Podcasts about taxjar

Send us a textIt's the 200th episode of The Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast and Serena pulls back the curtain on her bookkeeping firm's 2024 performance, sharing both the wins and challenges. She gets real about client churn, revenue growth, personal struggles with mold toxicity, and the hard lessons learned about communicating with clients who aren't taking crucial financial advice.In this episode you'll hear:Client management reality check - How one client's bankruptcy and fraud issues led to major communication style changesPersonal health struggles - Living in toxic mold for 2 years and how it affected business decisions and energy levels2025 strategy shifts - Moving away from high-ticket CFO services toward team-handled base packages for better work-life balanceResources mentioned in this episode:Episode 175 | Threads: Is it Worth it? https://youtu.be/Ola7HlpRy2UElevate: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/elevateElevate Mastermind (only for program graduates)Dubsado Decoded (with Kendra Courtney): https://kendracourtney.com/dubsado-decoded/AI Unlocked Summit registration: https://ambitiousbookkeeper--gemmabonhamcarter.thrivecart.com/ai-unlocked/619bde31ff59d/Bookkeeping Biz Workshops (launching August 2025)Xero, QBO, Hubdoc, ChatGPT, Asana, Airtable, TaxJar, A2X, DubsadoBusiness by Design (James Wedmore's program): https://www.jameswedmoretraining.com/Xero Con, Podcasting Moms Conference, BBD Live, Wave SeattlePrescott Area Young ProfessionalsThanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me @ambitiousbookkeeperFor more information about the Ambitious Bookkeeper Podcast or interest in our programs or mentoring visit our resources below:Visit our website: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.comFollow the Blog: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blogConnect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeperConnect on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ambitiousbookkeeperConnect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/serenashoupcpaThank you for your support of our show. If you haven't left a review yet it's super simple. Please go to ambitiousbookkeeper.com/podcast and leave your review.Podcast Publishing Tools we use:Editing → Sabr Media LLC: https://www.iangilliam.com/sabr-media-llcDescript: https://get.descript.com/u7lubkx09073 (affiliate link)Buzzsprout: To fill out The State of Virtual Bookkeeping Survey, click HERE.For each response, I'll be donating $1 to charity: water. Learn more here. Join the next free training at ambitiousbookkeeper.com/training

Send us a textIn today's bite-sized episode, we're diving into the nitty-gritty of setting up TaxJar for eCommerce businesses. Whether you're a bookkeeper with some eCommerce clients or an online seller yourself, stick around. Serena's got some super helpful insights coming your way, complete with screen sharing over on YouTube if you're up for it.Resources mentioned:TaxJarAvalaraShopifySquareLearn more about sales tax in the sales tax workshop: http://ambitiousbookkeeper.com/salestaxFor experienced bookkeepers & accountants:Learn how to start your bookkeeping business in The Bookkeeping Business Accelerator®: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/bbaGrab my FREE Start your Bookkeeping Biz Checklist: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/checklistGrab my FREE New Client Onboarding Templates: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/onboardFor new bookkeepers:Learn the fundamental accounting skills in Katie Ferro's Become a Bookkeeper: https://www.katieferro.com/a/38894/2PQNgtvvFor online course creators:Become a client at my firm, Of Course Financial: https://www.ofcoursebookkeeping.com/contactConnect with us:Visit our website: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.comFollow the Blog: https://www.ambitiousbookkeeper.com/blogConnect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ambitiousbookkeeperConnect on Threads: https://www.threads.net/@ambitiousbookkeeperConnect on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/serenashoupcpaPodcast Publishing Tools we use:Editing → Sabr Media LLC: https://www.iangilliam.com/sabr-media-llcDescript: https://get.descript.com/u7lubkx09073 (affiliate link)Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=1753696 (affiliate link)

Darcy Marie Mayfield is a specialist in culture architecture and experience design. Darcy shares her experiences in hospitality at Airbnb and designing systems to codify and scale company culture at early fully remote organizations. She discusses how initiatives like Tulsa Remote have revitalized cities by attracting remote workers and fostering local collaborations. From engineering serendipity to creating consistent rituals and empathetic leadership, Darcy offers actionable insights into creating inclusive, connected thriving communities and environments for remote and distributed workers and teams.     TAKEAWAYS   [01:27] Darcy's early and enduring passion is hospitality and helping people feel they belong.   [02:34] At Airbnb, Darcy pilots early remote work initiatives to explore flexible work models.   [04:06] Darcy leaves Airbnb as they lack remote work flexibility and moves to a rural area.   [04:23] TaxJar's leadership wants to take the company fully remote, so Darcy joins for the challenge.   [05:10] The vision is to build a strong company with a strong product and strong profits while people enjoy their lives.   [06:00] Darcy works with academic researchers to study and codify culture in a fully remote organization.   [06:56] How do you architect culture where there are no physical walls?   [07:40] Codifying culture for scale involves understanding the founders' DNA and origins.   [08:56] Deep listening sessions to co-create with employees and reveal how values show up.   [09:20] Transitioning from an SMB to a mid-market culture means balancing collaboration with structure.   [11:16] During the pandemic, TaxJar's remote model enables significant growth and low attrition.   [12:05] Darcy wants to help people and prove remote working works, but it gets exhausting.   [14:06] To normalize family-friendly environments, TaxJar's CEO has to set the example.   [15:00] They are proud of having top talent who are really empathetic.   [16:29] At Stripe, Darcy observes strong identity tied to the office causing hybrid work challenges.   [18:26] Redesigning hybrid work, prompting leaders to model flexibility and track energy patterns.   [19:56] Understanding offsites, her team considers how to include remote participants equitably.   [20:34] Why to create experiences for remote workers that rival office-based interactions.   [22:18] Darcy describes Tulsa Remote and attracting remote workers to boost economic growth.   [23:34] The benefits of industry diversification and reverse the brain drain for Tulsa.   [24:33] Why people choose to move to Tulsa and partnering to solve local problems.   [25:09] “Engineering serendipity” to connect remote workers with local communities.   [26:28] Piloting a workation program that fosters deep connections between participants and locals.   [28:10] The pilot program results in nine out of twelve participants moving to Tulsa.   [29:28] Darcy personalizes participants' experiences connecting them with relevant locals.   [32:59] How other cities have increasing willingness to benefit from digital nomads.   [34:17] The opportunity to create a blueprint for “sister cities” ready to create consistent, impactful remote work experiences.   [37:20] Madeira Friends aim to show the long-term economic benefits of attracting digital nomads.   [39:26] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: To improve hybrid and remote outcomes, lean into cultural architecture. One, name channels to evoke desired behaviors. Two, cultivate consistent rituals. Three, give yourself permission to experiment.     RESOURCES   Darcy Marie Mayfield on LinkedIn Darcy on Instagram Tulsa Remote     QUOTES   "How do you architect culture when there's no physical walls?"​ "Codifying culture allowed us to emotionally and intrinsically move our culture from an SMB culture to a mid-market culture because that's where our customers were going."​ "Words make worlds. Use words that emote the behavior you want to see."​ "Remote workers bring not just economic benefits but also a diversification of skills and innovative ideas to communities."​   "Leaders must set the tone—if a leader is going to take a walk in the middle of the day, then everybody else will follow."​   "It's about designing the connections and programming so people feel like they belong so much earlier and so much more often."​ ​

FROM THE ARCHIVE: Ever wondered how a fully remote company not only survives but thrives in the digital age? Darcy Mayfield new Bowles  peeled and what's it like to work remotely..Wanderlust meets workspace in our enlightening conversation about the joys and pitfalls of remote work. Wrapping up, the spotlight shifts to you, the aspiring remote worker, as Darcy bestows nuggets of wisdom on navigating the hiring process . Heed her advice on aligning with the company's mission and values, and stand out in a sea of applicants. As we reflect on the shifting work landscape, we encourage you to embrace this remote revolution. So, grab your notepad and tune in—it's an episode brimming with insights that could usher you into the ranks of a future-forward company like Taxjar.SUBSCRIBE__________________________Apple PodcastsSpotify Podcasts Click here remoteworklife.io to get a free list of > 100 businesses that hire remote talent.SOCIALS ___________Subscribe On YouTubeConnect on LinkedIn

If you're a leader or manager struggling to grasp the concept of the employee experience, you're not alone! In this illuminating interview, Darcy Marie Mayfield, a seasoned expert in remote work and experience design, sheds light on the value and challenges of crafting a remote work experience that engages employees and cultivates a thriving company culture.Darcy's rich background as a true digital nomad provides a unique backdrop to her expertise. She draws attention to the significance of embracing remote work as a lifestyle choice and delves into the evolution of remote work into a credible long-term option, challenging traditional notions of work and office culture.As the founder and lead consultant at Shift with Darcy Marie, she is on a mission to elevate remote work experiences. Drawing from her experiences at prominent companies like Airbnb and TaxJar, where she recognized the need for intentional design in shaping a remote work culture, Darcy's roles as the director of remote employee experience and remote work designer further emphasized the necessity of addressing the fears and uncertainties that employees often encounter in remote environments. Her approach involves curating experiences across the entire employee life cycle, encompassing attraction, onboarding, retention, and recognition. This holistic approach ensures that the company's values and culture are not just communicated but deeply felt by remote employees.The conversation also dives into the challenges faced by managers who resist the remote work shift. Darcy identifies this resistance as stemming from a fear of change, attachment to the office identity, and a reluctance to confront operational inefficiencies that remote work unveils. She emphasizes that a successful transition to remote work requires a fundamental willingness to embrace change and redesign the way work is approached.Expanding the discussion, Darcy predicts the emergence of remote-first startups, particularly among small to medium-sized companies. These forward-thinking entities will embrace remote work from inception, fostering a remote-first mindset that reshapes the landscape of work culture in the business world.Darcy's insights offer a comprehensive perspective on remote work and its profound impact on the employee experience. By highlighting the significance of intentionality, cultivating culture, and the rise of remote-first startups, Darcy provides invaluable guidance to leaders and managers navigating the evolving terrain of work in an increasingly remote world.Don't miss this educational and relatable debate! Connect with Darcy through LinkedIn and her website, and join her upcoming newsletter, "Work Doesn't Have To Suck So."Learn More About Darcy:Website - https://www.shiftwithdarcymarie.comNewsletter - https://www.shiftwithdarcymarie.com/communityLinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/darcyboles/Youtube - The Mayfields Move to Madeira

There's some really great stuff happening today as Jason and Chris are here, and Andrew is away traveling for the holidays. Chris announces that GoRails is getting a BIG update this coming year and we'll hear what's going on, they discuss sales tax stuff being a pain and using metered billing in Stripe on the new Hatchbox.  Jason's wearing his Christmas pajamas, so you know what that means… Ruby 3.2.0 is coming out soon, and we'll find out some of the new features. And if you've been wondering when we're going to get a Docker file for Rails, well now there are two, and Chris tells us about them. Also, the RailsConf Committee is looking for applicants for RailsConf 2023 in Atlanta, so if you're interested go sign up! Download this episode now to find out more and Happy New Year! [00:03:21] What's been good in the past four days? Well, Chris tells us GoRails is going to get a BIG update this coming year!  He wants to move everything over to Jumpstart and the first step will be moving over all the payments code to pay.[00:10:12] Chris talks about using metered billing in Stripe on the new Hatchbox.[00:15:54] Jason had some sales tax work going on at Podia which he was happy to not be doing that right before Christmas, and Chris explains why the sales tax stuff is such a pain. [00:18:09] Jason brings up having respect for the way the VAT works in the EU with each country having a tax rate, and the guys discuss sales taxes in states, Stripe acquiring TaxJar, and health insurance. [00:23:04] Someone's wearing their Christmas pajamas so that must mean Ruby 3.2.0 is coming out! Chris mentions a Tweet about a performance improvement for YJIT.[00:25:17] As Jason looks through the Ruby 3.2.0 stuff, the WebAssembly stuff is the biggest part of it, and the guys chat about the to-do list somebody built and the date immutable class in the new Ruby release. [00:28:44] Jason brings up a Tweet from Kyle Keesling about a new API in Rails 7.1 with Active Record. [00:34:36] The RailsConf Committee is looking for applications, so if anyone is interested in getting involved go sign up! [00:35:49] If you've been wondering when there will be a Docker file for Rails…good news, there are two now, and Chris tells us about them.[00:39:05] Speaking of being horrified about security things, there's an article how Okta's source code has been stolen after their GitHub's repositories got hacked. Also, the guys discuss Laravel. [00:41:49] Chris and Jason have a conversation about Crystal and how it's such a cool language.Panelists:Jason CharnesChris OliverSponsor:HoneybadgerLinks:Jason Charnes TwitterChris Oliver TwitterAndrew Mason TwitterRuby.wasm todo listTweet from Kyle Keesling: Here's a great new quality of life improvement that's coming to Rails 7.1- ActiveRecord::Base::normalizesAdd ActiveRecord::Base::normalizes #43945RailsConf Program Committee ApplicationDocked Rails CLIOkta's source code stolen after GitHub repositories hacked (Bleeping Computer)Add default Dockerfiles #46762Ruby Radar NewsletterRuby Radar TwitterRuby for All Podcast

We have spoken to 100s if not 1000s of small to medium sized businesses that are concerned about their sales tax responsibilities. After a discussion with them and we often find that there is nothing that there needs to be done at the moment. We will never recommend buying things that you don't need. So, I was curious what our recommendations are when it comes to this situation. I invited Paul on to discuss this with me today.Additional Questions Answered:Do I need to collect sales tax?As a small to medium sized business do I need to collect sales tax?As a startup do I need to collect sales tax?Should I sign up for TaxJar, Avalara, Sovos?What should I do right now about sales tax?If you are unsure of what to do about sales tax a great place to start is with our resources page https://peisnerjohnson.com/resources/. If your situation seems more complicated and you can't find the answers that fit your business situation, join us on a what's next call: https://peisnerjohnson.com/whats-next/

Stripe has laid off some of the employees that support TaxJar, a tax compliance startup that it acquired last year, TechCrunch has learned from multiple sources and firsthand documentation.

Stripe has laid off some of the employees that support TaxJar, a tax compliance startup that it acquired last year, TechCrunch has learned from multiple sources and firsthand documentation.

We sat with Sara Strope, CMO at TaxJar, to talk about how their brand became more customer-centric.LinkedIn: Sara Strope - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarastrope/#experienceWebsite: TaxJar | A Stripe company - https://www.taxjar.com/To learn more about tax - https://stripe.com/tax

Before she founded Parachute, CEO Ariel Kaye had a deep background in consumer behavior research. She used her rich history in understanding and learning to connect with people to create the basis for her business.   Although Parachute started in bedding, the company has expanded strategically into adjacent categories, including bath goods, décor, furniture and even loungewear. During this episode of Retail Remix, Ariel joins us to share her unique perspectives on the brand's growth, including:    How evolving consumer behaviors and lifestyle shifts impacted Parachute's expansion strategies;  Ways to use strong values and a positive brand purpose to drive employee retention and community building;   The next stages in Parachute's growth, from new executive hires to opening new stores, offering more robust omnichannel services and doubling down on sustainability.   This week's episode is brought to you by TaxJar From marketplaces to social selling, the opportunities for e-commerce retailers to grow their business have never been better. But selling on more platforms and in more regions means increasingly complex sales tax requirements. TaxJar automates the entire sales tax compliance lifecycle for retailers, including real-time calculations, multichannel reporting, nexus calculations and automated filing. They simplify your sales tax so you can focus on the important stuff, like developing great products and attracting customers. Visit www.taxjar.com to learn more.   RELATED LINKS  Learn more about Parachute  See Parachute's latest entry into Pop-In@Nordstrom

We've all heard that the customer has more control over the shopping experience, but that hasn't stopped most retailers from sticking with their same-old business strategies. Joel Bines believes now is the time for retailers to act — and he has a playbook for success.  During this episode of Retail Remix, Joel digs into his book, “The Metail Economy: 6 Strategies for Transforming Your Business to Thrive in the Me-Centric Consumer Revolution.” He shares:  How the me-centric consumer revolution began and the technologies that have accelerated it;   Why this revolution sparked the rise of authenticity in marketing, sustainability and other hot retail trends; and  Tips to help retailers use deep customer understanding to identify and prioritize investments.     This week's episode is brought to you by TaxJar From marketplaces to social selling, the opportunities for e-commerce retailers to grow their business have never been better. But selling on more platforms and in more regions means increasingly complex sales tax requirements. TaxJar automates the entire sales tax compliance lifecycle for retailers, including real-time calculations, multichannel reporting, nexus calculations and automated filing. They simplify your sales tax so you can focus on the important stuff, like developing great products and attracting customers. Visit www.taxjar.com to learn more.  RELATED LINKS  Learn more about Joel's book  Learn more about AlixPartners 

In his time at Timberland, Bevan Bloemendaal drove global retail experiences and creative services. He helped bring the brand's sustainability mission to stores and helped establish new processes for teams across the organization to collaborate to bring physical and digital together.   Now, as Chief Brand and Creative Officer at NELSON Worldwide, Bevan is helping shape brand experiences for brands across industries. During this week's Retail Remix, he digs into the trends shaping the future of retail specifically, including how:   Consumers' demand for sustainable business practices will impact future store design projects and concepts;   Retailers can use digital elements thoughtfully to bring their brand promise to life; and  Sensory elements are bringing physical storytelling to the next level.     This week's episode is brought to you by TaxJar From marketplaces to social selling, the opportunities for e-commerce retailers to grow their business have never been better. But selling on more platforms and in more regions means increasingly complex sales tax requirements. TaxJar automates the entire sales tax compliance lifecycle for retailers, including real-time calculations, multichannel reporting, nexus calculations and automated filing. They simplify your sales tax so you can focus on the important stuff, like developing great products and attracting customers. Visit www.taxjar.com to learn more.  RELATED LINKS  Learn more about NELSON Worldwide  Download RTP's latest story design and experience research report  Access more exclusive content about new store concepts

As the ecommerce universe expands, brands and retailers have more opportunities to reach and sell to consumers. Although digital channels can help companies realize a lot of value, they also can create a lot of complexity, especially because all of these different channels have different data requirements and content best practices.   Greg Ives and Bradley Hearn of ChannelAdvisor have seen this complexity first-hand and have guided B2C companies as they strive to bridge their owned ecommerce sites, marketplaces, social platforms and more. During this week's Retail Remix, they discuss:   The data and content required to create a seamless and consistent experience;   How brands and retailers can navigate an expanded ecosystem and develop a strategy that aligns with the evolved customer journey; and Why the rise of “shoppable media” is changing the playbook for effective ecommerce strategy.    This week's episode is brought to you by TaxJar From marketplaces to social selling, the opportunities for e-commerce retailers to grow their business have never been better. But selling on more platforms and in more regions means increasingly complex sales tax requirements. TaxJar automates the entire sales tax compliance lifecycle for retailers, including real-time calculations, multichannel reporting, nexus calculations and automated filing. They simplify your sales tax so you can focus on the important stuff, like developing great products and attracting customers. Visit www.taxjar.com to learn more.  RELATED LINKS  Learn more about ChannelAdvisor  Dig into the latest ecommerce coverage  See how you can master global digital expansion 

https://entrearchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/TobyWitte-scaled.jpg () How to Brand a Modern Residential Architecture Firm A quarter century of experience in the world of design and construction comes to bear on Toby Witte’s work. German by heritage and upbringing, born in Peru, Toby has had the privilege to study architecture, building science, drafting, and construction in Germany and in the USA. Between various employments with architect, engineering, and construction firms, he graduated cum laude from the School of Architecture at UNCC. He ran his previous design/build companies Dialect Design and Qube11 for over a decade until he founded Wittehaus. In 2004 he received the Medal & Henry Adams Certificate of Merit by The American Institute of Architects. And in 2018 the 3rd People’s Choice Award of the North Carolina Modernist Houses Matsumoto Prize. To learn, grow , and contribute Toby has been an active member of the American Institute of Architects, the National Organization of Minority Architects, Brick & Wonder, EntreArchitect ASG Mastermind, and the German American Chambers of Commerce. When Toby parks his pencil he lets himself be sucked in by a vibrant family life centered around his wife, an early education teacher, and their three powerhouse daughters. He cooks, reads, travels, plays two chords on the guitar and loves a good beer. This week at EntreArchitect Podcast, How to Brand a Modern Residential Architecture Firm with Toby Witte.  Connect with Toby at https://www.witteha.us (Wittehaus), or follow him on https://www.instagram.com/wittehaus/ (Instagram), https://www.linkedin.com/company/wittehaus/ (LinkedIn), https://twitter.com/witteha_us (Twitter), and https://www.facebook.com/wittehaus (Facebook). Please visit Our Platform Sponsors https://arcat.com (ARCAT) is the online resource delivering quality building material information, CAD details, BIM, Specs, and more… all for free. Visit ARCAT now and subscribe to http://arcat.com (ARCATECT Weekly and ARCATAlert). http://EntreArchitect.com/Freshbooks (Freshbooks) is the all in one bookkeeping software that can save your small architecture firm both time and money by simplifying the hard parts of running your own business. Try Freshbooks for 30 days for FREE at http://EntreArchitect.com/Freshbooks (EntreArchitect.com/Freshbooks). Visit our Platform Sponsors today and thank them for supporting YOU… The EntreArchitect Community of small firm architects. Marketing Tools Mentioned in This Episode Google Workspace (Server, File Sharing, email set up, ect) Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, Calendar (Officework, Documents, Communication) Google Keep (Note Taking) Cloudally (Cloud Backup) Monday.com (whiteboard for project planning, goal setting, sales tracking and forecasting) Slack (in house communication) Clockify (time keeping for planning only) Mailchimp (prospect email campaigns, mailers) Calendly (appointment setup) Zapier (connecting apps to each other) Squarespace (website, blog, online shop) Tidio (chatbot on website) Google Analytics (finding out what all of this is doing) Click2Mail (print-on-demand brochures) Poplar (print-on-demand postcards) Printful (pint-on-demand swag shop) Taxjar (sales taxes for swag shop) Adobe Premiere Rush (weekly movies) Youtube, IGTV (hosting weekly movies) Houzz Pro (paid platform marketing and lead generation) instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google (social media posts and ads) Pinterest (client inspiration research) Linkedin (networking) The post https://entrearchitect.com/podcast/entrearch/how-to-brand-a-modern-residential-architecture-firm/ (EA438: Toby Witte – How to Brand a Modern Residential Architecture Firm) appeared first on https://entrearchitect.com (EntreArchitect // Small Firm Entrepreneur Architects).

Darcy's links:LinkedInTwitterTaxJar a Stripe Company websiteReferenced materials:Chip ConleyEudaimonic wellbeing

In this video, Jake Giebz, runs through his full list of the Best Shopify Apps 2021.As an ecommerce marketer myself, I can confirm that these are the Must Have Shopify Apps 2021.Here are the Shopify Apps that Jake mentions in this video:- Triple Whale: https://triplewhale.com/The tool of choice, for the fastest growing brands. Triple Whale centralizes the metrics from all the tools you use, right into your pocket. - LiveRecover: https://liverecover.com/Powered by real people, LiveRecover contacts, engages, and converts your abandoned carts into sales for you over text message.- Candy Rack: https://apps.shopify.com/candyrackThe one click upsell & cross sell app for your product pages.- Hyros: https://hyros.com/TRACK ADS. FEED AI.HYROS TRACKS WHICH AD SOLD SOMETHING...FOREVERTHEN HELPS AD PLATFORM AIs DO IT OVER AND OVER.- Klaviyo (my link): https://www.klaviyo.com/partner/signup?utm_source=0010V00002KefcR&utm_medium=partnerKlaviyo helps businesses own their marketing. Klaviyo lets you deliver amazing experiences across email marketing and other owned channels.- TaxJar: https://www.taxjar.com/Sales Tax Compliance for Modern Commerce.- HelpScout: https://www.helpscout.com/The customer support platform for growing businesses- Feedonomics: https://feedonomics.com/You Sell Products,We Optimize Them.Boost Your Sales with the #1 Full Service Product Feed Management Platform- Dcart: https://apps.shopify.com/discount-in-cartCart discount, Discount on cart, Coupon on cartFollow Jake on Twitter: https://twitter.com/GiebzCheck out his Ecommerce Store: https://shutterbombs.com/Join 50 DTC marketers & founders as they share their best BFCM secrets FOR FREE: https://blackfridaysummit.com

Kelly Stojka is an Account Executive with TaxJar, a sales tax software company that helps businesses of all sizes automate and manage their sales tax lifecycle across multiple channels. TaxJar's cloud-based platform simplifies sales tax compliance to remove barriers for growth for businesses. Prior to TaxJar, Kelly held Account Executive roles at a number of software and service firms, including Flock and Lokion. She holds a bachelor's degree in cognitive science from the University of California, Berkeley. In this episode… The 2018 Wayfair Supreme Court ruling had a huge impact on the way sales tax was collected and filed in the US. This affected not only sellers with physical stores, but also e-commerce sellers who sell their products across state lines. So, what do these sellers need to know about sales tax compliance? Unknown to many businesses, several states use information taken from Amazon to go after non-compliant e-commerce sellers. According to Kelly Stojka, this is why it's crucial for sellers to keep good records of their returns. As a sales tax compliance expert, Kelly is here to share her advice to Amazon sellers looking to avoid the costs of non-compliance and better manage their sales tax lifecycle. In this episode of the Buy Box Experts podcast, James Thomson is joined by Kelly Stojka, an Account Executive with TaxJar, to discuss how the 2018 Wayfair ruling impacted sales tax compliance for e-commerce sellers. Kelly explains what Amazon sellers need to do to remain compliant, how to navigate compliance across different states, and the valuable services TaxJar provides for e-commerce entrepreneurs.

