If you run an eCommerce business for more thana year or two, you’ve probably come across GoDaddy Bookkeeping. For years,GoDaddy offered solid, reliable eCommerce bookkeeping to a wide variety offreelancers and small businesses. However, GoDaddy discontinued this service in2022, leaving many eCommerce businesses to figure out a solution on their own.Fortunately, there are various GoDaddy Bookkeeping replacements andalternatives for eBay, Amazon, and Shopify sellers.
So, what was GoDaddy online bookkeeping andwhy was it discontinued? What is an alternative that offers eBay and QuickBooksintegration? What about Shopify and QuickBooks integration? Or even integrationwith QuickBooks for Amazon sellers? Finally, what is the best way for eCommercebusinesses to manage all of their bookkeeping needs in one place?
In this guide, we will answer all of thesequestions and more, but first, let’s take a closer look at how GoDaddyBookkeeping worked and what happened to the popular service:
GoDaddy is primarily known for its web-hostingservices, but the company has ventured into other territory over the years tohelp online businesses and entrepreneurs flourish. For a long time, GoDaddyBookkeeping was the go-to bookkeeping solution for thousands of eCommercebusinesses. It was specifically designed for small businesses in need of morecomprehensive accounting and bookkeeping solutions.
Rather than forcing business owners todownload software, GoDaddy developed a simple, easy-to-use website andsubscription service. At first, it just allowed online freelancers to calculatetheir quarterly taxes. As GoDaddy fleshed out the service, the website grew toinclude tools for invoicing, P&L reports, and (perhaps most importantly)integration with sales channels like eBay, Amazon, and Shopify. This made iteven easier for online merchants to link all of their sales data into GoDaddy’sbookkeeping system.
However, GoDaddy made very few improvements tothe service over the last few years and, on June 18th, 2022, GoDaddyBookkeeping was officially discontinued. Existing users were given untilSeptember 30th, 2022 to download all of their data and migrate to a newservice. This means that if you used GoDaddy Bookkeeping and failed to downloadyour books by the cutoff date, you’re out of luck on getting that data back.
Some of the primary benefits of GoDaddyBookkeeping were its simple interface and affordable pricing structure. Forjust $4.99 per month, small eCommerce businesses could access invoicemanagement, mobile payments, and P&L reports. The next plan cost $9.99 permonth and added bank and credit card accounts, as well as support for dataintegration from different sales channels. This made it work well as accountingfor Amazon and eBay sellers. Finally, the $14.99-per-month plan offered all ofthe same features, plus the ability to schedule recurring invoices.
That said, GoDaddy Bookkeeping was far fromperfect. It lacked many of the features eCommerce business owners have come toexpect from advanced eBay, Amazon, and Shopify accounting software. Forexample, GoDaddy Bookkeeping lacked inventory management, bill pay solutions,and support for different types of transactions.
Even though GoDaddy lacked some essentialfeatures, it was very popular for a reason. Over the years, eCommerce businesseshave found that many sales channels simply lack accurate in-house accounting.Numbers don’t always add up how they should, making it virtually impossible totrack transaction data with any certainty. GoDaddy’s integration largely solvedthis issue, ensuring that small online businesses could at least track basicbookkeeping metrics.
However, if you’re looking for accountingsoftware to replace GoDaddy Bookkeeping, you shouldn’t settle for the bareminimum. In fact, there are a few key features that are a must-have for anyeCommerce business that needs comprehensive accounting and bookkeepingsolutions:
● Sales Channel Integration - Even if you relyon QuickBooks, you still need a way to integrate all of your sales data acrossdifferent channels. This means you’ll need accounting software that supportsintegration with Shopify, eBay, Amazon, Walmart, and whichever other channelsyou may use.
● Inventory Tracking - Keeping track ofinventory sold across different channels can be difficult. Proper integrationis not sufficient unless it can also give you an accurate account of yourproduct inventory.
● Expense Tracking - Understanding the financialmetrics of your business requires you to know how much money is coming in andgoing out. Without expense tracking, you’ll have a much harder time managingoverhead costs and understanding your business finances.
● Income & Profit Reports - Finally, even ifsoftware allows you to access different data sets related to income and grossmargin, it doesn’t guarantee that this information will be displayed in auseful way. Quality accounting software should allow you to view full balancesheets, P&L reports, and cash flow statements as well.
As you probably already know, there are someimportant distinctions between bookkeeping for eCommerce and brick-and-mortarbusinesses. Typically, a brick-and-mortar store has one sales channel; thebusiness sells physical products directly to consumers. Additionally, inventoryis easier to manage because it is physically present at the business locationor storage facility. These are two of the biggest issues that arise whenattempting to use the same bookkeeping practices for eCommerce.
With an eCommerce business, there aretypically multiple sales channels. Your business might sell on Amazon, eBay,Walmart, and Shopify (just to name a few). All of these channels manage anddisplay data differently. This can make it very hard to track financial metricsacross every channel. Even if you use QuickBooks, you will need to implementthird-party software or add-ons to integrate all of the relevant data.
This doesn’t even consider the differenceswith income reporting. Brick-and-mortar businesses can largely track income andprofits with bank statements. Since eCommerce businesses typically sell throughthird-party channels, this simple method just doesn’t work. A single deposit toyour account from Amazon could include multiple sales, chargebacks, shippingfees, and merchant fees. Without the right software to parse this information,you may find it very difficult to track and analyze your business income.
ConnectBooks is the best alternative toGoDaddy Bookkeeping because it takes all of the essential elements that madeGoDaddy’s service useful and adds even more features to help eCommercebusinesses. If you use more than one sales channel or you’re simply looking fora way to use QuickBooks Desktop, QuickBooks Enterprise, or QuickBooks Online(and soon Xero) that is better suited to the needs of eCommerce bookkeeping,ConnectBooks is the perfect solution.
With ConnectBooks, you can quickly manage thecollective data from all of your sales channels, generate accurate reports toanalyze your income and expenses, and make smarter buying and pricing decisionsfor the future. Not only can this help you save money and run your businessmore efficiently, but it can also save you countless hours that would need tospend on manual bookkeeping.
Are youin need of a GoDaddy Bookkeeping alternative that integrates with eBay, Amazon,and Shopify? Do you want to learn more about managing all of your eCommercechannels in one place? If so, reach out to the experts at ConnectBooks for more information!
