- Regular monthly reporting
- Sending weekly marketing emails
- Print, pack, and ship
- Sales tax filings
- Monthly bookkeeping reconciliation
- Ad campaign management
- Product Photography
- Graphic Design
- Copywriting
- Pro Tip:
- Document your tasks as you complete them before you attempt to delegate them. The Loom screen recorder is a documentation cheat code. Record yourself completing the task and use that as your documentation. No extra work is required.
- If your team prefers written instructions, use the transcript automatically generated by your Loom video. Send that file to ChatGPT and ask it to edit the transcript into step-by-step instructions.
2. Find the Right People for the Job
Why It Matters:
Hiring the wrong person costs time and money. Focus on building a team of A-players, even if it takes longer.
Now that you have documentation and tutorials for your delegation tasks, writing the job description becomes much easier. My favorite site for finding subcontractors and freelancers is Upwork. You will get a lot of applicants for each job post, both domestically and overseas.
Start Small with Virtual Assistants (VAs)
- Pro Tip:
- Be prescriptive, leaving little room for freelancing interpretation. Create time limits on certain tasks to avoid spinning wheels. Uncapped hours on a particular task can leave you lighting money on fire.
- Keep your request single-minded for better results. Request one task at a time to start. If your freelancer can handle more, gradually increase from there.
- My favorite approach is to buy a small amount of the freelancer’s time as a trial/test. Give each candidate a small project to complete, and evaluate the results. Yes, it costs a little more upfront, but this will save you money in the long run.
Use Specialists for Key Roles
It’s often easier to pay extra for an experienced specialist than to teach a general assistant a complex process.
- Examples:
- Hire a Facebook Ads expert for paid acquisition.
- Work with a Klaviyo consultant to optimize your email flows.
- Hire a graphic designer for visual creative assets
Build a Talent Bench
Always be hiring. Test out new freelancers multiple times per year on small projects. Keep the good ones at arm’s reach as projects arise.
- Pro Tip:
- Create a simple Airtable or Google Sheet to track freelancer skills, rates, and availability.
Call to Action
Make a list of your repeatable processes and the regular tasks that bring you the most heartburn. Document these processes the next time you complete them. Find a freelancer on Upwork and delegate one or more tasks to them.
Stop Managing, Start Scaling: Your Automation Journey Starts Now
Your Next Steps
- Define Your Tasks:
As you go through this guide, define the tasks that you work on day-to-day. Include new tasks created by the sections above. Use Loom to record your steps as you complete these tasks - Eliminate, Automate Or Delegate:
Designate each task in one of these three categories. Be ruthless. You can always add things back to your to-do list if they are truly necessary. - Find Freelance Help:
Once the process is defined, you can find freelancers to take over tasks, AND help you automate the other tasks. - Measure And Adjust:
Revisit your list monthly. What else can be automated? Add additional freelancers and VAs only once processes are defined.
Want Help?
If you’re ready to take your Shopify store to the next level but need a hand implementing these strategies, let’s talk. I offer free consultations to help you build a store that scales itself. Together, we can turn your automation goals into reality.