[00:03:26] CJ tells us about himself and what he does at Stripe.[00:07:18] We learn about two different paths and what Stripe does beyond card payments.[00:09:21] Chris wonders since CJ knows Ruby, if he ends up doing every language and every front-end framework too. Chris talks about using Sinatra as well.[00:12:48] CJ asks Chris how much Swift code he had to write or if he was using SwiftUI for his newly released iOS app for Jumpstart. [00:15:32] CJ helps Chris out with how he can do payment stuff for iOS versus the web with Stripe, and he tells us new things that are coming up with Stripe very soon. [00:16:52] Chris brings up the publishable key and then tells us about TurboBridge and what it does.  [00:23:13] CJ fills us in on confirming Webhooks on web or mobile, and how you can automate fulfillment the same way, and he tells us about a demo he is working on right now with a payment method type called OXXO, which is a voucher-based payment type. [00:25:26] Find out about some other types of payment methods that are not credit card based or voucher based. [00:29:54] There’s something new coming soon about Elements, but for now CJ tells us how to currently set up Elements in Stripe.  Jason shares a story when he migrated one of his side projects and did some custom Elements stuff, issues he had with tax rates, and he wonders if things might change with the TaxJar acquisition. [00:35:29] An exciting announcement is made about a new product Stripe is launching called Payment Links and CJ explains how it works.[00:39:07] There is a Stripe Sessions free conference happening in June, and CJ tells us where to go to sign up.[00:43:10] Find out where you can follow CJ online.Panelists:Jason CharnesChris OliverGuest:CJ AvillaSponsor:HoneybadgerLinks:CJ Avilla WebsiteCJ Avilla LinkedinCJ Avilla TwitterCJ Avilla YouTube-Screencasts for Web DevelopersOXXO Voucher PaymentSinatraStripe ElementsStripe Sessions 

We talk with Sheharyar Naseer about Ecto's feature "association defaults" and how they work. We learn how they even support defining a function that gets called during your changeset operations which can be used to ensure multi-tenancy IDs get populated correctly. We learn more about Slab, talk about Single Table Inheritance designs and how we feel about them. We also talk about wrapping the Repo module for fun and profit! Elixir Community News - https://blog.taxjar.com/taxjar-will-be-joining-stripe-to-help-build-the-worlds-tax-compliance-infrastructure/ (https://blog.taxjar.com/taxjar-will-be-joining-stripe-to-help-build-the-worlds-tax-compliance-infrastructure/) – TaxJar, an Elixir-backed service, was acquired by Stripe - https://twitter.com/collision/status/1387108960881111040 (https://twitter.com/collision/status/1387108960881111040) – Potentially the largest acquisition of a fully-remote company to-date - https://twitter.com/garazdawi/status/1390303999484514314 (https://twitter.com/garazdawi/status/1390303999484514314) – OTP team shared that OTP 21 (older) received it's last patch and will no longer be supported. - https://twitter.com/MNishiguchiDC/status/1390658051267563520 (https://twitter.com/MNishiguchiDC/status/1390658051267563520) – Example of using Livebook on Nerves to experiment, document, and control a BMP280 temperature sensor connected to a Raspberry Pi - https://twitter.com/josevalim/status/1390944763139006464 (https://twitter.com/josevalim/status/1390944763139006464) – Jose Valim was on the Changelog podcast talking about Nx, Axon, Livebook and Machine Learning with Elixir - https://thinkingelixir.com/podcast-episodes/034-jose-valim-reveals-project-nx/ (https://thinkingelixir.com/podcast-episodes/034-jose-valim-reveals-project-nx/) – Our previous discussion with Jose when he revealed Nx publicly - https://github.com/elixir-nx/livebook/pull/260 (https://github.com/elixir-nx/livebook/pull/260) – Livebook got collaborative editing with user-specific cursors (similar to Google Docs) - https://alchemyconf.com (https://alchemyconf.com) – AlchemyConf is a virtual conference happening on May 28th organized by Subvisual - https://www.elixirconf.eu/ (https://www.elixirconf.eu/) – ElixirConfEU hosting a "hybrid" conference event. Sept 9-10th in Warsaw and also on-line - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofofstake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_stake) – Feedback on crypto currency environmental concerns. Check out Proof-of-Stake as a more environmentally friendly approach than Proof-of-Work. Do you have some Elixir news to share? Tell us at @ThinkingElixir (https://twitter.com/ThinkingElixir) or email at show@thinkingelixir.com (mailto:show@thinkingelixir.com) Discussion Resources - https://slab.com/blog/association-defaults-in-ecto/ (https://slab.com/blog/association-defaults-in-ecto/) - https://slab.com/ (https://slab.com/) - https://www.notion.so/product (https://www.notion.so/product) - https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence (https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SingleTableInheritance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Table_Inheritance) - https://hexdocs.pm/ecto/Ecto.Repo.html#c:prepare_query/3 (https://hexdocs.pm/ecto/Ecto.Repo.html#c:prepare_query/3) - https://hexdocs.pm/ecto/Ecto.Repo.html#c:exists?/2 (https://hexdocs.pm/ecto/Ecto.Repo.html#c:exists?/2) - https://the.slab.com/public/topics/careers-at-slab-4vhprcwg (https://the.slab.com/public/topics/careers-at-slab-4vhprcwg) – Slab is hiring! Guest Information - https://twitter.com/sheharyarn (https://twitter.com/sheharyarn) – on Twitter - https://github.com/sheharyarn (https://github.com/sheharyarn) – on Github - https://shyr.io/ (https://shyr.io/) – Blog - hello@sheharyar.me Find us online - Message the show - @ThinkingElixir (https://twitter.com/ThinkingElixir) - Email the show - show@thinkingelixir.com (mailto:show@thinkingelixir.com) - Mark Ericksen - @brainlid (https://twitter.com/brainlid) - David Bernheisel - @bernheisel (https://twitter.com/bernheisel) - Cade Ward - @cadebward (https://twitter.com/cadebward)

Biden wants $80 billion for the IRS and non-GAAP is back, baby! In app news: The brief but heart-stopping QuickBooks Online Payroll outage, Expensify files for an IPO, Stripe acquires TaxJar, Brex raises $425 million, updates from Xero and Square, and more

In dieser Folge sprechen Agnieszka und Alexander über die starken Zahlen der Tech-Giganten und warum nicht alle davon wirklich überzeugen können - Stichwort Tesla. Zudem geht es um die Geschäftsmodelle von YouTube und Netflix, die künftigen Probleme von Facebook durch zunehmende Konkurrenz seitens Google und Apple in mehreren Bereichen, weitreichenden Konsequenzen für Amazon durch ein brennendes Hoverboard, Chinas Regulatoren und die Folgen für die dort ansässigen Tech-Unternehmen, Kryptohandel bei Trade Republic, ein folgenschwerer Blogpost im Hause Basecamp und ein Jubiläum in eigener Sache! --- Die Themen der Folge 117: --- • Apple, Microsoft, Google: Die Quartalszahlen der großen Tech-Unternehmen https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/28/todays-big-tech-earnings-in-a-mere-700-words/ https://www.ft.com/content/f5042df8-52d4-4527-af1d-5ed70a96b0b5 • Youtube und Netflix: Ein Vergleich zwischen Werbe- und Abo-basiertem Geschäftsmodell https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/27/youtube-could-soon-equal-netflix-in-revenue.html https://twitter.com/tanayj/status/1387844768575729667 • Facebook between a rock and a hard place https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/30/eu-says-apples-app-store-breaches-competition-rules.html • Prozessbeginn zwischen Epic Games und Apple https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-epic-games/analysis-in-apple-versus-epic-games-courtroom-battle-is-only-half-the-fight-idUSKBN2CJ0HJ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-01/apple-s-app-store-had-78-profit-margin-in-2019-testimony-show • Nach Spotify-Beschwerde: Apple droht EU-Kartellstrafe https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/30/eu-says-apples-app-store-breaches-competition-rules.html https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/4/30/resetting-the-app-store • Microsoft senkt Games-Umsatzbeteiligung, Valve unter Beschuss https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/1/22411686/microsoft-windows-store-game-fees-change-apple-app-store-epic-games-eu https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000126347395/humble-bundle-gruender-klagt-valve-wegen-mutmasslichen-pc-gaming-monopols?ref=rss • Amazon, ein brennendes Hoverboard und weitreichende Konsequenzen https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/1/22414185/california-appeals-court-amazon-marketplace-responsible-third-party-hoverboard • Rekordgewinn für Tesla, aber… Bitcoin? https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2021/04/26/tesla-tsla-earnings-q1-2021-.html • „…or at all”: Tesla, Baidu und autonomes Fahren https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/26/lyft-sells-self-driving-unit-to-toyotas-woven-planet-for-550m/ https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2021/04/29/baidu-apollo-to-launch-dully-driverless-ride-hailing-services-in-beijing/42899/ https://www.fastcompany.com/90630440/tesla-admits-it-may-never-achieve-full-self-driving-cars • Chinas Regulatoren wollen Finanzdienstleitungen der Techriesen entflechten https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-orders-tech-giants-to-unbundle-financial-services-11619780759 • Stripe kauft TaxJar und die Dynamik von Vivid https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/27/stripe-acquires-taxjar-to-add-cloud-based-automated-sales-tax-tools-into-its-payments-platform/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/29/vivid-money-raises-73-million-to-build-a-european-financial-super-app/ • Kryptohandel bei Neobroker Trade Republic https://financefwd.com/de/trade-republic-krypto/ • Diskussionsverbot: Die Implosion von Basecamp https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/technology/basecamp-politics-ban-resignations.html https://www.theverge.com/2021/5/3/22418208/basecamp-all-hands-meeting-employee-resignations-buyouts-implosion • Florida will Politiker-Verbot auf sozialen Medien verbieten https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56952435 • Ein Jubiläum für CREATIVE CONSTRUCTION! --- » Die Buchempfehlung der Woche Walter Isaacson: „The Code Breaker“ https://www.amazon.de/Code-Breaker-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1398502316/ --- » Weitere Infos, Kontakt und alle Podcasts: https://zurueckzurzukunft.creativeconstruction.de/ --- » Feedback, Anregungen und Wünsche an: podcast@zurueckzurzukunft.de

☕ Episode #080 du #podcast 100% news #ecommerce, #digital et #socialmedia !

Stripe acquires TaxJar to add cloud-based, automated sales tax tools into its payments platform. The privately-held payments company now valued at $95 billion, has made an acquisition to expand the range of tools (and services) that it provides to online businesses. It has acquired TaxJar, a popular provider of a cloud-based suite of tax services, which can be used to automatically calculate, report and file sales taxes. Financial terms of the deal are not being disclosed. Stripe has confirmed that all 200 employees of Woburn, Massachusetts-based TaxJar are joining the company.Location data analytics startup Placer.ai raises $50M Series B. This was led by Josh Buckley, the chief executive officer of Product Hunt, Todd Goldberg and Rahul Vohra. The new capital will be used on research and development and expanding Placer.ai's sales and marketing teams. The foot traffic and location analytics startup saw growth in new categories, including consumer packaged goods (CPG) and hedge funds that use its tech to perform due diligence.Tellius announces $8M Series A to build ML-fueled business data query tool. The raise was led by Sands Capital Ventures, with participation from Grotech. Today's investment brings the total raised to $17 million, according to the company. CEO and founder Ajay Khanna stated that the company is attempting to merge two technologies that have traditionally lived in silos: business intelligence and artificial intelligence.Canada's newest unicorn: Clio raises $110M at a $1.6B valuation for legal tech. Th Series E round was co-led by T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. and OMERS Growth Equity. The company's platform aims to serve as an operating system for lawyers, offering cloud-based legal practice management, client intake and legal CRM software. Clio has more than 150,000 customers across 100 countries. Many of the lawyers using Clio are smaller and solo practitioners, but the company also serves larger firms such as Locks Law and King Law.

Creating a healthy, productive and enjoyable company culture is one of the biggest challenges for remote companies. As the Director of Culture and Innovation at TaxJar, Darcy has extensive experience in successfully fostering and scaling culture remotely. You can find the full transcript here!

And On Today’s Episode …  Another one from the pre-covid archive:Are you trying to figure out what separates the good remote companies from the not so good? Or, are you wondering what’s it’s like to work for a fully remote business. Maybe you’re wondering which opportunities suit you and you’re not having success with your applications.  Remote Hero Darcy tells us how she made her dreams -of travelling while working - come true by positioning herself to transition into a remote career path. HINT: she didn’t use a job board. And she reveals some of the crucial tools - many remote companies use - that could help you stand out when applying for a remote position. About the podcast and community  Welcome to the Remote Work Life Podcast, where real-world remote work CEOs and leaders talk about how they hire, network, collaborate and thrive. Join me and more than 5000 followers in customer success, marketing, product and engineering to learn skills you need to work online from anywhere. I am your Host, Alex Wilson-Campbell - I’m Interview Coach and Tech Recruiter on a mission to help you gain clarity and direction in your career AND uncover hidden jobs through one-to-one and group coaching.  

Building a successful development company requires having a leader with technical know-how and excellent management skills. Today we speak with SmartLogic President and Founder Yair Flicker about his company’s origin story, evolution, and their Elixir adoption process. Early in the episode, we talk about Yair’s first jobs before diving into how he founded SmartLogic. An important transition point, we then chat about how he moved from writing code to running a business. Reflecting on his tech background, Yair opens up about how he learned to code before he shares insights into the languages that his company programs in, how they discovered Elixir, and how they integrated it into their practice. In a discussion that’s sure to resonate with startup managers, Yair unpacks what he does to grow as a manager, along with best practices for companies looking to adopt Elixir. We ask Yair about the benefits of coding in Elixir, how SmartLogic has retained its top employees, why he prioritizes employee happiness, and the role that company values play in strengthening SmartLogic. After hearing about Yair’s vision for the future, we jump into our mini-segment where we interview Jake Johnson, the Director of Software Engineering at TaxJar. For more on building strong companies and advice on adopting Elixir, be sure to tune in and benefit from our conversations with Yair and Jake. Key Points From This Episode: SmartLogic Founder Yair Flicker talks about his first job. Yair shares details about SmartLogic’s humble origins. Early challenges SmarLogic faced and Yair’s move from coding to running a business. We ask Yair about how he learned to code. SmartLogic’s coding evolution and how they discovered Elixir. The Maker vs. Manager distinction; what Yair did to grow as a manager. Exploring the benefits of adopting Elixir. Yair’s advice for companies wanting to adopt Elixir. Why Elixir allows for more scalability than many other languages. How SmartLogic has been able to retain some of its top employees. The link between having happy employees and happy clients. How Yair lives his company’s values. Yair shares his recipe for creating productive meetings. Hear about Yair’s vision for SmartLogic’s future. For our mini-feature segment, we chat with Jake Johnson from TaxJar. Why TaxJar adopted Elixir and details on Jake’s background. Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode: SmartLogic — https://smartlogic.io/ Elixir Wizards Email — podcast@smartlogic.io Yair Flicker on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/yflicker/ Yair Flicker on Twitter — https://twitter.com/yflicker Jake Johnson on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakej/ TaxJar — https://www.taxjar.com/ Music and Arts — https://www.musicarts.com/ Johns Hopkins University — https://www.jhu.edu/ Hackers — https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113243/ National Conference of Synagogue Youth — https://ncsy.org/ Stanley Black & Decker — https://www.stanleyblackanddecker.com/ Reddit — https://reddit.com/ Discord — https://discord.com/ Instagram — https://www.instagram.com Amazon Web Services — https://aws.amazon.com/ Sales Tax for Developers — https://salestax.dev Backstreet Boys — https://linktr.ee/backstreetboys Special Guests: Sundi Myint and Yair Flicker.

Why Blake sympathizes with r/wallstreetbets, the Multi-week Sage South Africa outage leads to massive discontent, Melio and Pilot raise big rounds, how CheckHQ could disrupt an industry with "payroll as an API," QuickBooks Online updates, TaxJar successfully lobbies to change sales tax regulation on behalf of clients, unemployment fraud dwarfs PPP fraud, and the IRS finally moves forms online

As an eCommerce merchant, life can get a bit hectic, and tax zones can complicate things. Not only are there complicated Country and State Tax laws (for US merchants), but depending on your product and location, you may have to take a bunch of different things into account. Your eCommerce platform better be reliable and able to handle your needs. WooCommerce for WordPress has some very simple ways of handling taxes and tax returns. This video shows you to how to: 1. Automate your store tax set up by using a plug-in by Jetpack - https://woocommerce.com/products/tax/ 2. Automate your tax return with a state-by-state breakdown using a plug-in by TaxJar - https://woocommerce.com/products/taxjar/ for WooCommerce. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/paulhickey/support

About the podcast and community  Welcome to the Remote Work Life Podcast, where real-world remote work CEOs and leaders talk about how they hire, network, collaborate and thrive. Join me and more than 5000 followers in customer success, marketing, product and engineering to learn skills you need to work online from anywhere. I am your Host, Alex Wilson-Campbell - I’m Interview Coach and Tech Recruiter on a mission to help you gain clarity and direction in your career AND uncover hidden jobs through one-to-one and group coaching.   And On Today’s Episode …  In this series of podcasts, I'm going to share brief outtakes from my various conversations with remote thought leaders and future of work experts.  So listen in to see how real-world remote work leaders make the most of workday to strike a balance with their day to day life. In today's episode, you'll hear from Director of Culture and Innovation at TaxJar, Darcy Boles!  And it's one of my favourite segments from the Remote Work Life Summit because she embodies what it is to be a remote worker.  

