Spotlight Reporting Shines a Light on Your Business
Our feature tool this month is new to us—Spotlight Reporting. Our team has been testing Spotlight Reporting internally for several weeks now, and from what we’re seeing, this is one powerful tool for management reporting. It’s actually in a suite of products–Reporting, Forecasting, Dashboard. The bookskeep team has been focusing on the Reporting product for now because getting a handle on the numbers is always at the top of the list when we ask our ecommerce clients what they need most.
Who uses Spotlight Reporting?
The Spotlight Reporting website says this tool is “designed by accountants for accountants.” We’re finding, too, that this is a comprehensive reporting tool to help ecommerce businesses bring clarity to their data.
Why use Spotlight Reporting on Your Business?
With the ability to import data from numerous sources, such as Xero, QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Desktop, MYOB and Excel, you have complete flexibility in creating and customizing your financial reports into a variety of formats, including charts and graphs. You can customize the data and the layout; use their standard templates for reports like the P&L, balance sheets, cash flow analysis or create and save your own! You can also manually enter your data if that works best for you. And being able to create these reports in multiple currencies, using current exchange rates is a tremendous advantage for our international ecommerce sellers!
How can this tool help your ecommerce accounting?
By collecting your financials in one easy-to-navigate dashboard, you can monitor your numbers quickly and confidently. As an ecommerce business, you understand that being able to see the state of your business laid out in front you can help you make the best possible decisions when they are needed most.
According to the folks at Spotlight Reporting, the features of this dynamic reporting tool include:
Extensive chart gallery with templating, customization and white-labeling options
Drive action, share insight with our action plan and pre-populating executive summary
Use our cash waterfall chart to visualize your cash-ins and outs, and monitor liquidity
Share more by adding any external content into a report
We are excited about the forecasting features as many of our clients are requesting help in looking forward in their business. After we roll out the reporting program, we look forward to introducing our clients to the forecasting.
Does it deliver for the price?
As a busy ecommerce business having a powerful tool like Spotlight Reporting at your fingertips can elevate your knowledge and understanding of your business. As the numbers are presented in graphical formats, It can help you make informed business decisions and take away a lot of the stress away from looking at numbers and trying to interpret them. What’s the value of understanding your numbers? Only you can decide for yourself, but our experience tells us that it’s “priceless!”
If your ecommerce business isn’t where you’d like it to be in terms of profitability, check out my book, Profit First for Ecommerce Sellers. It answers important questions about how to implement Profit First in an ecommerce business. Take control of your money and your business, and put Profit First to work for you! Contact bookskeep today to learn more about accounting for ecommerce business.
Cyndi Thomason is founder and president of bookskeep, a U.S.-based accounting, bookkeeping, and advisory firm for ecommerce sellers worldwide. She has a passion for data analysis and process development. She uses that passion to educate her clients and help them structure their businesses to maximize profits.
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