If you want to keep up with what’s going on in the eCommerce industry, the best thing to do is to go straight to the source and ask. But where can you find a group of eCommerce business owners openly talking about their pain points, sharing tips about how they grow their businesses, and combining their knowledge to solve problems together?  Does such a mecca exist?  Andrew Youderian is here to tell you that it does. Andrew is the founder of eCommerce Fuel, and on this episode of Up Next in Commerce, he discusses how he built a community of more than 1,000 seven-figure eCommerce business owners, plus he shares all of the insights he’s gathered along the way. From questions about Amazon, to a crash course in community-building, to the single metric he says should guide eCommerce businesses today… Andrew divulges some of the industry’s best-kept secrets and more in today’s interview.  Key Takeaways: The Value of Selective Community Building: A community is only as strong as the people in it. Together, a community can deliver ideas, content, and capital to other members who would not be able to find those things on their own. But to ensure that all members are receiving value, it is important to be selective about the acceptance process.  Finding Your Way Through The Amazon: “If I'm selling to wholesalers, should I let them sell on Amazon?” “How do I control my brand identity on Amazon?” These questions and more are plaguing the industry and at eCommerce Fuel, the community is gathering to come up with answers, including how to capitalize on the recent delays in shipping Amazon has seen. Meaty Metrics: While most owners will point to revenue as the main metric to judge success, it is widely believed that revenue is one of the least important metrics when judging the health and long-term viability of a business. There are other metrics that are more telling, including repeat purchase rate, and one other that gets very little fanfare but could change the course of your business: price per visitor. For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Welcome back to Up Next in Commerce, this is your host Stephanie Postles and today we're joined by Andrew Youderian, the founder of eCommerceFuel. Andrew, welcome. Andrew: Hey, thanks Stephanie. I appreciate you having me on. Stephanie: So, is a weird feeling a podcaster being interviewed by a podcaster? What are your thoughts right now? Andrew: I think it's great. You have to do all the work and I can just sit back and relax. Well, unless you send some really pointed questions my way, so maybe I shouldn't be relaxed, so we'll see. Stephanie: Oh, yeah. I don't know. Andrew: But, yeah- Stephanie: You might have to sit up straight and get ready, this might be intense. Andrew: This may be, I need to stop slouching here. But no, it's good. Good to be on, it's fun to be on the other side of the mic for a change. Stephanie: So, I want to dive into your company eCommerce Fuel. I looked at it and it seems awesome. It seems like you have gathered so many insights from this company that you've built all around eCommerce, but I want to hear in your words what is eCommerce Fuel? Andrew: At eCommerce Fuel we provide community content and capital to seven figure plus store owners, and so we do that through an online form which is really the heartbeat of our community. We've got over 1,000 vetted store owners, and the idea was really just get a lot of people together that are doing this day in and day out, that we're running seven... our average store owner is probably doing three or four million dollars a year with their business, so that's community aspect. We also do a big event every year for our community through content, like you said I'm a podcaster. I've been doing the eCommerce Fuel podcast for I think it's about seven years now, which is crazy. Stephanie: Wow. Andrew: And then we have a capital arm as well where we invest in promising eCommerce businesses. We have 20 investors that have a lot of similar experience or world class experts, everything from Facebook marketing to email marketing to product design and so we invest in companies that we think are interesting, so that's what we do at eCommerceFuel. Stephanie: That's such a cool model. So, for you podcast I think I saw you had over 300 episodes. Andrew: Yeah. I think, actually I think we're... yes, we do. I've been, like I said, been doing it since July 2013. Yeah, been going at it for awhile. It's been fun. Stephanie: Yeah, that was really cool to look at your backlog and the guests that you've had on. So, your business models' really interesting how you have a capital arm and community, I mean two things that I would say are very hot right now. Everyone is always thinking about of course being investors, I mean at least here in Silicon Valley that's everyone's dream it seems like. And then building up a community is something that we've heard a lot of guests mention on the show, like how to properly build a community. What was your idea behind starting this business and having those different arms of the business? Andrew: They came in stages, so in a nutshell, left the corporate world and got my teeth in eCommerce for starting in 2008 on a couple different eCommerce businesses and built those up. So, I had a sense of this space and nobody was talking about eCommerce unless it was like from a Home Depot or like a Lowe's, like a, you know, Fortune 500 style? Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Andrew: And so I started writing about what it's like to grow an eCommerce business for a small team or a single founder and developed a little bit of a following on the blog, started podcasting, and then from there that kind of just naturally led to me meeting all these great people and I thought what if we got a bunch of people in a community together that had some kind of vetting thresholds and just made sure everyone had some level of experience? And that launched the community and built that up over time and then the capital arm is fairly recent, really recent in fact, it's about five or six months old. That just came as a natural extension of seeing all these interesting entrepreneurs that hopefully we'd built some trust and report with, or that people knew about us from the time running the business. And then also just a really great group of investors who also had not just money, but a lot of in the trenches experience and advice to lend, so it kind of came in stages. Stephanie: Yeah, that's really cool. To start with the community aspect, what are the vetting procedures that people have to go through? How do you know who to bring in to keep it a high quality community? Because I think that's biggest problem when you're getting in all these Facebook groups or communities, you're like, "Oh my gosh, just everyone's in here and I'm actually not learning anything." So, what does it look like to get into your community? Andrew: Yeah, you're right. I mean, if I could only do one thing well in a community it would be bring the right people into it. So, our guidelines are a little nuanced but you need to be operating a seven figure business. If you have a very proprietary product that you've made from scratch or that is a little harder to make sometimes we'll take people in kind of the mid to high six figure range. If you're selling just on Amazon usually we require a little bit more than that, so that's on the revenue threshold sides. Andrew: So, we keep it no major SaaS vendors, and then for service providers we're really careful. I'd probably say only 10% of our applicants that we accept are service providers and they need to be recommended by an existing member because you can... An amazing email marketing expert that knows the space, that is respectful of people and isn't going to come in at a hard pitch and is going to build relationships the right way through adding value, is a huge asset. But we want to make sure those are the type of people we have and not people who are just trying to sign somebody up on the first day, so. Stephanie: Yeah, that's really important. How many people are in your community now? Andrew: We have about 1,100 members in the community. Stephanie: Okay. How did you go about building that up? What is your method of bringing new people into the community? How do you get in front of people and even tell them about eCommerceFuel? Andrew: Community building's interesting. You've got this chicken and an egg problem, right? Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Andrew: And the way that I did it was when I was blogging and podcasting early on about eCommerce, just over that probably 12 month period really focus on not trying to monetize the business or anything, just trying to build authority, get a little bit of a reputation, and connect with people. Over the course of a year, just naturally, organically, met about 100 to 150 really interesting people. And any time I did, I'd just put a little tag on them in gmail and say, "Community seed member." Stephanie: Oh. Andrew: So, a year in a had this list of 150 people and I reached out to them and said, "Here's what I'm doing. I'm starting a community, are you interested?" And then over the course of about 30 to 45 days I dripped in, I added, about four or five people a day. I'd bring them in, I'd introduce them, I'd introduce them to other people, I'd ask them questions, kickstart discussions, and so it gradually grew. I didn't just drop everyone in at once, and it took about like 45 days but we had a bit of a community at that point. And then from there I had over the last year built up some traffic to the website, was able to put up a page that said, "Hey, here's the community. You can join," and that gave us kind of... because you need both things, right? Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Andrew: Like in community you have to have new people come in because you always have a drop off even in the most healthy. So, from it was able to kind of, with a lot of work, get to self sustaining within probably 18 to 24 months, so. Stephanie: Wow. Yeah, that's great. And it is a paid community? Andrew: It is, yes. It's a paid community, so it's... yeah, it is. It's $99 a month. Stephanie: That also helps... Okay, yeah. I'm sure that also helps with quality and bringing in people who are serious and really want to learn and contribute to get their monies worth. Andrew: Oh, it helps so much. I mean, for a couple reasons why. We have, just like you said, on the vetting side, yeah, it shows that people are actually serious about this. The other nice thing is it gives us the resources to do things like hire a real community manager. We have someone full time that their whole job is just to vet people to make sure that if people have questions that don't get answered they can move them to the right people. It let's us invest in technology, we've probably poured six figures plus into the custom tech for the community, so yeah, it makes it a lot easier. Stephanie: Yeah, that's really cool. When it comes to keeping the community engaged, because to me that's one of the biggest things to make sure people keep renewing their membership and they want to check in everyday and see what's new and see who's talking, how do you go about keeping them engaged? And maybe what have you seen works and what didn't work? Like any tests that you've done where you're like, "We've tried this and this failed," or, "We tried this and this really increased engagement a lot and helped keep it going?" Andrew: I think the best thing you can do, two things, the first thing is to actually have discussion and content that are highly relevant to what people are doing day in and day out. So, again, kind of going back, if you get the right people in the same room that's 80-90% of the battle. From that point, setting up custom notifications is really important. So, some of the custom tech that we've talked about, when people sign up we don't just blast them with every single discussion that pops up, that's crazy, right? They'd just drowned in a fire house because we have like 5,000 comments every months in there. But we do try to figure out like, hey, what are you an expert in and what are interested in learning about? And then when they join we tailor their notifications to try to create the highest level of a signal to noise ratio possible, and so that's another thing. The third thing is just maintaining a really respectful environment, like we have a pretty strict no jerks rule. I probably shouldn't say this, but I get a lot of pleasure out of throwing people who are just downright disrespectful and just, you know, kind of just generally unpleasant out of our community because they're horrible. Stephanie: Yeah, good. Boot them. Andrew: And also non-solicitation. We kind of have a one strike, one warning, and then if you do it again you're out. So, we don't put up with pitches, you know, if people are hard pitching stuff they're out. So, I think those are the big things that help with maintaining an active community where people keep coming back to. Stephanie: Yeah, those are such good points and it's not only applicable to your business but even thinking about any eCommerce business of how to build up... I mean, everyone talks about building these communities but how do you actually make it helpful and personalize it to people in a way that people want to engage on your social media post or they want to engage on your blog or tag themselves wherever they're in your clothing or with your mug or whatever. So, I think these lessons actually can apply across industries as well and not just upon building a community like you're doing. Andrew: Yeah. Community building, it's interesting, it's kind of like a brand. It is a brand. It's insanely hard to get up and running, like the amount of time and energy and love and relational just work that you need to put in, I don't say it in a bad way, but just building relationships takes a tremendous amount of work. It takes a ton of time, just like building a brand. But it's insanely defensible, I mean, if you're willing to put in that, you know, if you have a multi year approach. You can't steal people's friends, right? Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: And that's what happens, whether you're building a community for your brand or kind of a micro niche community like this for eCommerceFuel, is people come in and they stay because they get value and they stick around for a couple months but then they come to an event, they connect with people via PM, and then build genuine friends. I don't know, you'd be hard pressed to tear me away from my good friends and it's really defensible in that department, so. Stephanie: Yeah, I agree. I love that. So, you probably get a lot of really good insights into the world of eCommerce and where things are headed just by some of the questions that some of the members in your community are asking each other, and I wanted to know what kind of top questions do you see occurring right now where it's like quite a few people are asking the same type of question or these same things keep popping up? Andrew: Yeah. Let's start with the 500 pound gorilla in the eCommerce space, and that's Amazon. Some of the questions I think people are asking on there is how do I... I'll just go through a handful of them and then maybe we can talk about ones that are most interesting to you. If I'm selling to wholesalers, should I let them sell on Amazon? How do I control my brand identity on Amazon? There's some interesting popping up right now about how... I don't know if you've noticed this, but Amazon Prime used to be for awhile it was free shipping, then it was two day, and it was one day, and now it's like- Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: ... three to five days if you're lucky depending on where you live. Stephanie: Yeah, I did notice that and I was like, "What's happening here? Usually I can get my stuff for my son in like a day and now it's taking a week." Andrew: Yeah. It's kind of crazy, and of course because of just with COVID eCommerce is blowing up, the capacity is limited on the delivery networks. But it's interesting because it kind of levels the playing field at this moment in time for independent brands because the shipping factor is not so much of an issue, and in fact a lot of people are probably are almost in... If somebody gives you something and takes it away it's worse than if they just had never given you anything to begin with, right? Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah, yeah I feel way more sad right now than I ever would have before this. Andrew: Exactly, right, because the expectation's there. So, that's creating an interesting opportunity. One of the things that Amazon just recently came out with I think in the last couple days was re-introducing... Way back, I don't know, two, three, four, I don't know how many years ago, multiple years ago, you used to able to ship your products from Amazon's warehouses to customers. You could use them as a 3PL fulfillment center without Amazon branded boxes. They changed that for many years and just this week I think they changed back to saying, "Oh, actually you can use our fulfillment services with your own proprietary boxes," or at least with unbranded boxes. And I think potentially... Who knows why they did it, it was kind of perplexing to a lot of people, but perhaps because they realize that they're losing on the shipping game and other merchants maybe are starting to migrate other places and if independent merchants are able to deliver the same shipping without Amazon maybe more then we'll move off. And one thing that we've done, we've done a State of the Merchant Report for the last three years, and our one for this year should be hopefully coming out fairly soon. But a trend that is really noticeable is the number of people that are going to Amazon is really... it's not reversing but it's plateauing very significantly. Andrew: And even just chatting with merchants and seeing a lot of case studies, people are taking a lot harder look at is it worth going on Amazon for how much channel risk you take on, how much loss of control of the consumer that you give up, you don't have addresses, all these things. They're just taking a lot harder look at is this good for my business long term? Stephanie: Yeah. So, do you think 2020 will show that a lot of people are pulling back from Amazon? Andrew: That is a good question. I think not a lot of people, but I do think when we released the report I made this prediction in the report too, so very likely could just fall on my face in the mud here, but I think the percentage of people who sell on Amazon, it was about 55% of all stores that we surveyed last time, I think that will decrease a small amount. I don't think we're going to see a precipitous drop but I think it goes from 55% to maybe 54 or f... I think we start to see that inflection point. Stephanie: Yeah, that's really interesting. The one thing I also read in your 2019 report was about the different marketing channels that people were using and I saw that Amazon ads had the highest ROI but not many people are using it, so I'm wondering what are your thoughts around that aspect of using it as a marketing tool? Andrew: Yeah. No, it's... Wow, good prep work. If you're on Amazon, Amazon ads you have to have a... people reported them being the most effective sales channel that they use. So, if you're on the platform they work really well, so definitely should be doing that if you're on the platform. I think it's just more of a... it's not a question so much of should we use Amazon ads if you're on the platform, you absolutely should. It's more of a question of do we want to be on Amazon in the first place? But, yeah, for people selling on Amazon they work really well. Stephanie: Yeah, okay. But then the other interesting thing I saw was that the average order value was way lower for... because if it's maybe a direct to consumer site or anywhere else people can maybe stack on additional things from your brand, where I think I saw on Amazon the average order value was much lower which makes me think you're not getting that, hey, you should maybe also try this from my brand and this from my brand as well and kind of increase the cart value. Andrew: I think that could definitely be part of it. I think a big part of it too is that if you have people on Prime there's no free shipping threshold, right? Have you ever ordered a... what's a good example here? Like a $3 koozie and it shows up and you're like, "How did they pay for the shipping for this? They lost money on this." Or even better, you order a $7 paperweight set that weight like 10 pounds and they ship it. There's no threshold so it's easy to impulse buy small stuff on Amazon. Stephanie: Yeah. Good point. Andrew: Whereas if you're buying from an independent merchant not always, but more often than not you're going to have some kind of free shipping threshold. So, either you're intentionally going to seek it out or you're buying multiple things so I think that probably also has a big part in why those order values are different. Stephanie: That's a good point. That's a good reason to look further into data and not just look really quickly like I did through the report. So, what other trends are you thinking are happening either right now, because a lot's been changing because of COVID and things are kind of just all over the place where some people are struggling, some people aren't. It seems like the market is changing quickly. What other trends or things happening do you see that people are surfacing in your community, or are you building into your next report coming out? Andrew: Yeah. So, eCommerce obviously no surprise here is just exploding, and we did a survey, this was in March when the world was falling apart and nobody knew what was happening and it was much more uncertainty than there even was now, and you saw early on in that you kind of saw a very big dip for the first probably week when COVID really started spiking and being taken seriously. And then you saw kind of half and half, half the businesses were doing okay or growing and half were failing, now I'd say you definitely have some businesses that are really struggling. If you're in the event space, if you sell items in the event space, any of the kind of in person things are having a hard time, but by large I'd say most of our stores are doing, you know, most of the industries are doing really well so that's fantastic. One thing that's tough, it's a downside, and anybody who's selling is probably going to be aware of is just the sales tax issue in the Unites States is just an absolute disaster, just on making- Stephanie: Tell me a bit about that because whether- Andrew: It's just a dumpster fire. Stephanie: I don't know if I... well, I actually probably have avoided anytime I see tax I'm like, "Oh, no thank you." So, I would love for you to dive in a bit and tell me why is the sales tax a disaster because [crosstalk 00:18:28]. Andrew: Yeah, so I'll try to be somewhat brief because you could probably talk about this for quite awhile, up until two or three years ago pretty much the case was if you... The only places you had to collect sales tax for was if you had Nexus in a state. So, if you had... I run a business out of Montana and Arizona, so Montana doesn't collect sales tax and so traditionally we've only had to collect sales tax in Arizona. There's a big Supreme Court case that came across in 2017 or 18. It was Wayfair versus South Dakota and pretty much the shakeout from that was that the Supreme Court said that states can require sellers that are outside of their state, they have no physical presence in their state, if they sell to a customer within their state they can collect sales tax on them if they reach a certain threshold. If they sell either a certain dollar volume in that state or if they have a minimum number transactions for that state. And it could be as low as 200 transactions and $50-100,000. So, the problem that causes is that now you have companies who create this economic Nexus and now all of a sudden they have to be responsible for collecting and submitting sales tax not just to 50 states but to potentially sometimes all these different municipalities and cites, and just creates a disaster of a compliance thing. Andrew: So, you've got companies that have sprung up to try to deal with that, and one top of that, if you sell on Amazon, technically if you have inventory... Normally, you send your inventory into Amazon and they a lot of times will split it up in three or four warehouses so it can be delivered quickly. Well, technically now if you have those inventory in those four states you have Nexus in those states and you have to also collect sales tax. So, it's just on the Amazon front, on the independent front, it's just created... We don't have any central governance for this. What I think would be best is if the federal government kind of took it over and said, "Hey, we'll create a national sales and redistribute." But at the moment you either have to deal with an insane amount of complexity, especially as you get larger, or you have to run the risks of being out of compliance and facing huge fines. It's a really rough place to be. Stephanie: Wow. How are you seeing eCommerce companies tackle this? That is not something that I've even thought about honestly, and it kind of scares me to ever start an eCommerce store now. Andrew: Yeah. There's a lot of different ways. Sometimes there's places... I have a company called The Tax Valet that helps out, they do a really good job. Kind of a personal hands on approach to doing this. Some merchants will use SaaS software like Taxify or TaxJar to be able to do that kind of stuff, Avalara as well. And some people just roll the dice and say, "Hey, this is a nightmare I'm not going to try to deal with this," so there's a lot of different... it depends on your risk tolerance, it depends how big you are, but people are taking a lot of different approaches to it. But to do it right it's really unfortunate. Stephanie: You'll have to hire someone. Andrew: Yeah, hire someone or really go deep on the SaaS side of things and dive in. Stephanie: Yeah, that sounds messy. Well, earlier you were talking about the howling out of eCommerce and I wanted you to talk a bit about that because we're talking still about the trends and what it's going to look like in the future, and I thought you had an interesting take on that so I'd love for you to go over that if you could. Andrew: Sure. And again, of course totally could be wrong here, but when I look forward into the future I feel like Amazon's going to be hallowed out in the sense that, or excuse me, eCommerce is going to be hollowed out in the sense that you have... On one side, you have brands on Amazon that sell either one or two things, they're either well known national brands, like the... well, I don't think Nike sells on them anymore so that's a bad example, but the... Why am I blanking on big national brands here? Tide for example could sell on there or Rubbermaid or Adidas, brands people... household names. They sell on there because it's just they know that brand, they go find it, and they want to buy it. You have people who are selling really small things, like we're talking about koozies or you needs stapler, or maybe you need a little backyard pool for the fact that your cousins are coming over and you really don't care if it breaks in three weeks and so you buy that. But then for anything in the middle that's like kind of not a huge national brand but also something that you want to have that's quality, I think a lot of those companies are going to start... people are going to buy much more from the companies themself, direct to consumer. Andrew: Because they can merchandise them better, the shopping and check out experiences are getting easier. I think brands are increasingly not going to sell on Amazon because there's, in addition to all the things we talked about, you also have huge IP issues and people ripping you off. So, I think that's going to be the hallowing out of eCommerce when Amazon's going to be a big donut and in the middle a lot of people are going to be selling directly on their own sites just because it makes more sense for all the reasons I mentioned, so. Stephanie: Yeah, that's interesting. We've also talked a bit about the conscious consumer that's kind of rising out of all this and how people are starting to care about what is the source of this product, is it actually sustainable? Is it a quality product? And less about can I have more and more focused on quality and sustainability. Have you heard that trend as well in your community? Andrew: Yeah, I would say I think that's something that's been kind of gradually increasing over the last five to 10 years. I think more than anything how it ties into our conversation is that Amazon over the last couple of years, and they've been fighting it and they've done some, to their credit, they've done some things to combat it, but they still have a... If you buy something on Amazon most people are not going to think it's... there's a little bit of a thought that it's probably not high quality, a little bit of a stigma for buying stuff on Amazon especially if it's not a name brand. Part of that- Stephanie: Even the name brands people wonder if it's it... is this a legit name brand, I've seen that a lot in comment and reviews. Andrew: Oh, totally. Partially because of review manipulation, partially because of counterfeiting, and partially because there's just a lot of... I mean, there's everything on Amazon so how do you filter through it, right? Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: So, yeah, I think that's part of going back to that [inaudible] about the hallowing out of eCommerce unless it's a brand you absolutely have faith in or it's something that you don't care about the quality. Would you rather buy one of those borderline things from Amazon and roll the dice with an unproven brand, roll the dice with one of those mid-tier brands being counterfeited? Or, especially if you can get it just as quickly either because Amazon is shipping stuff really slowly or because increasingly independent merchants can deliver it more quickly with some of these other options via straight from the horse or straight from the source rather. So, yeah, I think for me that's how the quality issue ties in I think to the larger discussion. Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense. Do you think that is why the drop shipping model has kind of decreased? I saw on your report that that is not as big of a thing as it used it, and I just remember... maybe even like last year, over the last couple years that was a huge thing. Everyone just said, "Start a eCommerce company and just drop ship things and let other people take care of it for you." What are you seeing with the drop shipping trend? Andrew: Yeah. So, when we talk about drop shipping I think it's important to differentiate two different things that come into people's minds. One is drop shipping, you can build a great high quality business based around drop shipping. A couple of businesses I started were drop shipping based businesses, one of them's still, under a great new owner, is still doing well. Really at the end of the day it's less about the product quality and more about how it's delivered. So, like Home Depot for example, they drop ship a ton of their stuff, some of their even big name brands because they're can't afford to hold everything in stock and that can potentially work out reasonably well. I think where it got a really bad reputation with all AliExpress side of things and so where- Stephanie: Yes, that's the stuff I read. Andrew: Yeah, right. And that's a whole different ballgame, and for people who, you know, if you're not familiar with that the 30 second version is you go onto AliExpress which lets you pretty much ship pretty much ship products directly from the factory in China to consumers in the US very cheaply through some kind of loopholes in the postal service. You can set up a store really quickly but by and large the products are garbage. They're just crappy, so that I think is where... There was a big rise in that, people ran that for a while, tried to run with that, but the problems were you couldn't build a brand around it because the products were awful, and because it took weeks to get your product to your customer, and probably because most likely if you're launching one of those businesses you know nothing about the product, so. Stephanie: Yeah. Never seen it, you don't even know if it'll make it or not. Andrew: Yeah. But even on the other side I'd say, that all aside, even if you're selling really good quality products, Amazon in the last five years has completely solved distribution. When I started for awhile I sold trolley motors, I sold CB radios, and back in those days you really could get a business up and running purely by sourcing a relationship with a wholesaler, doing a decent amount of marketing, having reasonable customer service and you were in business. But like today if you know what you want to buy, you know the brand, and you want it at a fair price, at a reasonable quickly you're probably going to go to Amazon for something you discreetly know that you want. So, Amazon's solved, at least before COVID and probably still I'd say a large degree, they solved distribution. So, how do you add value? You got to add value through some other way, usually that's through a lot of education or a really curated product line if you're going to sell existing products and those can be harder to get right. So, I don't think drop shipping is completely dead but I think it's gotten significantly harder versus even just two or three years ago. Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense. So, one question I always try to ask on here is about metrics and data, and with access to your community I want to know what kind of metrics do people talk about as their success metrics or what do you hear people debating about when it comes to metrics behind if a business is doing well or not? Andrew: Yeah, I think the one everyone loves to talk about is revenue, right? But I think that's probably a pretty horrible metric to use. It's easy, and we're totally guilty of it, that's one of our thresholds for even membership. So, guilty as charged, I'm going to slay myself along with everyone that I slay here. We use it because it's easy, we use it because it's socially acceptable. It's way easier to say, "I do three million in revenue versus I made $600,000 last year. It's also way easier to say, "I did three million revenue," than, "Oh, I only made $20,000 last year and that was I didn't pay myself anything," right? Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: But metrics that I think are most important, one that... To be totally frank, in the community we don't talk a ton about... a lot of our conversations really don't revolve around what metrics should you track. Bottom line is a big one, of course. Conversion rate's a big one, average order size is a big one. Repeat purchase rate is a big one. And I'd say we don't have tons of conversations about them, but I think probably the most important ones to think about today are repeat purchase rates because advertising is doing nothing but getting more expensive. It's getting harder and harder to get in front of people without paying the big tech gatekeepers. So, the more likely a customer is to come back to you and needing that product the more likely you can actually build a viable long term business, that's a big one. I think profitability per visitor is a huge metric. It's harder to calculate but if I was going to run my business on one metric it would be profit per visitor to my website. And the reason I say that is because it encapsulates a lot of things, conversion rate, traffic, all these different things. Andrew: But it really makes you focus on pricing. If I would have to identify the one thing that I have done across multiple businesses in my life that has had the biggest impact and taken the least work, hands down it would be pricing. And so few people play with it. Some people can't, a lot of people can. And it's terrifying to change prices because we all fear that when you change the prices that your business is going to disappear, but that rarely happens especially if you do it in a really smart way. And what you should be maximizing is your profitability per visitor, at least for new customers at a minimum. So, yeah, those are some of my thoughts on metrics, and again we don't... total frank, we don't talk a ton about... those aren't the hot topics but I think those are some of the things to really think about. Stephanie: Yeah. So, now you've opened up, what are some of the hot topics? What are some of the heated debates that are going on behind the wall? Andrew: That's a good question. You know what, let me pull it up. Stephanie: Yeah, open it up. Let's see. Andrew: I'm going to pull it up here. Stephanie: Sounds good. Andrew: So, we have a cool little feature. Let's just surface all the top discussions from the last year. So, I can't... for confidentiality I got to be sensitive, but here's some of our top stories from the last let's say month. The story about how someone sold their brand, their business that they built over the years and just the emotional rollercoaster and what they learned, and how they were looking to hire multiple... How to use influencers on YouTube to build an eight figure business. Stephanie: Oh, that's a good one. Stephanie: Yeah, the influencer one is interesting to me because it kind of brings about the question of the social shopping experience and how the US is so based... right now, I mean, a lot of people are looking towards influencers. Whereas other markets, like China, are not really as much about that. It's more about the social shopping experience. What were your thoughts, or what was the debate when it came to the YouTube influencers and how they utilize that, and do you think that's a longterm trend? Andrew: Yeah. I think one of the big themes I've seen is that the really big influencers a lot of times are spendy and hard to track, but you could potentially get a better ROI if you focus on helping maybe working with smaller influencers either for less money or just for product. Because it's, I don't know, I don't know about you but when I'm on Instagram and I see someone using a product, and especially if they even mention it in any little way I'm immediately a little suspicious. I'm like, "Is this person really like this product or are they just getting it comped and they're having to fulfill their end of the agreement that they signed up for?" Stephanie: Yeah, especially the more popular they are, like as it goes up to the really popular famous people then I'm like, okay, do you actually use that whitening strip? How much are you getting paid for that? Andrew: Yeah, and so I don't think influencer market is going away. I mean, we've had famous people endorsing things for decades, maybe 100+ years, especially in the United States, but I do think, yeah, I just think you can also waste a lot of money on it if you're not doing it carefully. Stephanie: Yeah, I completely agree. So, on your podcast I'm thinking, this is like self serveant, so I'll go with it, but what are some of the best questions that you've asked your guests before where you continued to get the best answers or the best stories? Andrew: Oh, good question. One of my... A couple ones, I would say what's the biggest mistake, or what's... excuse me, what's the last thing you apologized for I think is an interesting one. Stephanie: That's a good one. Andrew: I think another one is what's your number? Like, what's your number to be happy, like if you had X in the bank and what's your number where you'd be happy without having anymore? It's interesting to get a sense. You get numbers from all over the place from a million to 100 million, sometimes bigger, so. Stephanie: Oh, gosh. Andrew: Yeah. A lot of the questions are very specific to the individual person and their story, but for two general ones I'd say I like those ones and get some really interesting ones those times. Stephanie: Yeah, that would be really interesting. A good kind of peak into who that person is or how they think too. I like that. Andrew: Yeah. Stephanie: So, I know we haven't gotten to talk about the capital arm of your business yet and I wanted to kind of go into what that was like starting it up and what kind of issues you were encountering when starting a capital arm? What does that look like and I want a little behind scenes for the new side of your business. Andrew: Sure. Well, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah, and I'll say in total transparency, like I said, very early into this. We're only about four or five months into this, so still pretty new. But you asked, and specifically were you hoping to know kind of some of the hard parts about starting that? Stephanie: Yeah, like what was the... not the thought process, because that seems pretty obvious like you have this great community and you maybe see some of the challenges that are going on, but what was it like starting a investment arm and what kind of challenges have you run into so far in the first four months? Andrew: Yeah. So, what it was like, it was terrifying. And I think- Stephanie: Sounds like it. Andrew: Yeah, traditionally you kind of have these two approaches where either you go out and raise a bunch of money and then you get all these commitments and you close on it and then you have to go out and put this money to work. It's kind of your life for the next often 10 years, and it's a traditional fund route. The other route is what's called syndicate where you pretty much do deals on a deal by deal basis, which gives you a lot more flexibility but the problem is every time you get a deal you got to go pass the hat and call a million and half the people are out, you know, of those half a quarter of them decide at the last minute that... like the funding process is a nightmare on that side. So, putting it together I kind of did something of a hybrid of those two where we have a group of about 20 investors that are tentatively in. I know them, they trust me, I trust them, and there's kind of a... they signed an informal thing that says, "Hey, I'm in for the next three years for this amount of money." So, hopefully it gives us the flexibility of not have to go out and deploy money just to deploy money, but we can also can be a little flexible, and we can also have the commitment from some people to go forward. Andrew: So, that's totally on the technical fund side, probably super boring to most people. But in terms of some of the challenges, I think that the challenging thing is just the number of deals you have to look at to try to find a good deal. I mean, I looked at over 100 deals so far at some level of depth and it's just finding, A, just good companies, B, where it's a good fit for both parties, and C, where you can see it working out well for everyone. It's really hard to find good deals, especially as a minority partner that comes in to invest, especially on the eCommerce side because our approach and what we're trying to do is buy, invest, in the long run with companies to build profitable businesses, like we're not trying to flip them. And I think in tech investing you can get away with a lot of sloppiness because you're kind of swinging for the fences. So, if you have a bunch that don't work out it's a big deal, most of them don't work out. Stephanie: They don't. Andrew: But with eCommerce, our model... we're looking to do singles and doubles and it's just hard to find really good businesses that you feel are going to be around for three to five years. So, the hardest part for us has just been finding great businesses that we feel check all our boxes, so. Stephanie: Yeah, that makes sense. Is there a common theme behind what these businesses are needing capital for? Andrew: Yeah, I would say... So, financing for eCommerce businesses is tricky. There are some options out there, there's things like Shopify Capital, there's ClearBank, there's PayPal Capital, Amazon Lending, all these things, but they're expensive. They also take a... often times you don't pay them back on a fixed rate, you pay them back on a percentage of revenue which can be good and bad. So, inventory financing is a big one but I'd say the people that we talk to it was probably half and half. Half of them want money for inventory financing to grow the business and half of them just really would love to have someone who has spent $15 million on Facebook ads in their career to be able to help them and give them some high level guidance on what to do and some thoughts there, or someone who's done a lot of importing to be able to tap into that knowledge based in that network, so. Stephanie: Yeah, I agree. When were thinking about fundraising back in the day I was like, "I actually don't really care about people's money as much as are they going to help me?" Like, I really don't want the most famous investor because I highly doubt they will spend any time with me. I want the person who's ready to get their hands dirty and help me with the nitty gritty stuff that I'm looking for help with. Andrew: Oh, totally. Yeah, there has never been... There's so much money sloshing around right now, right? And so there's a lot of places that get money, which is good if you're raising money, but it's greed. I think the real value ad is the experience side and the money is just kind of a nice perk that comes along with it often. Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah, I completely agree. So, you've been looking at a lot of businesses and you have a lot of businesses in your community, what is one thing that you wish online sellers would either start or stop doing? Andrew: Start or stop doing... Stephanie: I like to throw out the hard balls. Andrew: Yeah, no this is good. I would say I wish people would start having more fun with the copy in their business. So, one thing I always... and I didn't, I can't claim- Stephanie: That's a good one. Andrew: I can't claim credit for this one, but I've always liked to try to make the copy and confirmation emails and things like that fun and interesting and a little bit different as opposed to like, "Thank you for your order. Your order is 49732. We appreciate your business." Such a great... Transactional receipts are one of the most opened emails across all emails, shipping ones absolutely, and if you're trying to build a brand there's no better point to be able to, you know, have some fun and be able to be different and differentiate yourself, right? So, I think that's a big one. You can extend that to the product packaging, your website, all that stuff. But I would say take a little more risks and have a little bit more fun. I would check out a site called mancrates.com, have you heard of them? Stephanie: No, tell me a bit about them. Andrew: They're so good. They're so good. They sell fun gifts for men, so for example, instead of ordering your dad a tie you can order him a 16 inch by 16 inch wooden crate of beef jerky and steak rub that he has to open with a crow bar when it shows up to his house, Like stuff like this that's different. Stephanie: Oh my gosh. Andrew: And the copy is freaking just hilarious. So, check them out if- Stephanie: Oh, that's good. I'll have to check that out. Andrew: Yeah, they're really good. It's just you're buying an experience for the recipient and people pay up for it, so. Stephanie: Yeah, now more than ever with people not going out as much, not going in stores and stuff, you do have to figure out how to differentiate yourself. And I think that's a good point that, I mean, right now I'm even thinking I bought something and I'm getting the actual logistics email of DHL or whatever will be shipped at this time, and it's all this other text that I don't care about, so it's like, "Okay, I actually don't care about this email that's coming through." And if they would've made it unique and fun and exciting... like I don't even know what this is that I bought, that's how bad it is. There's no branding or anything, it's just coming apparently. Andrew: Yeah, if they were like, "The DHL guy had a wreck but your package was so important that he grabbed it from the fiery box and he crawled with one arm bleeding out and he handed it to the last person he saw and said, 'Deliver this, please. Deliver it to Stephanie,' and then he died." Stephanie: Oh my gosh. Andrew: That might be intense and maybe it doesn't work for all brands, but it sure as heck gets your attention and you're like, "Whoa, this is interesting." Stephanie: You need to write for our brand. I'm going to bring you on our team, Andrew, just for your copy. I need that. Oh man, that's good. All right. So, I want to do a higher level eCommerce question because I just think you're, one, you're willing to take a risk and you're willing to predict the future which I like. I appreciate that. So, I want to hear either what disruption is coming to eCommerce that's not already here, because a lot of people have said, "Oh, COVID's the biggest disruption." That answer's already been taken, so either the biggest disruption or you can tell me what the future of online commerce looks like in five years. Andrew: Biggest disruption coming, I'll try to tackle both of them. Biggest disruption is I think that... man, it's just coming from the guy. You talk about be willing to predict the future, I made a bet with somebody when Amazon was $200 a share that Alibaba was gonna out pace it. And now that Amazon is $3,000 a share, it was a humbling experience and it cost me a very experience steak dinner. That being said, here's my prediction... Stephanie: That's all right. I want your prediction still. Andrew: I would say the biggest disrupter, oh man... I'm going to throw a couple things out there, I think text is going to be a big one, SMS. But that's not like a big disrupter as much as just a new marketing channel that us marketers can leverage for awhile until we completely destroy texting for everybody which will probably take three or four years. Stephanie: That's a good one though. What are thinking around using that as new marketing channel? Andrew: Oh, I just think, I mean, if you look at the... I think email is just getting harder and harder unless you really want to hear somebody's email. So, I just signed up for the service HEY, are you familiar with that from Basecamp? Stephanie: I've heard about it and I seen a bunch of drama on Twitter about it, so. Andrew: Yeah. There has been... probably between them and the App store and all that kind of stuff? Stephanie: Yes, yes. Andrew: Yeah. So, one of the reasons I signed up for them is because they have this thing where you can screen your emails now, and the first time you get an email from a new sender you can say, "Hey, I want this person to pop in my inbox, or no, Johnny, from Michigan I don't care about your boat covers. Don't ever talk to me again. It's unsolicited." So, that kind of thing, I think email is going to be... there's going to be more and more tools and services that let you curate your email and really slice down who gets to hear from you and so email is going to get harder and harder. But if you look a just text message delivery versus email it's an order of magnitude higher engagement, readability, click through, et cetera, and I think that marketers are already, I mean, they're already starting to do that. People that I know that are on the leading edge have five, I haven't six figures, but definitely seen some good mid tier five figure SMS lists and they just do really well. So, the problem is you got to be really careful because when people text me about things that I'm not interested in... like texting for me is very personal. I text my wife, my family, my good friends. Andrew: I don't text with Bobby's Boat Shop in Michigan, and if he sends me a promotion via text I'm going to be pissed off. So, you got to be really careful about how you use that but I think that will be a big marketing channel going for, so. Not really sure if that's really a disrupter and it's already kind of here in some regards but I'll throw that one out there. Stephanie: Yeah, I like that. I think that's a good one though to think about how to be careful when you start using these new channels, because completely agree. I've had I think someone just texted me this morning who's like, "I'm the education blah, blah, blah person of your district." I'm like, "What are you texting me right now? Don't." Andrew: Oh, totally. You can really... and I think there's some pretty stiff penalties for not being careful about that in terms of if you just spam people via text, which is good. But yeah, nothing's worse than getting a text from someone you really don't want to hear about, so. Stephanie: Yeah, I agree. All right. So, next we have a lightning round, if you're ready, Andrew. It's where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Andrew: Perfect. For each question? Stephanie: Yeah. Andrew: Awesome. Is there like a booing sound if I go over so I stop talking? Stephanie: No, it'll just be me, "Boo! Boo!" in the background. Andrew: Do it, do it. Stephanie: All right. What's up next on your Netflix queue? Andrew: I don't really... Oh, actually I do have... what is it? They're in Arizona, there's a place called Biosphere 2 where they locked all these people into this kind of self contained environment as a training mission to go to Mars, and they isolated them from earth atmospherically for two years, and surprise surprise it was a huge trauma fest. Can't remember the name of the movie but that's what I'm watching next on Netflix. Stephanie: Oh my gosh, that sounds insane. Andrew: Spaceship Earth is the name of the documentary. Stephanie: Spaceship Earth, okay. I will have to check that out. Very interested in that, and I also pontificate about Mars sometimes on our other show Mission Daily, so it's perfect for me. Andrew: Oh, perfect. Watch it tonight. Stephanie: All right. Where are you going next for your travel destination when you can travel? Andrew: Probably down Tucson, Arizona where... I'm up in Montana right now, but probably Tucson, Arizona which is where we live, so. Stephanie: Cool. Andrew: That's kind of a cop out. I need a better one. Stephanie: Wait, you live in Montana and you live in Tucson? Andrew: We're up here, we spend some time in the summertime up in Montana just to see family, friends, like that. Stephanie: Oh, cool. Andrew: Yeah, so we're heading back there soon. Don't have any plans at the moment but the next big trip I would like to take would be to Mongolia. Stephanie: Oh, that would be very interesting. Do you have an Instagram? I'll have to follow along when you go there. Andrew: @capalisthippie, so. Stephanie: Okay, I'll follow you. If you were to create a Netflix original, what would it be about? Andrew: Oh, this is easy. It would be... I'm fascinated with the question of where is the balance between running a business and being ambitious and chasing entrepreneurial success and having a great life and traveling and seeing your family and nurturing other side of yourself, and I feel like so few people get that right. So, my documentary would be pick 12 entrepreneurs from varying levels of that spectrum, live with them and follow them for two months each and try to come to some conclusions about if you were going to try to design your life to be able to maximize both of those, where's the line? Stephanie: Yeah. That's a really good one. I need help with that right now. Andrew: I think a lot of us do. Stephanie: Yeah. What podcast guest are you trying to get on that you just can't get, like they're just not responding and you really want them? Andrew: Oh, that's a good one. I think awhile we were trying to get Tim Ferriss on the show, which is super cliché. It didn't work out. Stephanie: Ouch. Andrew: Yeah, I know. I'm still upset about that, Tim. What is the favorite piece of tech that makes you more efficient? Andrew: Good question. I would say text expander is a big one so you can do saved replies and bump those out. Yeah, I'd say that's probably one of my favorite. Asana is another great one. I love Asana for we manage all our SOP's and long term projects there, so I'd say those two. Stephanie: Yeah, completely agree. I like them. All right, the last one, what new eCommerce tool are you hearing about that a lot of people in your community or outside of it are having success with right now? Andrew: I would say there's a tool called Bonjoro, and it's not necessarily just for eCommerce, but it allows you to send custom welcome videos to people really easily. If you think about sending a video to a customer it's probably not the filming that's the hard part, it's probably like the okay, I have to film it and then I have to send it, and then I have to edit and export, and it just lets you cue up these emails, send videos to people for kind of nicer customer service touch. So, yeah we use that for onboarding for a lot of our members and I've heard people have good luck with that, so. Stephanie: That's cool. Well, Andrew, this has been such a fun interview. Where can people learn more about you and eCommerceFuel? Andrew: Yeah, if you like podcasts, which at the end of listening to me talk for 45 minutes you prob are- Stephanie: Do you want more? Andrew: ... a glutton for punishment, yeah. I would love to have you as a podcast listener on the eCommerceFuel podcast, so you can get that anywhere you get podcasts, iTunes or elsewhere. But yeah the big home is just eCommerceFuel.com, so you can learn about the community there if you're a store owner and want to get plugged in or if you have an interesting business that are looking for either money or probably more importantly some expertise from a group of really experienced eCommerce investors. Yeah, I would love to have a discussion with you. So, eCommerceFuel.com is the best place for all that stuff. Stephanie: Well, it's been a blast, Andrew. Thanks so much and we will see you next time. Andrew: Yeah, this has been fun. Thanks for having me on.

It's easy to get discouraged and de-motivated these days. After all, 2020 has been nothing like any of us have ever imagined. From pandemic to racial injustice, there's a lot of issues that force us to adjust to a new normal - even when it comes to running our online businesses. But while the struggle is certainly real, a few reminders of the Dos and Don'ts of growing your Amazon business will help you balance yourself and tread the waters of an uncertain time. In this episode, I discuss some key points about selling on Amazon that we need to remember, no matter our level of experience. I describe how, like in any other business, you'd need to invest time, money, and energy into your Amazon business and why it isn't a get rich quick scheme. I explain why you need to narrow down your sources of information about starting an Amazon business and underscore the role of research in growing your Amazon store. I also highlight the benefits of wholesaling and explore why you need to think about your goals and anchor into them.   “What is it that you want out of your Amazon business? Keep your eye on that. Don't compare yourself to others and avoid analysis paralysis.” - Kristin Ostrander   This week on the Amazon Files:  Remembering what motivated you to start selling on Amazon The value of unsubscribing from sources of negative energy and discouragement Why I have a 15-minute limit on social media The reason you should avoid buying BOLO lists and how they can distract you from long-term progress and success Setting realistic expectations about selling on Amazon Learning how to find profitable products to sell on Amazon through research Using your knowledge bank and apps to find Amazon bundle ideas How tactical arbitrage can increase your competition and crush prices Narrowing down your sources of information and how to figure out who truly inspires you What ‘Stupid Tax' is and how analysis paralysis can kill your Amazon business The benefits of selling wholesale on Amazon and why I no longer do retail arbitrage The importance of bookkeeping and tracking your numbers on wholesale bundles Making decisions based on your goals and what's truly important to you   Related Content: The Key to Seven Figures on Amazon is NOT Bundles Mommy Income Coaching Call Wholesale Bundles System MerchantWords Helium10 Find 100s TaxJar   Join the Amazon Files HUB Community! Are you excited about starting Amazon wholesale bundles, but find that it's a lot harder than you thought? You may have thousands of ideas, but without a firm, clear direction on how to turn those ideas into profits - it can be challenging to see true success from your efforts. Friends, you don't have to do this alone. I want to personally invite you to join the Amazon Files HUB community. The Amazon Files HUB community is a member-driven training center specifically designed for Amazon wholesale bundle sellers.   In the Amazon Files HUB community, you'll enjoy: Exclusive training videos Over-the-shoulder demos Live monthly Q&A sessions On-Air coaching calls PLUS additional community support   If you're ready to take your Amazon wholesale bundling business to the next level, then join me and thousands of others in the new Amazon Files HUB community! See you there!     Grow Your Amazon Business! Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of The Amazon Files, the show to help Amazon seller along their business journey one step at a time with Amazon expert and your host, Kristin Ostrander. If you enjoyed this episode, head over to Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show and leave us your honest review. Don't forget to share your favorite episodes with your friends on social media! Use the codeword #STOP to join us on Facebook. Each week, Kristin hosts a live discussion on how to grow your Amazon business. Don't forget to check out our website and subscribe to our mailing list for even more resources.

On‌ ‌today's‌ ‌episode,‌ ‌we‌ bring back ‌Scott‌ ‌Scharf‌ to talk about‌ ‌how‌ ‌to‌ ‌build‌ ‌out‌ ‌an‌ ‌accounting‌ ‌system‌ ‌using‌ ‌automation.‌ ‌ Scott is the Co-Founder of Catching Clouds, an outsourced cloud accounting service for e-commerce businesses. Topics: Why accounting is a daily, weekly, and monthly endeavor. The best accounting software. Setting clients up for accrual. Understanding the technological ecosystem. Switching from cash-basis accounting. Refining the process of cash flow projections. Why cash is king. One thing to increase optimization.  Transcription: Joe: Mark, I said many times that I actually fell asleep in accounting class in college. And unfortunately, it was Northeastern University and there were probably 200 people in the room. I was sitting near the door. So 199 people marched out with me there, my head on my desk, drooling, and then the next class came in yet somehow I'm in the position over the last eight years of really revealing a bare minimum of 5,000 profit and loss statements. And I get on my soapbox and preach about this; how important good clean financials are, not only for an entrepreneur's ability to analyze his own business and make sure they're driving towards their goals properly, but to be able to even just get in the room with highly qualified buyers. Once you get in the room, there's a ton of other things, but the P&Ls will get you in the room. And I understand you just had another conversation with our good friend Scott Scharff from Catching Clouds about building automation into accounting so you don't have to actually do this yourself day in and day out, week in and week out by building some automation into the process, either through QuickBooks or Xero. I understand Scott has preferences for both and good things and bad things to say about both. Mark: Yeah, so you're not the only one that fell asleep in accounting class. I did as well. If you looked at my grades, you'd wonder why I'd talk about accounting so much. But you know this Joe I've been working my way through some biographies of various titans of American business. I went through John D. Rockefeller. I'm now in the middle of a biography on Andrew Carnegie. And you know what one thing they both have in common? They were religious about their books. In fact, that was one of the big advantages that Carnegie brought into his business, was detailed books that they could optimize. I just find it fascinating that we can see that this is the case all the way through history what the people have been super successful. Their books are up to date. They're clean. They use them to optimize their businesses. And Scott and I talked a lot about how to do that with an Amazon business. I'm not going to lie, it was overwhelming, partly because Scott is crazy intelligent when it comes to this stuff and he has his systems all set up and he starts throwing around this system, that system, you just hook this up and you do that and then the other thing happens. And in my head, I'm thinking, how can anyone even start this? And at the end of this episode, you'll hear me kind of say that to him. I'm like Scott, this is overwhelming. How do you even get started? But the idea is simple and it is you just get started. He said something in this episode, which I didn't call out in the middle of the episode, but I think is really, really key. He said that of all the financial records that he sees people put together, he will see sometimes accountants that don't know the Amazon world trying to do books, and then he'll see some owners doing their own books. He said both are typically a mess but the ones done by the owners are less a mess than those being done by the bookkeepers because the bookkeepers don't know anything about Amazon. Joe: That is CPAs you mean, right? Not the bookkeepers. Mark: Yes. Joe: Yeah, I'll agree with them a million percent because CPAs do taxes, bookkeepers manage books, and owners try to manage books as well but never quite as good. So I think he's spot on. Guys, listen, and by guys, that's a unisex term. Pay attention to this. I know I preach on it sometimes and I'm so sorry, but it's because I'm here to help you. I'm here to protect you. We are entrepreneurs, we're advisers, we're brokers, we're mentors, and we're your friends, and we're sharing this information for you to help you build a better business and have a better exit someday. Even if that someday is 20 years from now, if you've got automation in your books like Scott is talking about here with Mark, it's going to make your life easier and help you make more money. So with that, let's move to it. But before we do, I want you all to send an email to Mark to discuss whether Carnegie is pronounced Carnegie or Carnegie. Mark: That's a really good question. I go both ways by the way. The author of this; it's an audiobook, he's saying Carnegie so I'm saying Carnegie now. Joe: Okay, Carnegie Hall is where I've been before, but I don't know either. I actually said we have a client that is a one, two, three, fourth remove descendant of Teddy Roosevelt and I pronounced it Roosevelt because I Googled that. Mark: That's wrong. Joe: I know. It was dead wrong. Mark: Carnegie, Carnegie Accounting, let's do accounting. Joe: There we go. All right. Here we go. Mark: Scott, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast. I know you are on the podcast a while ago. I think we talked about the ultimate seller's checklist about the things that you have to do, both leading up to a sale and then after the sale, closing on the business but I'm excited about today's conversation. We're going to talk a little bit about bookkeeping and the reason I'm excited about this and I know people in the cars or wherever you're listening at would be like I need to stay awake, I want to talk bookkeeping. I hop on this all the time. Bookkeeping is so important and there's so much data in your books if you keep them right. I had a conversation with somebody just the other day who is ready to sell. He's got a great business that's growing like crazy and he's going to have to put things on hold to flip over to accrual because that's what we require now. And so I want to talk to you about this because it's what you guys do over at Catching Clouds. Why don't you just kind of give a quick introduction for those that are listening to you for the first time? Scott: Okay, cool. Thank you. That was a while ago and that was a good conversation. So Catching Clouds, we provide outsourced cloud accounting services to e-commerce businesses. So our whole focus is only working with businesses that are selling a physical widget on Amazon, eBay, Shopify, Bigcommerce, TrueCommerce, House, Wayfair, Wish, Amazon Canada, CO, UK. Really most of our clients are those more complex multi-channel sellers and we're working with the larger established businesses and the one to fifty million dollar range. But the main value we offer is we provide the bookkeeping, accounting, and controller level review of their financials and we do all the work. The clients get read-only access to the financials. They threw everything over the wall to us and we leverage technology to pull everything together and then we turn that into accurate financials. And we just consider ourselves part of our client's businesses. Were just part of their team. Mark: Why? I mean, let me just start off with kind of an obvious question and one that I think if somebody is not at the million-dollar revenue or fifty million dollar revenue level, why are companies at that level hiring and spending money on a company like yours? Why is it that their financials are important enough to have that controller level service like yours? Scott: Yeah, so the main thing is that they feel out of control. And we have talked all about management accounting, not just year-end for taxes; we're like a clock, strike twice a day. And otherwise, you only know; and if anything it is extended, you only know if you're profitable in September for the whole prior year. And our whole focus is accountings at daily, weekly, monthly piece and that the owners at a minimum have to stop, take a step back and look at their financials and adjust their gut feeling so they can make great decisions on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, which are all those decisions you have to make so that your business runs better. It's more efficient, it's more profitable, and better to sell because it's managed well. But if you don't get that feedback where we have people; sellers that will go, wow, that was my best month ever and we're like, yeah, you lost a bunch of money. And they're like, wait, what? Well, you spend all the money on this and you didn't pay attention to your marketing spend and you spent through all your profit on the marketing spend. And if you don't see that, it doesn't do any good to notice that six months from now. So it's those kind of things. Or when they're looking at any of the many real-time tools, there's a big difference between real-time tools to do re-pricing and high-level reporting and you can use to make real-time decisions on re-pricing product or what to buy and all that stuff, and then double-entry accounting that accounts for everything. And then we help them adjust they're gut. Hey, this tool always shows you your sales numbers 10% too high, and then they can adjust to it and make those real-time tweaks. But the real value is they're serious about being entrepreneurs. They understand and they hate doing accounting. Most of these businesses didn't go into business to pay sales tax or do accounting and they want somebody else to do it, but they want somebody else who can talk the talk, who understands where the FBA is and FBA reimbursements and inventory and accrual and landed costs. And they don't want to have to train the accountants on just the terminology, let alone what are all the crazy things Amazon does, what's the settlement statement, and all that crazy. So that somebody that they can trust is taking care of those financials and then it's our goal to educate them on how to read the financials themselves and provide insight. Mark: Yeah, I think you talked a lot about kind of those boots on the ground sort of decisions, those granular decisions. I think financials and getting comfortable with reading your financial statements there's two levels. I'm a big picture type of guy and I actually just recently did this with Quiet Light and with another company I own where I took a look at my financials over the course of the last year and I just simply broke down the expenses as a ratio of revenue in the big categories and where are we? And with Quiet Light one thing I want to do is up our data game. We've got a lot of data that we built on over the years, but it's not organized as well as it could be. It's not point and click we could pull this data up. It requires some work. And you know what? It shows in my P&L because we historically had a large tech department that's changing. With my other company, we should be more marketing focused and it was this kind of bigger directional sort of CEO sort of thing and saying, hey, you know what, we really need to double down on the marketing. So I think the financials have that kind of dual-level play of you get the big picture, but the granular boots on the ground sort of decisions too is important if you know how to read them and understand them. You guys help with that. You help laicized some of it. Scott: We do. And one of the key values we do is each of our controllers who are CPAs we don't do federal and state income taxes, but they understand accrual accounting, gap accounting, and everything else. But each one is supporting at least 10 sellers and we never share confidential information, SKUs, or whatever but we can look across all of our clients and say, hey, wow, you're spending three times as much on your Google ad spend as we've seen with our other clients and we're not seeing that show up in your income. And they're like, oh, I just launched a new product, in four weeks I'm going to cut that back. And then our controller as from an accountability puts it on the calendar, calls the seller and say cut it back so you can start making profit. It's okay to ramp up your marketing spend and burn through your profit for whatever number of weeks to launch a product but sometime you've got to back it down. And if you forget all your profit is flowing out. And so it's that comparison and we can do that common comparison, kind of small data, big data across our client base because they're all consistent because we have no restaurants or which would be bad or nonprofits or other things. So it's that insight of being able to see multiples and your business too, you have the same benefits of the fact that I've looked at over a thousand seller's books. You guys have looked probably at least that many if you get that when you're in this niche and you focus on these areas, you really understand the nuances and you see the different scenarios and then you can provide that feedback. Mark: Absolutely, specialization especially for what you guys do. It makes a huge difference. Let's start with talking about different types of software, because Joe Valley, the co-owner of Quiet Light he often, says Excel is not accounting software. Unfortunately, we see a lot fewer Excel books these days than we used to, although they still come up every once in a while. The two dominant ones seem to be QuickBooks and Xero. I have seen other systems thrown in there from time to time. I know you've dealt with NetSuite to an extent. What's your favorite, why, or are they equally good? Scott: So Pepsi, Coke, they're great. It's so great that they… Mark: I'm a pop guy. Scott: Okay, yeah. Mark: Oh no, I'm joking. I'm not, I don't drink pop or soda. Scott: Yeah, I know. So in general it's great that they're both out there, they're both heavy competitors, Xero does much better internationally. Intuit has a much bigger footprint here; a much, much bigger footprint here in the US. But because Xero came along and has been in the cloud and about six years ago, got 200 million in VC funds Intuit went uh-oh we better fix our cloud solution. So that helped anybody that was on QuickBooks. So today they're both feature consistent. Okay, so if you pick either platform one or the other, you're going to be okay. We prefer Xero. We think Xero is a better cloud platform. It's better with multi-currency. If you're doing multi-currency, it is by far significantly better. And then our view is that Xero is a better company. Intuit is a shareholder driven marketing company and that's all they care about. They don't care about accountants. They don't care about small business. I mean their marketing says they do. They are a big, big business. And Xero even though it's much bigger, is still only a few thousand people. It started in New Zealand and is very much about supporting businesses and being engaged in everything else. And they're just really upping the feedback always. Mark: Yeah, I've got a soft spot in my heart for Xero. I put my other company on it for a while. I actually had to take it off because I didn't like their PayPal integration at the time and that other company had a good amount of PayPal sales, but I just like how they set up the system philosophically. It just felt tighter. It felt like QuickBooks you could have all these loose ends kind of floating out there and Xero, like their name kind of alludes to, wants everything zeroed out and they wanted all the balance out. And philosophically, it felt better. What about NetSuite or other third-party systems? Are there other systems that you think are good to work with? Scott: Not really. Really it's in that small; even if you're a startup, you should start on Xero and QuickBooks and you should be doing accounting from day one even if you have no idea what you're doing. And every business owner, entrepreneur, you have to wear every hat in the business so you understand it enough so when you delegate it, you can oversee it. So you can start at that level and the only reason we would expect anybody that would outgrow Xero or QuickBooks online or us at that 50 million or whatever stage is when their supply chain gets more complicated. So we can talk about cloud inventory tools but the idea is need and I'm a big believer in best of breed; so Xero for cloud accounting, Gusto for payroll, A2X for Amazon and Shopify income, Hubdoc for document management, Bill.com and others and Veem for international wire. So we've got these set of tools but then the cloud inventory tool really has to be specific to the client. Almost all of them suck in different ways but there are some that are getting to be pretty good that you can use. But if you outgrow those or you can't find a tool that you need that will meet your supply chain and the number of 3PLs you have and your manufacturing process, then you might have to grow up to NetSuite. And if you're a larger business and you want to be able to; you're buying a lot of international stuff and you have customs invoices that show up six months after you've done a sale and you want to back-calculate all of your COGS into the past, the only way to do that is on NetSuite. Because we do monthly snapshot accounting so if there's an adjustment six months later we posted in that month, we don't go unravel everything and put it all back. So if you need that sophistication or you need a more advanced one but you're going to pay for it price wise and you're actually going to pay a penalty that in my opinion, not great integrations to pull data from these sites and it makes it difficult to impossible to at least reconcile Amazon working with the different NetSuite integrations. Mark: Well, let's talk a little bit about that because I want to talk about some of the automation of this because I think the biggest challenge with a lot of the software is figuring out how to pull in the data in an efficient manner and we especially run into this problem with accrual accounting. This is why so many bookkeepers mistakenly or misguidedly tell their clients you should just do cash basis, because for them it's a lot easier, right? You see the purchase order, you enter it in, and going through to an accrual, you need to check your beginning inventory levels at the beginning of the month and ending inventory levels to figure that out. And it's just more work than they want to do, frankly. How do you set your clients up? I want to talk two questions, one would be how do you set your clients up for forward-looking moving forward we're going to be on accrual and keeping that automation in place. And then secondly, what are easy ways if there is an easy way to go back and get those historical COGS on a monthly basis for an Amazon business? Scott: Yeah, the two sides income. I mean, the first piece would be the automation we look at is first making sure you're posting your income properly. If you sell a hundred widgets that you get paid for 100 widgets and so we use a tool called A2X accounting to post the Amazon income. We've been using it for six-plus years. If posted a penny, it breaks up a hundred plus Amazon fees and follows the accrual method by posting a summary invoice. Because the main thing we recommend for everybody, unless you're doing B2B or direct manual sales on turns, every other sale can be summarized on a daily or weekly or monthly invoice and A2X will post Amazon and Shopify income. For Shopify, it will post Shopify payments every day that matches the payout every day. So the first thing you want to do is be able to get all the income into the system properly and then A2X breaks out based on our design. We're their close partners. We're using it for a year and a half but we were in Alpha for about six months, but they'll post and our standard is to post all the income by payment processor. So on Shopify, if you're using Shopify Payments and Amazon Pay and PayPal and Globally and Sasol and Afterpay or whoever else. It'll break out each of those posted invoice for each of those merchant providers and then you can reconcile it. So that's how you get your income and it's going to post it in the right period as to when the sale happened, not when you got paid. The difference between accrual, you track everything. And in our opinion and accrual, not only do you need it for valuation, not only do you need accrual to make sure you have a balance sheet so you can see your inventory and your assets versus liabilities but it's also easier to look at that if you have these huge expenses that you pay for or you're buying a ton of inventory and you pay $100,000 this month in shipping charges you want to spread that out and as you sell the product, pull that out not pull it together. Now for COGS and inventory, if you're looking for your values, the best tool is just you can't do it on spreadsheets. Just like you can't run accounting on spreadsheets, you really need a cloud inventory tool. You need the automation so you have a structured process to purchase products through a purchase order so you know what you're paying for. I mean you're constantly updating your costs, you're receiving that inventory. So whether it's fraud or they forgot to put a case; you bought 20 cases and they only put 19 in and they were just going super fast, which is usually the problem not so much someone's trying to rip you off. And if you can't catch that in controller control, you just have money that's just leaking because inventory is just cash in a different form that you're trying to turn into more cash. And so you really need those tools that are pulling in every order because all of that detailed data doesn't have to live in the accounting and it shouldn't. Xero and Quickbooks online are not set up to pull in every Shopify transaction, every Amazon transaction. They're not. The idea is you want that summary information and then you want to make sure that your cost of goods sold aligns with the income. So you have to have a consistent process. For Amazon, we upload costs into A2X and it'll post cost of goods sold so the same orders that were in your income even if the settlement statement splits over the end of the month all get posted in the appropriate month, and then you can do the same thing for Shopify. And then for our clients that are on cloud inventory, you can run as long as the tools provide in our focus, which would be cost of goods sold per channel so you can see your profitability per channel on the financials is really the piece you want to make sure that you can get that number, be able to validate it, and everyone's like, oh, that's this big accounting thing. I'm like no your whole world is operations; its purchasing product and shipping product out. Everybody will know we did 422 orders last month and they'll go, okay, and there's all the data for it and that needs to get applied to the accounting and then you need somebody who can do that properly. Mark: You said something just a little bit ago here which I find; it tends to be a mindset shift among a lot of sellers and that is your inventory is just cash in a different form that you hope to turn into more cash. And this is where the switch from cash to accrual changes and people that are on cash basis tend not to see this, right? They see their business bleeding cash and they see a cash in, cash out and when they spend all the money on inventory, they see that as losing value but it's not. You're just transitioning one asset cash into another asset inventory. And I think this is, again, why this topic of discussing books excites me because it causes you to think of your business in a different way; in completely different ways, as a blend of assets. Most of what you said, I already know our listeners are going to listen to this and be like that is way too complex for me to go through and do. Can I connect these things directly? Can I just plug and go or do I need to hire somebody to do this? Can I train somebody to do this? I mean, how do you actually go about implementing this? Scott: So there isn't one tool that will connect all the different pieces. Now Xero and QuickBooks online and A2X for an Amazon-only business gets you a long way along the method because if you're all FBA A2X will get you most of the way there. But for anything else, there's no secret process. So someone's like, oh, I'll just use what Logility and use their reports, they connect everything. I just did a deep dive review of them again and we couldn't figure out how they were posting the data and then we couldn't rec because we were evaluating we were trying to implement it. So you have to have a consistent set of processes to know you're doing your accounting on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. We do cost of goods sold monthly. So it's an hour or two per client per month because we have a standardized process that we follow through that shakes out vendor deposits and the other details. So the first process is what are you doing, what are you trying to accomplish, and just break that down, whether you're doing it yourself. Look at resources. We have some online courses. We have a bunch of YouTube videos to make sure we educate people. But then we still have a manual process for Walmart and eBay and Etsy and House and Wayfair and all these other channels where we download the data monthly, pivot it to post the income, and reconcile it. But we use the exact same data to apply a cost to post COGS. So it's a matter of that. Now, there are consultants out there that will help you set up the cloud inventory tool which we don't do, or you can work with the vendors to implement it and then you either have to manage it yourself or hire someone like Catching Clouds or another e-commerce accountant that understands the technology, the e-commerce space, and accounting. Mark: I think this is why it's so tough for so many people. Because as an entrepreneur, I have an idea, I've invented a product or I've identified a niche I want to go after and I'm good at that but now you're asking me to understand my financial reports. And then on top of that, you're asking me not to just understand my financial reports, but to understand the technological ecosystem around these financial reports to make them all work without hiring somebody who's going to cost me $10,000, $20,000, $30,000 a month just to be able to do this and suck up any profits that I do if I do have. That's why it is so difficult for people. The whole ecosystem is complex and difficult to understand. But I do know once you do get it set up, it is just a few hours a month. So you put in the effort of what am I selling, what are my processes, and then how can I get this into the system the right way? Once you get that setup, then maintaining it isn't as difficult as the initial setup. Is that fair? Scott: That is correct. Once you get those processes in place and you've got a defined process, you're just not assuming you can set automation and set and forget it, you're there. And then I would put the same due diligence that everybody puts into outsourcing; I mean, e-commerce sellers, the big things they outsource, except for the few that decide to buy a warehouse and want to invest in property and that's important to them being an entrepreneur and that's part of the journey. But that's, in my opinion, a very small percentage of the sellers, everybody else is working with 3PL warehouses or FDA or Walmart fulfillment service, Shopify fulfillment network. The same due diligence that anybody puts into that and understanding their supply chain or their vendors or who they're purchasing from, you just need to decide the financials are a priority for that order and then go through the same due diligence where you know nothing as an entrepreneur about whatever and then you start. But it is absolutely possible to put these systems in place or outsource the work like most sellers outsource and one thing I recommend every seller do is outsource sales tax. Don't try to use a tool like TaxJar or Taxify or Avalara. Just hire assault consultant or have someone like Catching Clouds, which we do it only with our accounting services because it's so complex. We're filing over 5,000 returns a year and even if you do everything right, the states generate notices and you have to deal with all of that. And the same thing applies to outsourcing your 3PL and your fulfillment. And then I would recommend outsourcing your accounting and finance because unless you're 30, 40, 50 million, it's really expensive to hire a bunch of accountants and manage them and train them and make sure they stay on top of the technology and all that other stuff. Mark: You know this is the sort of field that if you fall behind, is that much more work to get caught up. And I know we've referred some business over to you in the past that need some cleanup. We refer them to other partners as well that need clean up. What does that process look like? I'm saying, okay, I've fallen behind, I've been doing cash basis accounting for the past forever and now I want to go back three years to do this right and get moving forward. What sort of workload are you typically looking at to be able to get that caught up? Scott: Yeah. So in general, unless they were using A2X and it's very, very rare or they were doing things right or in a lot of cases it's interesting if the owners are involved, they don't know all the things in accounting and what they do they're very particular about so they do less wrong. Invariably when we see other accountants that don't work with any other e-commerce businesses, they're just making it up as they go and they make it worse and worse. 80%, 90% of the time we have to start over with a brand new Xero file even if somebody is on Xero because there's just tens of thousands of bad records in there and you can't get to it. So we set up a new Xero file. You import all the bank and credit card transactions for that time period. You categorize them and you reconcile all those accounts. Then you post all the income and then you go through accounts payable through all that time. And of course, once you just identify the data and even if they have another system, we can rip all that out, put it back in, but then make sure that no, no, this invoice was paid this month, but it was from the prior month to make sure that the bills are in the right period to get all that going. And you just do those accrual things and then we can post the income per month historically and then do the cost of goods sold per month. And so if it's 12 months or; and so we have to go back to either 1120 or 1119 to the prior tax return or back to the beginning of the business and run that and that's what it's going to take. We have looked at; we are Xero expert experts. My co-founder, partner, and wife Patti teach Xero experts how to do cool expert things in Xero and we have all these tricks to clean up the accounting. And I've got a whole list of things that I want Xero to do to allow us to make it so we can just take what's already in Xero and clean it up because the bank feeds and the fundamentals for Xero are great it's just when you connect all these apps and push in data, you end up with whatever. So it's really a process for us. It's about four to six weeks for one to maybe a little bit longer but it takes time. It takes time to set up the systems. It takes time to pull in the data. It takes time to get through it all and redo it and then validate things with the client go away. Hey, I bought a forklift. That was in inventory. I don't sell forklifts. You go, oh okay that doesn't go in inventory. We'll move it over to a fixed asset and off you go to the races. But it just takes a fair amount of work to understand to pull in all the data and do it. But for the most part, you just start with a new accounting file, get all your data; bank, credit card, bills, income, and COGS, and repost it following the accrual method. Mark: Yeah, I get that. I've been there. I've had to do that before. And you're right, going back when you have thousands of transactions can be a nightmare. I want to know where's the balance between good enough and probably not good enough and too much. And here's what I want to bring up to you, there's a well-known accounting company, which I will not name names, that has a cloud-based service that I know does cash basis and then at the end of the year does an inventory adjustment so basically giving you a full yearly accrual basis. And I've seen these financials before where all of a sudden December looks like the worst month ever because they're doing this massive adjustment at the end of the year. So that's one extreme and for a lot of owners, they'll say, well, it's good enough, I'm getting some high-level understanding of my sales and maybe my some cost, but not COGS. That's one and I would say that's not good enough but that is the attitude. On the other end, you and I have talked before about entering sales down to the individual sale, and being that's ridiculous you don't need to go to that level of detail. What is the balancing point from a controller standpoint being able to look at financials and be able to understand these books and be able to get both those kind of big picture decisions made, but also those granular decisions of look you're over overspending here. This is not a profitable product line or you need to stop ramping up your expenses in this area. What's that balancing point for you guys? Scott: So, yeah, there are a lot of people that really look at their financials and that other method is good enough for a tax return. It's not good enough to make those decisions to understand what's in your business. And it's just making sure that you're doing all of the accounting, not everything, right which means every bank. And the most common things we see when we review books is that they're not reconciling every bank account and credit card every month. Because if you think your system; you downloaded whatever data and you think you have $50,000 in the bank and the bank thinks you have 10, they win unless you've caught the error and fixed it. And it's typically just a data error so if you're not looking at the end of the month settlement for every bank account, credit card, and merchant account to say, hey, this is where we have clients were like, you had $30,000 disappear. Oh, it's a reserve. PayPal's got a reserve or Strike has a reserve which has been happening a lot recently. So we want to have those triggers but you want to make sure you're doing those reconciliations so that you know about all of those expenses and all the things flowing through your credit cards. The other thing is make sure every account's on there. If you're using a personal credit card from the owner because you don't have an Amex, Plum, or whatever in your business, and as long as it's dedicated to that business, it should be on the books. You should be tracking those expenses and then it's just do; and then you pay it off and it's just payments to the owner and it all works out from an accounting perspective. And then, like we said, you just want to make sure you're posting the income in a summary fashion and you could just decide to do it all monthly and know that I'm going to take four hours a month, I'm going to post the income and figure out COGS and get that done and it's good enough and if there's any adjustments. And then the last thing is you have to make sure that the balance sheet balances, which means all the numbers and the liabilities and assets. If the balance sheet doesn't balance you can't trust the P&L. You can't trust your statement of cash flows. And so it's kind of a do those core things and then go make sure you have somebody; an external party that's reviewing what you're doing at least monthly or quarterly to say, yeah, this is right or no, you have this write off or hey, you have this big hundred thousand dollar adjustment leach let's go see if we can figure out what's going on in there. Mark: It sounds like there's two steps here, right? There's the validation of your financials, but there's also an understanding or review of those financials. And maybe they're kind of linked together in the same thing where when things don't add up right that's a sign that you need to be digging deeper into something. Maybe you have an inventory leakage or you're leaking money because not all the inventory has been shipped or accounted for. And you would recommend that on a monthly basis then? Scott: Yeah, at a minimum, it's hard to do. We try to do as much of the accounting daily as possible. We believe that to stay on top of a dynamic e-commerce business, you have to be pulling in the bank feeds from yesterday today. You need to be looking at accounts payable and bills you know oh, I did a $30,000 prepayment on a $100,000 purchase order and I owe $70,000 in six weeks when it ships. Like if you're not paying attention to those things on a daily basis, then the owners are constantly pulling money out when they have to pay bills out of the business; their personal bills, and then the next week loaning the same amount of money or more back into the business and you just go do this swing if you're not staying on top of it. But if you're smaller and you're ramping up and everything else, at least do it monthly and then start doing a little bit more weekly. There is more automation that's coming over time around bank feeds and AI and other stuff, but it's going to take a while to get here. Mark: You know, one of the things that I think can really help once they start getting the stuff together is the ability to forecast. And I'm not talking about even on the sales side, that's kind of the second level of forecasting. But on the expense side, because you just brought it up right now, right? You have a bill of $70,000 that's going to come due. Have you planned for that or is that something that's gotten lost with all the craziness of the rest of your business? Or you want to launch a new product line what do your expenses look like over the next three, four, or five months? You can't do that if you aren't living to some extent in your financials on a fairly regular basis where you understand what's coming up. Do you guys get into much of forecasting even on the expense side? Scott: Not long term forecasting, but cash is king and cash flow projections. So we're just refining our process. So we have some clients that we'll do it for a daily for a short time when they've got lots going on at a specific time frame. And then we'll just provide kind of a weekly cash flow that's always that four to six-week view; here's where payroll comes out, here's your expected income, here's what the Amazon payments come in if you're not using Payability or something that lets you cash out every day so you can manage cash flow but it's really all about that. And we just haven't chosen to extend it for a longer period of time because our focus is daily, weekly, monthly but the idea is that the owner should take a step back and look and say, oh, because what we're trying to always get to is to say, here's how much free cash flow you have to buy inventory, pay for marketing, invest in the business, new products, new design, new people, whatever and then hopefully there's something left over for the owner as well. Unless you're in that I'm continually investing that's great but you need to know how much that is so you're not constantly doing. And that cash flow and that availability can include you have a $100,000 Amex plan card. That's just capital to you because most e-commerce sellers love racking up points and that's not debt. That's not a long term loan. They're going to pay that Amex bill probably every two or three times a week to keep the balance down so they can keep buying product to keep up with demand. But you need to know where those numbers are, where are those thresholds? When you're starting to push out against them if you're growing and your sales are growing, which is what's been happening for a ton of sellers in this big new world that we're in where everyone's home and everyone's buying online and that's all ramped up you need to know when you're hitting those limits and that you either need to invest more money as the owner because you're going to turn that cash into more profit; into more cash. Or you're looking at different lines of credit whether it's with a bank, which is usually the most painful way. But there are other alternative ways that aren't quite online loan shark and you find the balance between those to post that in. But it's really cash is king. If you're not looking at it; there's so many businesses that are profitable on paper, profitable on their P&L that go out of business because they didn't manage their cash. Mark: They didn't manage their cash or the cost. And you said costs are king what do you mean by that? Scott: Cash is king. Mark: Cash is king. Scott: Well, actually, costs are pretty important. If you don't have a good handle on your costs, you're going to run into the situation where you don't know what the value of your inventory is. And the most important thing is you don't know how to price your product. So if you have a product that you buy in the US and you buy in huge volumes and that your suppliers don't charge you shipping, you can use your buy cost. It's pretty straightforward. But if you're buying a product, either whether it's being manufactured or shipped internationally and it costs you a dollar per unit, but it costs you nine dollars to get it live in Amazon FDA or your warehouse, you need to know your cost is $10 is your landed cost after shipping and customs and insurance and even inbound into Amazon. So you know your all up cost to know what that is. And if you don't have a good handle on one of the first things we do with just about every client is revalidate their costs, identify the ones that are wrong, and then look at what they're selling it for. And they think they're averaging some margin and it's usually a lot less because they're not aware of their full cost for their product. And that's understanding that landed cost and landed cost is a key accrual process where you pay for everything and then you take that shipping and it gets added to inventory and then as you sell, it comes out and it's value. And that can make a huge difference on client's business. We have clients that are close and they're using landed cost, but they're not doing that last accounting bit monthly to do a journal entry to take hey, I spent as much on cost, customs, tariffs, whatever, and moving that all into the inventory account. And then you go, oh, I really have spent two million dollars on inventory and shipping and everything else, and I'm pulling out 200,000 a month in cost of goods sold. I have not just the number of quantity of units, but you can see the money flowing in and out of your business. Mark: Why don't we have you on monthly to the podcast? I don't know I feel like we just scratched like the first quarter of what you put together as far as the list of things we can talk about. But we are up against the half an hour, so I am going to cut it here and ask the best way to reach you; obviously CatchingClouds.net. You guys have courses available. Is that on Catching Clouds? Scott: Yeah. So if you go to our site, we have a contact form if you want to talk to me, especially if you're a larger business, I'm happy to talk or email and interact with anybody. I just enjoy interacting with sellers. Then we have our YouTube channel, which we have over a hundred YouTube videos, and we'll start adding more next month on basic topics. Now it's all my wife mostly who can explain things better and doesn't talk as fast as I do, but we're really there. And we have so much more that we want to push out onto those YouTube videos because we're happy to share the basics; how to read financials, and all these different things. We just want to help those sellers that are smaller than a million and or do it yourself. And then we also have a Facebook group that supports that for sellers and accountants for providing answers and questions for people that take our courses and just have general questions and then we have our outsourced service. So if you go to our contact form, reach out and I'm happy to interact and have a conversation. And most of my focus is really where your biggest challenge is and if I can help them figure out the top two or three cloud inventory tools that would be there or a developer that would do automation and build zappy integration to improve their efficiency or point them in the right direction, I'm happy to do that. And then our big services, we'll just take it all over, clean it all up, and then run it. Mark: Yeah, I think for those that are listening here, especially those that may not be in that one to fifty million dollar revenue range, the one thing I can say just from my experience is the companies that get there have books in order for the most part, much more so than smaller companies. And part of the reason that they've gotten there is because they have taken the time to put together good books. And it does give you insights into the business that you can't get otherwise. That doesn't mean that we haven't seen companies in the one to 50 million dollar range that don't have their books together. But all the more reason for those companies to make sure you're are doing this because if you aren't, I can almost guarantee you're bleeding cash somewhere and you're lacking optimization somewhere. I think the biggest thing; let's end with this cut, people are overwhelmed by this, they may be not sure how to start. What's one thing that they can do today? If they think that they're under optimized with their books right now, what's one thing that you would suggest that they do today? Scott: I mean, it really usually just comes down to education. So whether it's our YouTube videos or books like Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs is a good book. It's looking at that and then our big thing is process. So if you're not documenting your process for receiving inventory and dealing with returns, just take a whiteboard and put it on your wall and start building those things. So it's called the combination of education and then it's just organization so you can keep track of your to-do list and you know, oh, I've got to block out this much time every day or week or month for accounting. It's more about that discipline and then just get an accountability coach. There are other things you can do, like profit first for a different way to look at profit. Or you can hire someone for EOS entrepreneurial operating system and the traction books. So there are actual structured processes that you can join in where it's not just you have to determine it ahead of time, but it's kind of education. Have coach as partners, whether that's Quiet Light who gives out I know great advice. Even when they're talking to people two or three years from when they're selling and they may never sell to say, no, these are the smart things to do because everything they're telling you to do smart to sell your business is the same guidance to run your business profitably. And then get those external resources, find your peers out there and talk to them and share best practices, and just continue to evolve as an entrepreneur. Mark: Scott, it's really good to see you again. Thanks so much for coming on. Scott: You're welcome. Thank you. Resources:  Catching Clouds Catching Clouds Contact Form Catching Clouds YouTube Channel Catching Clouds Facebook Page Quiet Light Podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com

In today’s episode, I’m talking to Wayne Richard, Partner and Chief Operating Officer at Bean Ninjas, one of the world’s leading accounting firms and an expert in helping small businesses with accounting and bookkeeping. Aside from being Bean Ninjas’ resident e-commerce expert, he is also the author of a book called, “A Detailed Guide to eCommerce Accounting” and Host of the Bean Ninjas podcast. Wayne had a 15-year career with Hewlett Packard before starting his own cloud accounting business in Tucson, Arizona. He eventually became a Bean Ninjas contractor and equity partner, two years after he discovered Bean Ninjas – as a simple comment on their blog post led to his involvement with the company. Recognized as a leader in Xero accounting for eCommerce, Wayne has spoken in front of live audiences at Shopify, Dynamite Circle BKK, and DC Austin. He is also the resident CFO for aDmission Mastermind and has been featured in Insightful Accountant, Fundbox, TaxJar, and A2X blog. When Wayne isn’t managing a global team, he’s being an everyday superhero to his wife and five children.Head on over to https://elevatedentrepreneur.fm/9 for show notes and bonus accounting guides from the Bean Ninjas team

In today’s episode, Jodie talks to Darcy Boles, the Director of Culture and Innovation at TaxJar. With the abrupt transition that the world had to do because of the pandemic, remote work has become a popular thing nowadays. Although it seems overwhelming, you too can be at the forefront of this thriving industry, thanks to expert advice from Darcy. She tells the listeners about why and how she succeeds in the field, her past experiences, and tips for helping anyone, whether they are first-timers or experienced workers. -- Welcome to the divine career design podcast. I'm your host Jodie Palmer! Weekly you'll hear me interview experts in their fields of study. We will look at the highlights and challenges within their careers. We will explore what an actual day to-day looks like in their practice and how to become an expert like them. I will answer your questions directly about the teen career exploration process and highlight special teen guests on the show to share their experience and unfolding through the career exploration process. For more information visit https://amplifyyou.org/.

Another special episode this week! This is the first Outside the Valley episode not hosted by me (you’re welcome). This week’s episode is a replay of our recent AMA session with CTO of TaxJar Matt Anderson. The AMA was hosted by our VP of Sales Mike Fossi, and a special co-host: VP of Engineering of Help Scout (and previous podcast guest), Megan Chinburg. It’s a conversation between engineering leaders of two awesome remote companies talking about how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected their teams, figuring out processes and goal setting, and how they go about hiring the right person for their teams.

The global coronavirus pandemic is forcing many companies to adjust to a remote, home-based workforce. TaxJar, a sales-tax management platform, has been entirely remote since its founding seven years ago. All 160 employees work remotely, mainly from their homes. Mark Faggiano is founder and CEO of TaxJar. I recently spoke with him about managing a large, distant team.

Why Having A CPA Is One Of The Best Amazon FBA Business Decisions You Can Make – Julia Ibrahim – Part 2 – We talk to Julia about all the essentials with your finances when it comes to starting and running an e-commerce business. Part 1   Part 2   Things we mention in this session of Seller Round Table: 1099 Online: https://www.1099online.com/ AirTable: https://airtable.com/ All United CPA: https://allunitedcpa.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ InventoryLab: https://inventorylab.com/ PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/ QuickBooks Online: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/online/ Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/ TaxJar: https://www.taxjar.com/ WTools: https://wtools.io/ Join us every Tuesday at 1:00 PM PST for Live Q&A and Bonus Content at https://sellerroundtable.com/ Try the greatest Amazon seller tools on the planet free for 30 days at https://sellerseo.com

Why Having A CPA Is One Of The Best Amazon FBA Business Decisions You Can Make – Julia Ibrahim – Part 1 – We talk to Julia about all the essentials with your finances when it comes to starting and running an e-commerce business. Part 1   Part 2   Things we mention in this session of Seller Round Table: 1099 Online: https://www.1099online.com/ AirTable: https://airtable.com/ All United CPA: https://allunitedcpa.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ InventoryLab: https://inventorylab.com/ PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/ QuickBooks Online: https://quickbooks.intuit.com/online/ Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/ TaxJar: https://www.taxjar.com/ WTools: https://wtools.io/ Join us every Tuesday at 1:00 PM PST for Live Q&A and Bonus Content at https://sellerroundtable.com/ Try the greatest Amazon seller tools on the planet free for 30 days at https://sellerseo.com

Ever wondered how you can streamline the tedious task of managing sales tax for your e-commerce business? Join me, Alex Wilson-Campbell, as we unravel the secrets behind TaxJar, a leading technology-driven company that's been revolutionizing sales tax solutions for e-commerce sellers since 2013. With a robust presence on LinkedIn and a reputation for serving over 15,000 businesses, TaxJar is not just another remote company; it's a powerhouse of innovation and efficiency tailored to meet the unique needs of the accounting industry.In this episode, I break down TaxJar's journey, from its inception to its current status as a 100% remote business employing U.S. citizens. Learn about their team dynamics, core values, and the unique culture that sets them apart. Whether you're exploring new career opportunities or seeking collaborations, this deep dive into TaxJar's operations and hiring practices will provide you with actionable insights. Tune in to discover how you can align your skills with their needs and navigate the remote work landscape with newfound confidence. Don't miss out on the tips and strategies to engage effectively with potential employers like TaxJar!Refer a Remote Work Expert As a Guest On The ShowClick here remoteworklife.io to subscribe to my free newsletter Connect on LinkedIn

What is nexus Amazon? Learn why it's essential to learn about the tax nexus laws when you ship your Amazon items across different states. How do we determine where a business has sales tax nexus? What is “nexus”? You have a sufficient presence in a state to have sales tax responsibility. Sales Tax nexus results how? Physical presence Economic nexus Affiliates Employees, contractors, renting or leasing property The most common one for online businesses is an economic and physical presence. Physical  presence If you're based outside the USA, you may still have a physical presence if you have inventory stored there, including in FBA warehouses. A number of FBA warehouses have been audited - eg: Wisconsin Economic Nexus Passing certain thresholds on Nexus Amazon. Most common is $100K revenue, the other 200 transactions. They vary a lot in how they define. Example If I ship in stuff to LA (CA), and it gets moved into 3 states… bear in mind that Amazon will redistribute the inventory across 40 states! If the inventory were just in 3 warehouses (in 3 different states), that means you have nexus in those 3 states (ignoring Marketplace Facilitator Laws). You would need to get a sales tax permit, collect and remit sales tax on Nexus Amazon. Marketplace Facilitator Laws states Generally, you don't have to get a permit. However, in general, if you're selling in a marketplace, you don't have much. How do we figure out which states have sales made? DIY Pull the transactions out and do some manual excel work with a pivot table. Taxjar also has a tool that is helpful. Getting help There is a link on their website that has information which also provides services and analyses sales state by state. Analysis fee counts towards the first invoice if a client of TaxValet. For nexus analysis, you look at many factors: Transactions Where inventory is being stored Other areas like affiliates, other businesses, contractors   Affiliates Employees, contractors, renting or leasing property Visiting trade shows can cause tax nexus! Generally working with an affiliate doesn't cause an issue but if affiliates are a substantial share of your revenue, it could create sales tax nexus. Getting permits Implications for International businesses Does it make a difference where you're based? (Which country) It doesn't make any difference in theory for Nexus Amazon. There is a different process for international sellers. What is the basic process of registration for sales tax for international sellers? Getting permit TIN   It can be difficult to submit the permit without a TIN people; you'd need an EIN (tax identity) for the company EIN is simple - for companies - it's also cheap to use an online service say $100 to get it for you. TIN is much more challenging - it takes 3-4 months. Alex has a partner who only does TINs for international businesses. Online systems These don't work for international sellers eg: you can't put in the address etc. But many States have a paper application so use these if you're outside the USA. Other issues paying Sales Taxes Paying sales tax They often will only take a bank account and only a US bank account! That means you can't pay the tax! Alex cleaned up for an Amazon seller based in Poland Got permits in 20 states without a TIN. They came after her for not paying the tax. She had the money but in a non-US bank account. Opening a US bank account You'll need a TIN to get this. You need typically to visit the US to open a US bank account. However, Alex has a partner who can do this for you. The States make it hard to do this! You can't use a Transferwise number! Payoneer also doesn't work. You need a bona fide bank account.   To learn more about Tax from Alex Oxford, here are the other two episodes: FBA Sales Tax with Alex Oxford of TaxValet

Have you ever wondered what separates successful remote businesses from those that struggle? Learn how defining and communicating clear goals can be the key to thriving in the remote workspace. In this episode, Alex from the Remote Work Life podcast explores the essential pillar of defined goals, drawing insights from conversations with remote CEOs, leaders, founders, and seasoned remote workers. Discover how companies like TaxJar, Zappy, Automatic, Meet Edgar, Basecamp, and Buffer articulate their vision, mission, and purpose through various media, ensuring alignment and motivation across their teams.Whether you're a job seeker or a manager, understanding a company's goals is crucial. For job seekers, it's about finding alignment with a company's mission and values. For managers, it's essential to embody and communicate these goals to keep your team focused during challenging times. Alex breaks down how these companies use blogs, websites, and other media to make their objectives explicit, helping you determine if there's a connection between you and a potential employer. Tune in to find out how clearly defined goals can guide you towards a fulfilling and cohesive remote work experience.Refer a Remote Work Expert As a Guest On The ShowClick here remoteworklife.io to subscribe to my free newsletter Connect on LinkedIn

Darcy Boles, Head of Employee Experience with TaxJar shares some important tips if you're looking for and applying for remote roles.  She gets to see the whole hiring process and has seen the good and bad applications, so it goes without saying, this is worth listening too BEFORE you start to apply.

Today I’m joined by Mark Faggiano, the founder and CEO of TaxJar, a 100% distributed SaaS company that helps businesses automate their sales tax calculations and filing. We talked about Mark’s genuine passion for remote work, why he personally handled new team members’ onboarding in the company, and how having an Employee Experience Team is vital for TaxJar.

Episode Summary In this week’s episode of Elixir Mix the panel is joined by David Bernheisel and Cory Schmitt, from Taxjar,  to discuss the different ways developers can contribute to the community. The first way to contribute to the Elixir community is contributing to the Elixir core code. While David shares a little of his background, he shares his first experience contributing to the elixir code by submitting a pull request about asdf. The panel all thanking him for his contribution.    The next form of contributing the panel discusses is open-sourcing projects. Cory and David share their experience getting their date-time parser open-sourced. They express gratitude at the support they received from Taxjar at open-sourcing the project.    Before moving on to the next way to contribute the panel stops for a moment to ask Cory and David about their date-time parser. David and Cory explain why they decided to build a date-time parser after finding a problem in Timex and other time libraries. They talk about their first attempt at the parser and explains that it was a disaster.    The panel expresses their interest in nimble parsec and asks our guests to share their experience using this library. Cory and David explain that it was easy to use and a little slower than libraries found in other languages but still fast enough for production. They go into more detail of what it was like to code in nimble parsec and give tips for optimizing performance with the library.   The panel asks about future plans for the date-time parser. David and Cory explain what cereal time is and how it will soon be usable in the parser. The most interesting things they learned while building the parser are listed including some of the surprising results they got while testing the library. They also talk about the difficulty of time zone math and other problems with programming for time zones.    The panel moves on to the next way you can contribute to the Elixir community is through running and attending meetups. The panel shares the places and types of meetups they run. Trying to prepare future meetup hosts, the panel shares their experiences starting up or taking over meetups, explaining what they need to know. Such as, not everyone that attends a meetup is going to be as hyped up about the language as you. Also, meetups are about building relationships and connections just as much as it is learning and sharing.    Still talking about meetups, the panel gives tips to both the host and the members. To the hosts,  they give ideas on how to run their meetups, such as project nights, lightning talks. They explain that a lot of the people coming to the meetups will be new to Elixir and warns not to dive too deep into the code and lose them. Instead, the panel recommends recruiting the developers new to Elixir that still have all their enthusiasm for the language to help you run the meetups. Another recommendation is to vary the depth and range of the topics, that way you can maintain the interest of your members. The panel talks about the financial part of running a meetup and advises hosts to find a good notification service and a sponsor.    Speaking to meetup members, the panel reminds them that just by attending meetups they are contributing to the Elixir community. By going they make connections, share ideas and grow as developers in that community. The advice they give to members is to find ways to get more involved, explaining that no meetup host is going to turn down a willing speaker or a helping hand. They also discuss encouraging a comfortable environment and helping other members feel welcome in the community.    The final form of contributing the panel discusses is attending and speaking at conferences. The panel shares their excitement for the upcoming Elixir Conf. They also discuss the value of smaller regional conferences that may be easier to attend. At regional conferences, it can be easier to connect with others since there is a smaller crowd. Also, a singletrack style conference may encourage you to attend talks you normally wouldn’t choose, allowing you to discover new and exciting technologies. The panel explains how the number of conferences has grown over the years giving more opportunities to both attend and speak. They encourage all developers to go to conferences often.   Panelists Mark Ericksen Michael Ries Josh Adams Guest David Bernheisel Cory Schmitt Sponsors   Sentry– use the code “devchat” for two months free on Sentry’s small plan GitLab | Get 30% off tickets with the promo code: DEVCHATCOMMIT My Ruby Story CacheFly Links Falsehoods programmers believe about time and time zones  https://elixirforum.com/  https://asdf-vm.com  https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-elixir/pull/64  https://hexdocs.pm/date_time_parser/DateTimeParser.html  https://github.com/plataformatec/nimble_parsec  https://github.com/plataformatec/nimble_csv  https://hexdocs.pm/date_time_parser/examples.html#content  How to save datetimes for future events  https://www.meetup.com/Triangle-Elixir/  https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/wiki/Conferences  https://www.gigcityelixir.com/  https://www.thebigelixir.com/  https://empex.co/  EMPEX LA 2019 - Five Easy Ways To Start With Nerves - Michael Ries  https://allthingsopen.org/  https://twitter.com/bernheisel  https://github.com/dbernheisel https://bernheisel.com https://www.taxjar.com https://twitter.com/_GazD  https://github.com/cas27 https://schmitty.me/ Elixir / Phoenix YouTube Channel https://www.facebook.com/Elixir-Mix  https://twitter.com/elixir_mix Picks Mark Ericksen: https://hex.pm/packages/phoenix_live_view  http://npm.anvaka.com/#/view/2d/webpack  Michael Ries: http://www.hpmorpodcast.com  Josh Adams: https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/time/latest/  David Bernheisel: http://ocremix.org/ Cory Schmitt: https://www.twitch.tv/josevalim  https://taxjar.workable.com/jobs/1103271

Episode Summary In this week’s episode of Elixir Mix the panel is joined by David Bernheisel and Cory Schmitt, from Taxjar,  to discuss the different ways developers can contribute to the community. The first way to contribute to the Elixir community is contributing to the Elixir core code. While David shares a little of his background, he shares his first experience contributing to the elixir code by submitting a pull request about asdf. The panel all thanking him for his contribution.    The next form of contributing the panel discusses is open-sourcing projects. Cory and David share their experience getting their date-time parser open-sourced. They express gratitude at the support they received from Taxjar at open-sourcing the project.    Before moving on to the next way to contribute the panel stops for a moment to ask Cory and David about their date-time parser. David and Cory explain why they decided to build a date-time parser after finding a problem in Timex and other time libraries. They talk about their first attempt at the parser and explains that it was a disaster.    The panel expresses their interest in nimble parsec and asks our guests to share their experience using this library. Cory and David explain that it was easy to use and a little slower than libraries found in other languages but still fast enough for production. They go into more detail of what it was like to code in nimble parsec and give tips for optimizing performance with the library.   The panel asks about future plans for the date-time parser. David and Cory explain what cereal time is and how it will soon be usable in the parser. The most interesting things they learned while building the parser are listed including some of the surprising results they got while testing the library. They also talk about the difficulty of time zone math and other problems with programming for time zones.    The panel moves on to the next way you can contribute to the Elixir community is through running and attending meetups. The panel shares the places and types of meetups they run. Trying to prepare future meetup hosts, the panel shares their experiences starting up or taking over meetups, explaining what they need to know. Such as, not everyone that attends a meetup is going to be as hyped up about the language as you. Also, meetups are about building relationships and connections just as much as it is learning and sharing.    Still talking about meetups, the panel gives tips to both the host and the members. To the hosts,  they give ideas on how to run their meetups, such as project nights, lightning talks. They explain that a lot of the people coming to the meetups will be new to Elixir and warns not to dive too deep into the code and lose them. Instead, the panel recommends recruiting the developers new to Elixir that still have all their enthusiasm for the language to help you run the meetups. Another recommendation is to vary the depth and range of the topics, that way you can maintain the interest of your members. The panel talks about the financial part of running a meetup and advises hosts to find a good notification service and a sponsor.    Speaking to meetup members, the panel reminds them that just by attending meetups they are contributing to the Elixir community. By going they make connections, share ideas and grow as developers in that community. The advice they give to members is to find ways to get more involved, explaining that no meetup host is going to turn down a willing speaker or a helping hand. They also discuss encouraging a comfortable environment and helping other members feel welcome in the community.    The final form of contributing the panel discusses is attending and speaking at conferences. The panel shares their excitement for the upcoming Elixir Conf. They also discuss the value of smaller regional conferences that may be easier to attend. At regional conferences, it can be easier to connect with others since there is a smaller crowd. Also, a singletrack style conference may encourage you to attend talks you normally wouldn’t choose, allowing you to discover new and exciting technologies. The panel explains how the number of conferences has grown over the years giving more opportunities to both attend and speak. They encourage all developers to go to conferences often.   Panelists Mark Ericksen Michael Ries Josh Adams Guest David Bernheisel Cory Schmitt Sponsors   Sentry– use the code “devchat” for two months free on Sentry’s small plan GitLab | Get 30% off tickets with the promo code: DEVCHATCOMMIT My Ruby Story CacheFly Links Falsehoods programmers believe about time and time zones  https://elixirforum.com/  https://asdf-vm.com  https://github.com/asdf-vm/asdf-elixir/pull/64  https://hexdocs.pm/date_time_parser/DateTimeParser.html  https://github.com/plataformatec/nimble_parsec  https://github.com/plataformatec/nimble_csv  https://hexdocs.pm/date_time_parser/examples.html#content  How to save datetimes for future events  https://www.meetup.com/Triangle-Elixir/  https://github.com/elixir-lang/elixir/wiki/Conferences  https://www.gigcityelixir.com/  https://www.thebigelixir.com/  https://empex.co/  EMPEX LA 2019 - Five Easy Ways To Start With Nerves - Michael Ries  https://allthingsopen.org/  https://twitter.com/bernheisel  https://github.com/dbernheisel https://bernheisel.com https://www.taxjar.com https://twitter.com/_GazD  https://github.com/cas27 https://schmitty.me/ Elixir / Phoenix YouTube Channel https://www.facebook.com/Elixir-Mix  https://twitter.com/elixir_mix Picks Mark Ericksen: https://hex.pm/packages/phoenix_live_view  http://npm.anvaka.com/#/view/2d/webpack  Michael Ries: http://www.hpmorpodcast.com  Josh Adams: https://package.elm-lang.org/packages/elm/time/latest/  David Bernheisel: http://ocremix.org/ Cory Schmitt: https://www.twitch.tv/josevalim  https://taxjar.workable.com/jobs/1103271

A lot of new sellers dive right into their businesses, and are very concerned with doing things properly and legally.  We all know that sales tax is a thing, since we seem to pay it on every purchase, but we've never been on the "collection" end of that equation.  Today, I've sorted through pages of articles to bring you the straight skinny on how to deal with sales taxes in both the US and Canada. The bottom line:  Until you are making over $30,000 in sales to Canadians, or $100,000+ in sales per year in the US, sales tax is not something you need to worry about.  If you are already registered, then go ahead and file for whatever states you are registered for sales tax, but don't rush out and start paying thousands of dollars to find out if you need to pay a couple dollars of tax.   Taxjar.com - The best resource I've seen for dealing with sales taxes in the US A great article about sales taxes More info about sales tax for Canadians selling to the US Get a Canadian GST number here

Sales tax and Shopify/ non Amazon e-commerce with Paul Rafelson  What about sales tax for Shopify or other e-commerce business owners? The Amazon marketplace vs. Shopify Sales tax for Shopify business owners (or any similar system) is a different situation to that for sellers on marketplaces. Amazon tries to play both sides of the fence with - they want to avoid bad things like sales tax by saying “sold by Joe Seller”,  but they want to keep the customer relationship and branding.  Otherwise, you could claim your shop in New York City, for example, is “just a marketplace” for Chinese goods. This wouldn’t fly with NYC tax authorities.   Apple’s App Store is NOT a “marketplace” from a legal perspective A recent legal ruling found that Apple’s App Store is NOT a “marketplace” but effectively Apple was using it as a retailer.   “Markup” or “commission” is the same thing according to the court. If a company acts as a retailer, it will be treated as a retailer.  Selling direct to consumer Sales tax for Shopify or similar stores DOES become an issue for you. Because you're selling direct you to the consumer,  you don’t have The marketplace agreement with Amazon kicking in.  The only defence against sales tax for Shopify business owners then is “it’s too burdensome”.  Eg 200 items sold in South Dakota - $20 about $4000 sales per state x 40 states - maybe $180,000 sales totally.  
If you’re doing $100K in South Dakota, it might be fairer - but you’re probably doing some pretty big numbers anyway if you manage to achieve that.   Example: If you’re doing $50,000 sales total in Shopify 20% of states probably make up 80% of sales Probably: CA, FL, TX, NY, MA.  So most of your sales tax liability from your Shopify store can probably be dealt with in a few states.  If it costs you more to register than you have to pay, you may well be able to use the “burdensome” defence.  Jeff Schick is a multi-million dollar seller AND a lawyer shared his Taxjar bill for filing in Washington state. Washington (State) has another tax “business and occupation tax” - is a small % tax that you pay not the consumer.  He owed the state $30 but his Taxjar bill was $500.  If you take a position under the constitution that it’s burdensome, you’re not breaking the law.   200 unit test States are starting to get rid of this test.  Many tax law specialists find it absurd.  It’s problematic when states are unclear whether Amazon sales count towards overall sales thresholds.  Eg $200K Amazon sales in a state plus $500 of your own bills.  You can fight a state or pay a bill IF you get a bill. Plus penalty and interest. Say $100.  Paul’s very general position on this is that you may be better off waiting to actually get a bill before you worry about paying it or registering.  Is this tax evasion to not pay sales tax for shopify slales? In 2016, a state passed a law saying they should pay sales taxes. Wayfair took a position they weren’t going to pay it.  They lost - but, importantly,  it wasn’t tax evasion, because they had a legal defence.  Anything which happens at the Supreme Court is normally a constitutional issue and thus a legally defensible position.  States passing laws that affect interstate commerce are basically unconstitutional. The laws have to be reasonable. Normally the companies who take these positions are huge companies.  When a Shopify seller can click one button and comply with all laws, there’s no reasonable defence. But that’s not the case at the moment. [In other words, for a small business to have to comply with expensive and difficult tax process is “burdensome”]. SIDENOTE: “Small business” defined  (relevance: “Too Burdensome” defence against sales tax) US Definitions of a “Small Business”  The US doesn’t have a clear federal definition of “small businesses”. The Small Business Administration (SBA) does define them, but by industry. In the retail trade,

Sales tax and Shopify/ non Amazon e-commerce with Paul Rafelson What about sales tax for Shopify or other e-commerce business owners? The Amazon marketplace vs. Shopify Sales tax for Shopify business owners (or any similar system) is a different situation to that for sellers on marketplaces. Amazon tries to play both sides of the fence with - they want to avoid bad things like sales tax by saying “sold by Joe Seller”,  but they want to keep the customer relationship and branding. Otherwise, you could claim your shop in New York City, for example, is “just a marketplace” for Chinese goods. This wouldn't fly with NYC tax authorities. Apple's App Store is NOT a “marketplace” from a legal perspective A recent legal ruling found that Apple's App Store is NOT a “marketplace” but effectively Apple was using it as a retailer. “Markup” or “commission” is the same thing according to the court. If a company acts as a retailer, it will be treated as a retailer.  Selling direct to consumer Sales tax for Shopify or similar stores DOES become an issue for you. Because you're selling direct you to the consumer,  you don't have The marketplace agreement with Amazon kicking in. The only defence against sales tax for Shopify business owners then is “it's too burdensome”. Eg 200 items sold in South Dakota - $20 about $4000 sales per state x 40 states - maybe $180,000 sales totally. If you're doing $100K in South Dakota, it might be fairer - but you're probably doing some pretty big numbers anyway if you manage to achieve that. Example: If you're doing $50,000 sales total in Shopify 20% of states probably make up 80% of sales Probably: CA, FL, TX, NY, MA. So most of your sales tax liability from your Shopify store can probably be dealt with in a few states. If it costs you more to register than you have to pay, you may well be able to use the “burdensome” defence.  Jeff Schick is a multi-million dollar seller AND a lawyer shared his Taxjar bill for filing in Washington state. Washington (State) has another tax “business and occupation tax” - is a small % tax that you pay not the consumer.  He owed the state $30 but his Taxjar bill was $500. If you take a position under the constitution that it's burdensome, you're not breaking the law. 200 unit test States are starting to get rid of this test.  Many tax law specialists find it absurd. It's problematic when states are unclear whether Amazon sales count towards overall sales thresholds. Eg $200K Amazon sales in a state plus $500 of your own bills. You can fight a state or pay a bill IF you get a bill. Plus penalty and interest. Say $100. Paul's very general position on this is that you may be better off waiting to actually get a bill before you worry about paying it or registering.  Is this tax evasion to not pay sales tax for shopify slales? In 2016, a state passed a law saying they should pay sales taxes. Wayfair took a position they weren't going to pay it.  They lost - but, importantly,  it wasn't tax evasion, because they had a legal defence.  Anything which happens at the Supreme Court is normally a constitutional issue and thus a legally defensible position. States passing laws that affect interstate commerce are basically unconstitutional. The laws have to be reasonable. Normally the companies who take these positions are huge companies.  When a Shopify seller can click one button and comply with all laws, there's no reasonable defence. But that's not the case at the moment. [In other words, for a small business to have to comply with expensive and difficult tax process is “burdensome”]. SIDENOTE: “Small business” defined (relevance: “Too Burdensome” defence against sales tax) US Definitions of a “Small Business” The US doesn't have a clear federal definition of “small businesses”. The Small Business Administration (SBA) does define them, but by industry. In the retail trade,

Today I’m chatting with Mark Faggiano, CEO of TaxJar, a leading technology for Shopify eCommerce businesses to manage sales tax.TaxJar seeks to make eCommerce easier for everyone by helping merchants spend less time on sales tax to focus on growing the businesses they love.What You Will Learn Today…How you can accurately and easily automate sales tax for your Shopify storeWhat the Wayfair decision by the Supreme Court means for your businessHow to determine in what states you have to collect sales taxHow to manage sales across multiple channelsManaging the complexity that comes from a growing business Links And Resources Mentioned In This EpisodeTaxJarSales Tax BlogSales and Transactions CheckerTaxJar in the Shopify App StoreAutomate Sales Tax for your Shopify storeThe Entrepreneur Roller CoasterSouth Dakota v. WayfairThank You For ListeningI really appreciate you choosing to listen to the show and for supporting the podcast. If you enjoyed today’s show, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.I would also be so grateful if you would consider taking a minute or two to leave an honest review and rating for the show in iTunes. They’re extremely helpful when it comes to reaching our audience and I read each and everyone personally!New Strategies Each Week To Help You Build And Scale Lifetime Customer Loyalty. SUBSCRIBE HERE!Being an entrepreneur is a life of learning. All it would take is a new idea, strategy, Shopify app, or marketing platform to be the next thing you need to drive more revenue and lifetime loyalty for your Shopify store. Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or Spotify. Don’t miss a single episode!Episode SponsorThis episode was brought to you by Omnisend, makers of sophisticated omnichannel marketing automation tools for sales-driven Shopify brands that have outgrown generic email marketing platforms. Engage your customers and boost your sales with dynamic emails, text messages, web push notifications, Facebook Messenger, and retargeting ads on Facebook and Google – all from one platform.Try Omnisend for free for 14 days. Check them out at Omnisend.com and use the code “fastlane” when you signup to get an extra 50% off for the first 3 months. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The house passed a bill permanently banning the IRS from creating its own free online tax preparation software; as cashless stores grow, so does the backlash; at least one educator is still teaching people how to use Quicken for business accounting; updates from Xero, Canopy, TaxJar, and QuickBooks; a hack for avoiding the new rate limits on QuickBooks Online, stats on how many CPA firms permit remote work and/or flexible schedules; how people who work from home are more productive; and why people have a reason to be paranoid when it comes to smart speakers

Cloud and Cloud computing is in the news and we'll talk about what is going on and what to expect Do you sell things online off a website?  If so, you have to listen in to find out what the IRS is doing, right now, it's going to drive you crazy. It's update time! Microsoft is out with their April update, known as 1903 or 19h1. It has some nice Windows Update policy features. What are Cybercriminals up to now?  They are using new tactics that bypass traditional email security, So listen in to find out more It's bad enough that cybercriminals are attacking us and stealing out information but now these Bad guys are stealing money right out of bank accounts. Do you know what a Denial-of-Service or a Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks are?  Well, the FBI and Secret Service trying to shut down criminal organizations who are using them in a big way, we'll talk about what they are doing today. Are you a C-level executive? It is time to remove your cybersecurity blinders -- Cybersecurity is no longer an IT problem it is a boardroom level problem and scary one when you get right down to it.  Cybercriminals are using brand impersonation now and it's it costing companies a lot of money  For all this and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Transcript: Below is a rush transcript of this segment; it might contain errors. Airing date: 04/06/2019 FBI Shuts Down Denial Of Service Attacks - Supreme Court Ruling Will Affect Every Business Craig Peterson 0:00   Hey, hello, everybody, Craig Peterson here. And it looks like my math was wrong. You know, last week I said, I thought we were coming up to the 1,000th week of being on the air. Actually, we weren't coming up on it, it was the 1000th week. So this is our One Thousand and One weeks of broadcasting, and this week, we're going to have a few different radio appearances, as I usually do all be on with Jack Heath on Monday, but because I'm going to be busy this week, as well, actually, I guess, this week? No, I'm not going to be on with Jack on Monday. But I am going to be on on other stations Tuesday and Wednesday. Okay. So anyhow, we passed 1000 weeks, you can do the math, that's a lot of years on the air. I don't know if that makes me old. It's certainly kind that makes me feel old. But you guys, man, I appreciate you. I appreciate everyone who listens, and everyone who subscribes to my podcast. And you can do that quite easily by going to http://CraigPeterson.com/iTunes. Leave a comment. Hopefully, I've earned a five star from you guys. And that'll help get the show out so more people are aware of it. Craig 1:26 So let's get right into the articles this week. as is true every week, I send these things out on Saturday morning. So you should get my show notes-newsletter, and that'll keep you up to date. Let you know about the latest security problems that have arisen this last week and other things in the tech biz and tech world that I think are interesting. So number one this week is from Infosecurity Magazine. And it's talking about cloud and cloud computing, we'll get to that in a few minutes. The U.S, man, if you have a website, if you're selling things online, you got to hear what the IRS is doing right now. Craig 2:08 And man, the internet tax stuff, it's going to drive you crazy. There is a new update here for Windows coming on. Well, it's the April update. And it's known as version 1903 or 19h1. Craig 2:26 But it's going to have a new Windows Update policy. And it's going to let you if you are a big organization that is using the group policy editor, basically, you have an Active Directory server and you have group policies for your various accounts. Craig 2:46 Excuse me, this, the policy is supposed to allow you now to specify deadlines for automatic updates, and restarts. Now if you don't have the Windows 10 professional, you're kind of stuck as it is right now because you can not, I repeat, can not specify when you want updates to be applied and how long you might want to wait. And we've certainly talked about that on the show before. But it's going to give IT admins a lot more control, especially when managing larger fleets really of devices, number of Windows devices, so it should be pretty good. And I have some details on where you'll find it in the menus there on my website at http://CraigPeterson.com. And Softpedia has really quite a nice little thing about the whole thing. But basically, you as an admin can set a deadline for installing updates as high as 30 days. Usually, I recommend about seven days, five to seven days, because that lets you get past the initial problems that often accompany these updates from our friends at Microsoft. And the auto reboot can be anywhere from zero to seven days following that. Craig 4:08 Now, this feature is something that was available only in the pro version. And now it's available across the board if you are using group policies, okay? The latest tactics used by cybercriminals will talk about this. And this is bypassing traditional email security. Craig 4:27 And where do most IT professionals feel vulnerable when it comes to bad guys and attacks and stealing our information, stealing money literally right out of bank accounts. Well, we'll talk about that too. But first, I want to get to an article I love the title of this. This is out of the UK, it's from The Register. It's called Silence of the WANs, which I thought was just very clever. The FBI has been working hard to shut down criminal organizations, so has the Secret Service. I've talked with both of them before about what they're doing and how effective they have been. And one of the problems we talked about in my cybersecurity course, was something called a denial of service attack and distributed denial of service attack. And we talked about how to prevent them, how to stop them, and how to make your life so much easier. And we, of course, concluded that class, it's not open, you can't get into it right now, because I'm not conducting it right now. But denial of service attacks is absolutely huge. And the FBI just busted a massive attack and network about two weeks ago. Craig 5:45 And this was just amazing. Because the traffic loads plummeted after the FBI took these guys out. And some of them were right here in the US. You think most of the time that there may be in Russia or, you know, some Eastern European country, maybe India, you know, the normal places these things come from. But the December of 2018, the FBI really started pushing trying to figure out who was running the distributed denial of service attacks. Now, here's what how a DOS works, the denial of service attack. Craig 6:25 Someone, usually it's either a competitor or more often, it's someone that disagrees with your company. So a company that maybe has some sort of a political stance or donated to a charity that somebody doesn't like, they will start sending dozens, hundreds, thousands of requests to a web server, this is just a simple explanation, okay. So they'll send all of these to the web server, the web server becomes overloaded. It may crash or may not crash doesn't really matter. But because it has so many requests coming in, it cannot serve the normal users. So, people who are coming to your website to find out more about you may be to place an order, maybe to get some of the information that you're providing, they cannot get there because of the denial of service attack that's going on. Well, there is a worse type of denial of service attack, and it's called a distributed denial of service attack. Because bottom line, if there's only one machine that's attacking you, it's pretty darn easy to put a filter in place to block that machine from getting to you. That makes sense, right? Well, if you have 100, or thousand machines that are all sending data to you becomes much more difficult to stop. And that's the whole idea behind distributed denial of service attacks. Craig 7:55 So they FBI worked with a mitigation provider called Nexusguard. And they've been tracking this stuff. And they're saying both the overall number of attacks and the volume of the data fired at the targets to overwhelm them is down and it's measurably down because the FBI wiped out 15 of these denials of service mercenary sites. Some of them are run in America, some of them are run overseas, but they allowed people to purchase the temporary use of the massive button that's of compromised devices. Right? Isn't that what I'm always warning you guys about? That's part of the reason you got to keep his machine safe. Because millions of machines have been compromised. They have remote controllers on them. The owners of the machines just aren't aware of this because they're not paying any attention to security. And then they hire your machine now to use to attack a third party. They use your machine to mine for Bitcoin to make money for them. They use your machine to distribute kiddie porn, pictures and videos of Americans being beheaded. Okay, how many times we have to talk about this everybody? So these massive botnets were in turn commanded to create massive loads of network traffic and targeted websites and different types of services, which ultimately overload them and knock some offline.  Craig 9:27 Now, it seems according to The Register that these 15 denial-of-service groups were so prolific that simply taking them offline has caused a noticeable drop in global activity for the entire fourth quarter of 2018. We're talking about an estimate from the FBI of more than 300,000 attacks over the last five years from these guys. And Nexusguard is saying the number of attacks fell by 11%. And the size of each attack, which is the low directed at the target took a nosedive with the average rate dropping 85% and the maximum size down 24% from a year previous to that. So that's really good. The huge dip and attacks may not last, because it's so easy to set up a botnet because so many people haven't properly secured their computers, okay. And somebody else is going to come along and take over, fill in that void. There's going to be nude and distributed denial of services for higher services popping up. Craig 10:33 Many of these Internet of Things (IoT) devices are now being used for botnets. So you're smart light there on the factory floor that isn't properly secured, are not only being used to attack you and get the information from your servers. But they're also being used now too, to a direct these denial-of-service attacks. The number of these IoT devices that are used in the amplification attacks, which is a specific type, but they were up over 3,000% from last year and their accounting for more than half of all the taxing in the last quarter of 2018. So again, you know, we covered this in detail in the DIY cybersecurity, make sure you segment your network, if you have IoT devices, make sure they cannot get out of your network, except to the control nodes, the legitimate ones, right? Craig 11:34 The ones that are for the manufacturer to make sure they get security upgrades. And make sure you do the security updates, make sure they get the security updates, make sure it's all working. Because it's no longer you buy a light bulb from the local Home Depot store for a buck and plug it in. And you don't ever look at that light bulb again until it burns out. Craig 11:57 Now with the Internet of Things who the smart bulbs in the smart everything, you know, thermostats, any of this stuff, those smart devices now are your responsibility. It's just like a friend of mine, who we've been providing DNS services to for 20 years, probably 15, 20 years, well, more than 20 years. And he called us up he says, Hey, listen, why aren't you guys providing DNS for us anymore, you know, from my little network. And we were and we dug into it. And we found out guess what? Craig 12:32 His home address block that was assigned to him by in this case he has Comcast was used to access the dark web. Yeah, pretty big deal. Craig 12:50 And so now he's running around trying to figure out why now we have automatic systems in place that saw, wait a minute, the side dark web block. So all of our stuff worked perfectly. It was great. And that's how we protect our customer's websites. And that's how we set up the networks for all of our customers. Just automatic. If it's not automatic. It's not going to happen, right? So we had automatically blocked him now he's trying to figure out why what IoT device, what light switch whatever, went out to the dark web, and was being used as a tor exit point, even. It's crazy. It's crazy what's happening. So make sure you know what you're doing, find some good courses, whether they're mine or somebody else's, and understand how to do this. And I have free master classes that we're offering from time to time, make sure you're on my email list, http://CraigPeterson.com/subscribe. That way, you'll get my show notes, you'll also get some of the more urgent alerts that come out. And I'll let you know about the free master classes and other training that I'm doing. Okay. So http://CraigPeterson.com/subscribe, and keep listening to this radio show. Because I do get stuff out here. Although, you know, when you talk about master classes, they can go easily an hour, hour and a half or even longer, you know, the courses can take you six weeks to get through. But you know, stay up to date, do the right thing.  Craig 14:24 Now, let's talk about the number one problem that IT security professionals are looking at right now. 91%, this is according to Insider Threats, 91% of it and security professionals feel vulnerable to insider threats. And 75% believe the biggest risks lie in cloud applications like popular file storage, email solutions. You know, we talked about them before, they're worried about the Dropbox, Gmail, Google Drive, OneDrive. All of those things, right. So it is very, very concerning to IT professionals. And it's, you know, 91% of them being worried about the insider threats is huge. And that's why again, I have included in the DIY cybersecurity course, a whole set of policies and procedures that can go into the HR manuals as well as things that you should be doing in your business. Now BetterCloud surveyed nearly 500 IT network security professionals, and you can find this online. It's called The State of Insider Threats in the Digital Workspace 2019. So here are the key findings amongst again IT network security professionals, nearly all of them surveyed, 91%, feel vulnerable to insider threats. And that means things like people opening an email clicking on the wrong link, maybe doing something malicious because I got fired they got a bad review. Right. Those are all insider threats. 62% of them believe the biggest security threat comes from the well-meaning but negligent end user. That number fits in with other stats I've seen solids probably pretty legit. 75% believe the biggest risks lie in cloud storage and email solutions, which is really big. And I'm going to talk about an email security article here in a minute and about how the cybercriminals are changing their tactics. 46% of IT leaders which means, you know, the IT managers and above believe that the rise of software-as-a-service applications makes them the most vulnerable. And man, I'm seeing that all of the time, especially in regulated industries. And we're helping out some of these health care providers and legal and public companies. Man, they're using SaaS, software as a service. In other words, caught applications like that going on style, and they're not checking them. We've even done audits on restaurant chains, just small local chains, and found incredible liability that they're facing. 40% of them believe they're most vulnerable to exposure of confidential business information. That's financial information, customer list, personally identifiable information. And only 26% of C level executives say they've invested enough to mitigate the risk of insider threats, versus 44% of IT managers. Craig 17:31 So in other words, the C level executives are running around with blinders on. Kind of scary isn't it when you get right down to it. So let's get into the latest tactics that are being used by the cybercriminals to bypass email security. And I've got this article up again on http://CraigPeterson.com and this is from Industry News. And they're saying that cybercriminals are using brand impersonation now in 83% of spear phishing attacks. Now, remember, these types of phishing attacks against businesses called business email compromise is kind of a general term to cover most of them. 83% of the time, this is what's used, and it's already accounting for about a little more than $12 billion worth of stolen funds, not wasted time, not cost to recovery, right. $12 billion in stolen funds. In the last couple of years according to the FBI, on the worldwide statistics. It is huge. Craig 18:37 One in three of the spear phishing attacks is launched from Gmail accounts. Craig 18:47 20% of them occur on Tuesdays. About 20% on Wednesday, 20% on Thursday, and it drops off to 5% on the weekends, with the slightly lower numbers on Mondays and Fridays. So no big surprise there. I've had people contact me, just texting me, you know, my 855-385-5553 number about these extortion scams. I've gotten one or two of them myself. And I know you guys have gotten them because you've contacted me, you've texted me about it. And and I've gone back and forth to kind of explain what's going on. But still sextortion scams, these are a form of blackmail. And right now it's making up about 10% of all spear phishing attacks. And it's expected to increase even more because it is on an increasing line right now. And employees are also twice as likely to be the target of blackmail, than of a business email compromise. So, that's a change from last year. And this is from a report released by Barracuda and it's called Spearphishing Top Threats and Trends if you want to look it out. And they looked at about 360,000 spear phishing emails. Craig 20:08 So let's get some closer look here. Impersonating Microsoft is one of the more common techniques used by hackers to try and take over accounts, financial institutions. Impersonating nearly one in five attacks. Finance department employees are heavily targeted in obviously banks and other financial institutions as well. Majority of subject lines on sextortion emails contain some form of security alert attackers often include victims email address or password. Subject lines on more than 70% of the business email compromise attacks are trying to establish rapport, sense of urgency. Scammers are using name spoofing techniques, which they've used for years, changing the display name on Gmail and other employee accounts to make it look like it's coming from a company employee. So here's the top subject lines and number the two top 54% say security alert and 34% say change password. Okay. Very big deal. You'll see this article up on my website. And we'll have to try and do a master class on this one because I think this is important for people. I'm going to set these two aside and I'll let you know any anyone who's on my email list. I'll let you know about it. These are always free, will do a deeper dive into it. Craig 21:30 Make sure you subscribe http://CraigPeterson.com/subscribe if you haven't already. The US according to Forbes magazine has stepped up its tax collections here. And if you're selling software in the US, you've got a whole new problem coming your way, you know that we've had for a long time now, protection from the federal government saying the local authorities state and local cannot tax internet sales. And it has expanded a bit you've had massive companies like Amazon, who said yeah, we'll pay sales tax, state and local. And if you ask me, the reason they're doing that is to stomp the little guy into the ground. And the reason I say that is Amazon can deal with it. There are estimated to be over 9,000 different tax regulating entities in the United States. 9,000 of them. You have to comply with all of these 9000 across the board. How can you use a small business so that you can't, right? Amazon can. Well, there are going to be companies that are popping up there already are a few of them out there right now that are trying to take care of this problem for you where they'll collect all of the taxes. Craig 22:56 And what it is resulting in, however, is many businesses is saying listen with all the European Union rules. They've got their GAFA rules are cooking up right now> GAFA, gaffer standing for Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon tax. Craig 23:10 It's a kind of a VAT tax and supply, it's not supply driven. It's crazy. But there is a decision from the Supreme Court last year about a dispute between Wayfair now this is that online furniture company and the State of South Dakota and South Dakota wanted to collect taxes and Wayfair said no don't need to sell the Supreme Court overturned a law on not taxing companies with no physical presence in the taxing state. Because that legally is called legal nexus. So if you had operations in New Hampshire, you had to, well New Hampshire is a bad example, because we have no income tax. And we have no sales tax. Okay. But let's say you're in Massachusetts, which is a terrible state when it comes to taxes. You're in Massachusetts, if you sell something to someone in Mass., you have to click Mass. taxes. And if you sell something to someone in another state, you didn't necessarily have to collect the tax as well. Now you are going to. Any company selling online, this is more than just software companies, it's going to hit businesses across the board. And it's going to hit you hard. Craig 24:25 Okay. South Dakota, has rules that say if you have more than 200, individual sales, or more than a hundred thousand revenues, there are other states that say more than 100 sales, or 50,000 in revenue, some of them have 4.7%, some of them have as much as 13.5%, and the thresholds for spending in the state span from 100,000 and $500,000. And there might be 100 transactions a year it might be 500 and might be 2000 transactions a year. Whoa, okay. This is going to be a huge burden. 52 new tax codes on the individual states plus sir taxes that are introduced by counties, by cities, not just in the US, but 30 countries in Europe, along with Australia, Japan, South Africa, South Korea, Norway, India, the list just goes on and on. Hundreds of countries. More than a hundred out there. And US states have highlighted software in SaaS products as explicitly liable for sales tax. So remember too that we're talking about different taxes and different tax rates. You look in Massachusetts, they have a different tax rate for different types of IT services, they have different rates for software as a service in different categories, this is going to be a nightmare. So there's companies out there like Avalara and TaxJar that will outsource and take care of a lot of this stuff for you. Many companies are saying "forget about it." I know companies in Canada that are just pulling their hair out just dealing with Canadian tax codes. Craig 26:10 And many of them are just saying forget it, I'll just wait for the bill to come from the tax collector basically. So rather than charging you the appropriate sales tax, they fill out the state's forms that cross your fingers that they collected enough from you that they had enough in revenue to pay that state sales taxes. Craig 26:29 This is why the federal government passed a law saying no internet sales taxes because it will be a nightmare. Now, it is going to help local small businesses because now they're going to compete on a more even footing where they have to collect the sales tax. So do the bigger companies, right? And so to the people, even small guys who are selling online, and it's going to help companies like eBay and Amazon, where you just sell your product on one of those sites veil worry about all of the sales tax and collecting that. And they'll take their cut and just pass it back to you. So yeah, well, this is going to be big. It's in. You heard it here first. Thank you, Supreme Court. Craig 27:18 Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed today's show. You can read all of these articles plus the ones I missed today, including cloud adoption and what IT pros are concerned about. This 2019 state of enterprise cloud container adoption security that was published here recently, all of that in this morning's newsletter. If you didn't get it, make sure you get the future ones. http://CraigPeterson.com/subscribe, and I will keep you up to date and you can find out about this and, of course, a whole lot more. I have now thousands of articles I published up there my website, because we're over a thousand shows right now was this show 1001 weekly. Craig 28:02 This is week 1001, not show 1001. Man, that's a lot of the time on the air. Anyhow, thanks for listening. Make sure you subscribe, http://CraigPeterson.com/subscribe and have a great week. Talk to you next week. Bye-bye ---  Related articles: Windows 10 April 2019 Update Introduces a New Windows Update Policy Latest Tactics Used By Cybercriminals To Bypass Traditional Email Security Cloud Adoption On The Rise, It Pros Unsure Of Risk The US Has Stepped Up Its Tax Game. You Will Want To Read This If You’re Selling Online Most IT And Security Professionals Feel Vulnerable To Insider Threats Silence Of The Wans: FBI DDoS-For-Hire Takedowns Slash Web Flood Attacks ‘By 11%’ --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Blake and David dig into the lack of growth in accounting salaries despite the tight job market, KPMG’s representative contestant on this season of “The Bachelor,” Plaid’s acquisition of Quovo, TaxJar’s $60 million round of fundraising, Craig Smalley’s argument against virtual offices for accountants, where Americans moved in 2018, how the California Board of Accountancy just started (finally) accepting credit cards, and how some small businesses are no longer accepting cash.

Here's your Headstart on three business headlines you need to know for Thursday, January 10th 2019. Learn more at dailyheadstart.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Is your New Year's Resolution for 2019 to start collecting and filing sales taxes? It can seem like an overwhelming and confusing task to take on yourself. We have been doing this for the last 25 years and have seen first hand just how complicated it has become. Now with the recent decision by the Supreme Court (Wayfair) it, it appears that many companies are deciding to just register and file. And it seems like they all want to make it effective January 1, 2019. In today’s podcast, you will learn what that would entail and how to get your business ready to start collecting and remitting sales tax. Listen in as Andy and Dan discuss the the 5 steps you need to take in order to make this happen by the first of the year and see the questions they answer.Step #1: Start With Nexus And Taxability. Figure out where you have nexus first and consider if what you sell is even taxable. How do I determine my nexus footprint?Do I need to get registered everywhere?At what point can states force you to register?Can I register for sales tax myself?What can give me nexus?What if I have been doing business in a state for a long time without having a sales tax license?How do I know if my product is taxable?What should I do if I have a lot of sales tax exposure in a state?Step #2: Evaluate Your Taxing System (POS, Website Shopping Cart, Amazon, Walmart, etc.)What do I do to make sure my shopping cart software is set up for sales tax?How to make sure my Amazon seller’s account is set up correctly for sales tax?Do I need to get some developers involved at this stage?Step #3: Get Registered. States require you to register and/or obtain a license from them before you can collect tax on their behalf.Who can help me get registered for sales tax?Can I really register my company for sales tax on my own?Where is a good resource for doing the registrations myself? TaxJar has a great blog post with links to every state here.Are the states the same when it come to registering for sales tax?Step #4: Turn On The Tax. You need to go into your settings in all of your sales channels and turn on the tax collection function to automatically start assessing tax on your sales invoices.How do I start collecting the sales tax?How do I avoid getting in trouble with sales tax in all the states?Can I start collecting the sales tax even if I haven’t gotten my sales tax registration yet?Step #5: File the Returns. Once you've figured out where to collect the tax and you've collected the money, then the time will come when you actually fill out the returns and remit the funds. It may be annually, quarterly, or monthly.How often do I need to file sales tax returns?Can I file my own sales tax returns?If you have questions or any concerns sign up for a FREE Strategy Call here:https://www.SaltMoment.com/rac

A lot happened when it comes to sales taxes in 2018 and it affects all online sellers. Mark Faggiano is the CEO of TaxJar and he's back on the podcast to talk about what the new sales tax regulations are, how they affect Etsy sellers, and what you can and/or should do about it. You'll also learn how TaxJar can help ease the burden on you. Visit  for more information. To support the podcast, please go here:   

What will it take for your ecommerce brand to reach the next level of growth? Do you need to find the right book to read or mastermind to join? What if you had a curated list of some of the best resources available? On this episode of The Amazing Seller, you’ll hear from Scott and Chris as they go over their top ecommerce tools and resources. Don’t miss this great opportunity to hear from the guys as they explain how sellers like you can get an edge over the competition by utilizing these time-saving tools! Have pen and paper ready for this helpful episode! Tools you can trust. If you’ve been around the TAS community for very long you know that Scott takes it very seriously when he puts his name behind something or someone. Scott and Chris don’t give endorsements to just any tool or resource that pops up in ecommerce circles. They take their time and get to know the creators and then use the tool first hand so they can communicate its value to sellers like you. To get the full rundown on which tools Scott and Chris promote and why, make sure to listen to this valuable episode of The Amazing Seller! Automate your tasks to free up time. Let’s face it, if you want to succeed in the ecommerce field, you’ve got to be willing to outwork your competition. Does that mean that you have to work yourself into the ground or is there a better way? According to Scott and Chris, the answer is to work smarter, not harder! Too often sellers think that they need to have their finger on the pulse of everything in their business. The truth is if you have a good process in place you can place many tasks in an automated system. From following up with your customers to checking your sales data, you can take advantage of tools on the market that will free up your time and energy. Find out which tools get Scott and Chris’ stamp of approval by listening to this episode! You don’t have to be an accounting expert. Many small business owners feel like they need to be an expert in accounting. Is that really the case? Could there be some solution out there to help business owners outsource this specialty to focus on what they do best? Scott and Chris enthusiastically endorse two tools that can help sellers like you move much of the accounting piece off of your plate! Both TaxJar and Fetcher have been designed to automate and streamline your accounting needs. Listen to this episode of The Amazing Seller as the guys explain why you should take the time to investigate these amazing resources! Utilizing freelancers when the time is right. Did you know that behind every successful brand is not just a smart leader but a thriving team? It’s true! Take a look at Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft just to name a few, they achieved the success they have because of a team, not just one individual. How will your brand expand in the future? Does it all rest on your shoulders or are you willing to grow a team and put your brand in a place where it can succeed in the long-term? Listen to this episode of The Amazing Seller as Scott and Chris explain how important it is to connect with freelancers to build your team when the time is right! OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast! [3:00] The challenges of endorsing a tool. [6:30] Scott and Chris talk about why they love using Jungle Scout. [13:30] The guys share their experience using Ignite. [19:30] Why Clickfunnels & Giveaway Boost is so helpful. [23:40] How ConvertKit can help sellers like you. [27:45] Make sure to check out this free tool, Google Drive! [31:00] Let Fetcher take care of your accounting needs. [36:00] Scott shares the benefit of using TaxJar. [39:45] How to accelerate growth with freelance services. [44:45] Scott recaps his top seven tools and closing thoughts. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Salesbacker PACE Training Jungle Scout ClickFunnels Giveaway Boost TaxJar CPA on Fire FreeeUp Fetcher ConvertKit Google Drive Dropbox Ignite Leadpages www.theamazingseller.com/tools www.theamazingseller.com/resources

Are you compliant with collecting and paying sales tax? The rules and laws are changing very quickly with the recent Supreme Court ruling on South Dakota vs. Wayfair. We discuss physical nexus and economic nexus and how that applies to you. We discuss how Ecwid and TaxJar work together to provide a solution for you both collecting the correct amount and filing sales tax with the correct jurisdiction.

In this episode, we interviewed Mark Faggiano. He is the CEO of Taxjar, the automated sales, tax reporting and filing software-as-a-service. Taxjar automates the tax process and handles everything for you. Taxjar managed to create a system that does all that with a 100% remote company and remote workers. As of today, Taxjar has 32 employees and will probably have more over the next six months. In this episode we talked to Mark about, what is TaxJar, the benefits of building a SaaS product remotely, hiring better applicants, how to boost your remote team’s productivity, and the challenges of running a remote SaaS business. Show highlights? According to Mark, if you are planning to build a remote company, invest time and energy in your workers. Remote communication means you will probably have to over-communicate sometimes. And finally, make sure your remote workers know how to manage their time and don't force a schedule over them.

  Join us this week on the Small Business Show for a discussion about current news that could impact your Small Business. Listen in and hear our thoughts about the new Supreme Court ruling regarding online sales tax rules, Amazon's new Prime delivery business opportunity and our thoughts about mixing your politics with your business.           00:00:00 Small Business Show #179 for Wednesday, July 11, 2018 00:01:47 The Supreme Court changes online sales tax rules 00:05:13 Streamlined Sales Tax 00:07:03 TaxJar 00:09:33 Amazon seeking entrepreneurs for their Prime delivery business 00:14:18 A small business with one customer is not a small business. Walmart pricing with Tiffany-level service 00:16:13 Contact us: feedback@businessshow.co 00:16:32 SPONSOR: Visit TextExpander.com/podcast for 20% off your first year. 00:18:44 The politics of mixing politics with your business 00:26:05 The nuances of communicating politics 00:28:37 SBS 178 Outtro

Similar to outsourcing fulfillment, today's podcast guest says for many entrepreneurs, it may be best to outsource the collection, management and disbursement of sales taxes with the new Economic Nexus ruling by the Supreme Court. In this podcast, first we cover what the decision means to online entrepreneurs, and how it will impact the average business. For some no action needs to be taken. For others a lot of action must be taken. And ignoring the details is not really an option. Sometimes the least interesting subjects and work as an entrepreneur bring the most value. Well-managed financials are one such thing. Held within the broad “financials” umbrella is now sales taxes. While the answer to the questions, “should I collect” used to be grey. Everything is fairly black and white now. And the subject is never going away. Episode Highlights: Don't geek out on Sales Taxes. Outsource it. See SALT experts below. If you have Nexus it means you have an obligation to potentially register and collect sales taxes or income taxes in a given state. Physical Nexus is where you are, where your business is, where you are storing inventory or where Amazon is storing it. Economic Nexus is the change with the Supreme Court decision. The states could define other ways to define Nexus. For instance either $100,000 in sales or 200 transaction in the last 12 months – and you could be required to collect sales taxes on those revenues that occured within their state…regardless of Physical Nexus. Economic Nexus takes effect immediately for the 24 states that already have them on the books. (Links below will lead to finding the 24 states) Notice and Reporting are other ways to determine Nexus. It's really confusing! You MUST register to collect sales taxes. If you collect and do not remit, it is CRIMINAL. Hire an expert to register to collect sales taxes. There are 45 states that require it. Only register where you have to if you are a small seller. But if you are doing 10-20 million in revenue, “suck it up” and register everywhere. SALT experts can handle almost everything for you. See notes and links below. SALT is an acronym for Sales and Local Tax Experts Use www.WhereStock.com to determine where Amazon is holding your inventory. Seel link below. Taxjar is a good option if you wish to take on managing this yourself. Scott & his outsourced accounting team at Catching Clouds use Taxify (but recommend both options) The Supreme Court Decision may not increase a buyer's liability in an asset sale. Transcription: Joe: So Mark Jason got an e-mail this week and he had a question and it was “What makes Quiet Light different?” And Jason gave it an interesting answer and I want your feedback on it. It says “Well the formal answer is that we're all entrepreneurs but that's not really it. The difference is that Mark … you Mark Daoust is one of the best human beings on earth and that permeates everything we do. As a result, he attracts good people that are always doing good work with the best interest of others even if it's painful for the broker we ignore our own incentive to do what's right.” Did you pay him to say that? Mark: Yeah … well, I'm not going to say exactly how much but he got paid for that. I think it's a little over the top. I mean really. Joe: But he didn't write that down. He said it to someone and someone wrote it down and shared it with me. And I … look I shared this to put you on the spot. You look by the way very much like an internet entrepreneur today. You've got a t-shirt with some ducks on it, a little duck, duck going on there. Mark: Duck, duck, gray duck. I'm from Minnesota and I [inaudible 00:01:53.2] I'm going to put this out there, it's a more sophisticated game. All you parents out there stop this duck, duck, goose crap. It's all duck, duck, gray duck; that's what we're doing here. Joe: Don't know if we have time to go into what the heck you're talking about with duck, duck, gray duck. Well just … I thought you were going into hockey or something like that. I wanted to touch on one more thing you know Jason talks about that and you and the environment that you've created here and the caliber of entrepreneurs and advisors that you brought on. I listened to a podcast last night with Chuck Mullets and for those that are the buyers in the audience today, if you have not listened to the 27 tools for due diligence I think it was, listen to it. Because some of the tools in there were just amazing and I've been doing this for a long time and I haven't heard of any of them. I have to take my hat off to Chuck and give him some compliments for the job that he did there. I was really really impressed. He's a … I'll say it, he's a lot smarter than I thought he was. Mark: Ah, you know the bar was pretty low, to begin with. Joe: But I want to just raise myself up a little bit and show you something. Mark: What's that? Joe: I have on- Mark: Oh you have on Chuck's shirt that he made for you. Joe: I have my Quiet Light logo shirt on. So there you go. Mark: While I'm wearing ducks. Joe: Oh I didn't shade you there. Okay, listen this podcast is about something that's really important. It's about the Supreme Court decision to change the way that sales taxes are to be collected. Let's not get into details, let me just tell you that we had Scott Scharf on again. We specifically talked about the problem and the solution. What does this mean to e-commerce entrepreneurs and how do you solve it? I can tell you right now when you get three quarters of the way through the solution is … if you are up for it just like you outsource your fulfillment to a 3PL you can outsource your sales tax collection and distribution and management. And if it were me that would be my recommendation but it's absolutely there and you don't have to deal with all that little detail and there's a lot of it. Mark: Yeah and I like to say a word to people that share a person holiday with me, and when I read and hear about some of these red tape sort of restrictions that are coming down, I have a tendency to plug my years and go la-la-la-la I don't want to hear it. Joe: Right. Mark: I like the days of the free open web when it was just easy to do things. But the fact of the matter remains this is the direction we're going. Joe: Right. Mark: Restrictions, regulations are going to come into play more and more frequently and these aren't necessarily bad things we just needed to understand how to navigate them. And so an episode like this is timely, I'm glad that you got Scott on the line to do this episode because this is the [inaudible 00:04:34.0] time the episode given that this decision just came down a few weeks ago. Joe: Yeah some of the things that we talk about here on the Quiet Light Podcast are painful as entrepreneurs. Particularly those that don't love this detail, they love the excitement of driving revenue and the marketing aspect of it. These painful things when you pay attention to them will make your business more valuable if and when you ever decide to sell. So again listen to the whole thing. Get through it, he talks about it in detail point by point. But I try to keep him on track so it's not … he doesn't geek out too much. Scott loves this stuff. Mark: Scott? Never. Joe: He calls it geeking out himself. So we try to get on track to … okay how do … how does a guy like me, how does a guy like Mark, like an entrepreneur listening, how do they overcome this giant massive ball of red tape? And really, I think the answer is, outsource it. And we're going to give all of the ability to do that down there in the show notes. Mark: Sounds great. Joe: Let's go to it. Joe: Hey folks it's Joe from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got Scott Scharf on the line with me from Catching Clouds. And we're going to talk about the Supreme Court decision that's come down regards to sales taxes, define what the problem is, and then give you a solution to it in the second half of the podcast. Scott welcome … welcome back actually right? Scott: Yeah it's great to be back. Joe: All right so you know we don't do fancy introductions. Tell these folks who you are and what you do at Catching Clouds so they understand what level of expert you are here. Scott: Yeah at Catching Clouds we're e-commerce accountants who are really experts in the accounting e-commerce businesses and of course sales tax management; which is why we can talk about this topic. We've been doing this for the last seven years and we love solving problems for e-commerce, sellers, anybody that we interact with it. And this Quill decision is definitely one of those things. Joe: Quill decision, that it that's the name of it? Q-U-I-L-L. Scott: Well, yeah so Quill was a decision from what 26 years ago that the Supreme Court overturned their own finding that really delimited what states could do to go collect sales tax from small businesses that are selling across state lines. Joe: Good. Okay, so they overturned it. So, folks, you heard Scott say that they're e-commerce accountants and I just want to reiterate … and you know my little soapbox here. E-commerce accounting, accounting, good financials, clean documentations, it's one of the four pillars to get maximum value for your business. So if you're using anything other than Xero or QuickBooks seriously consider talking to Scott if you want to get maximum value for your business. Because Excel spreadsheets for a 20 million dollar company or if you're doing a half a million in revenue doesn't matter, you're going to lose value in the sale of your business if and when some day you decide to sell. So there's my little pitch, definitely- Scott: [inaudible 00:07:24.7] Joe: these services. Okay so if I understand this correctly this is no longer physical nexus which I think everybody that's listening knows the definition of it; what it means. Is economic nexus, can you tell us what the heck that means for these folks? Scott: Yeah so actually physical nexus still applies so it's not that they got rid of physical nexus it's just not the only consideration deciding if you have [inaudible 00:07:52.0] of fancy. Joe: So let's say what physical nexus is anyway then, go ahead. Scott: Okay. Well, physical nexus … well, first nexus is if you cross a threshold and you have nexus based on some parameters means you have an obligation to potentially register and collect sales tax or income tax or other things in a given state. So if you don't have nexus you don't have to do these things. Okay, that's the first part. So there are different types of nexus, the first one is physical. It's been around for quite a while. It's where you are, your business is, your business is founded, you have employees, you have property. Okay for an e-commerce business, it's wherever you're storing your inventory. If it's at a 3PL on either coast you have a nexus where you're storing your inventory. If you're an Amazon FBA seller, when you send inventory to three or five warehouses they'll move it to up to 26 states that's your inventory and it creates nexus. There are a few other ones out there but from a physical perspective … I've been around for a while, there's like affiliates and other things. But the main thing it's where you are and your property is. Joe: Physical nexus, okay. And now we've got economic nexus, what is that? Scott: So economic nexus what states have determined and the brakes were taken off with the Supreme Court decision that they could define other ways to determine nexus to basically either require your business to do reporting and other function or register and collect sales tax in those states. So what they've done is said hey if you're doing over typically in the standard is based on the Supreme Court decision $100,000 in sales or actually more importantly 200 transactions either in the last calendar year or in the prior 12 months and that would mean that they're expecting you if you're a larger business to register and collect sales tax from there … of any consumers buying products you're shipping to into that state. Joe: How many transactions do you say? It was 200? Scott: 200. Joe: So if it's a $20 sale it's only what 1,000? Scott: $1,000. So $100,000 people see the $100,000 and think that oh God there's no way I didn't know you'd do $100,000 in any states last year, but it's totally based on your average. So if you take your average sale price and multiply it times 200, if you've done more than that revenue in any states that have these laws you're over that threshold. Joe: Okay so economic nexus passed by the Supreme Court, when does it take effect is it immediate or is there-? Scott: It's immediate for the roughly 23, 24 states that already had these laws on the books. And the only thing that was holding them back were these court cases that were just … was decided a week and a half ago. Joe: Okay so there's 24 states, not all 45 that collects sales taxes but that is 24 of them. And for folks listening, we will add a list of those 24 states but there'll be a lot of resources in the show notes that we'll give you that through their software as well. Scott: Well and it's not just economic nexus, you have to remember there's now notice in reporting states that aren't doing economic nexuses but have set thresholds for doing notice and reporting. They're basically two different new ways of determining nexus and they're both in effect now and there are other states that have them starting later this year and more. So it's multiple ways of nexus that might impact your business. Joe: Okay so I'm just going to say a few years ago I did a presentation at Rhodium Weekend all about e-commerce selling and part of it was sales tax collection accounting. So I wanted to say to Yana if you're listening I was right. She came after me after that now that's never going to happen. It's right. So really just don't even worry about the 24 states I think physical nexus, economic … basically get prepared to collect and remit sales taxes everywhere and use a special service that can allow you to do that. First though … and we'll get to that but first do you have to register to collect sales taxes? Scott: Yes. You have to if you are not registered you don't have a license and a number from the state, it's criminal to collect sales tax and not remit it and not have a license. It's also criminal to collect sales … have a license to collect sales tax and not give it to those state. Those two things have additional penalties and they'll come after the business owner's criminally. So you need to have a license before you start collecting sales tax and then once you start collecting sales tax you have to give it back to the state either monthly, quarterly or annually; whatever they say. Joe: Okay just to clarify, you used the word criminally three times. That's a little scary. Scott: Well it's … but unfortunately both Amazon and Shopify and these other sites, I mean literally there's a button in Shopify that you can click that says collect sales tax in all states. And it's easy to start collecting sales tax in the 45 states that have sales tax. So technically it's very easy to hit these buttons and not realize and you just want to be careful. And in difference between criminal is there's additional by jail. Everything else related to sales tax is expense and cost which is more likely to happen but maybe not as painful but can be pretty painful based on penalties and interest and other things. Joe: Right. Okay, so first and foremost let's just define and answer this simple basic question that some folks have been asking, does this mean … and I know the answer to this thus do you, does this mean quote unquote I have to start collecting sales taxes? The answer is yes. The answer is you should have been collecting them before, you had to before. Correctly? Scott: Well correct, if you have physical nexus that goes back in time. Okay, most of these economic nexus laws are new. And the way they're currently written is if you pass the threshold then the expectation is you register and start collecting sales tax going forward. So there's going to be nuances and changes but in general, if you exceed most of these thresholds for economic nexus or notice in reporting basically the expectation is you go out, you register now, and you start collecting forward. And there's no … depending on the state but for most states, there's no real risk of you owing money or have not done whatever in the past, you can go forward. But when you have physical nexus because of Amazon FBA or a 3PL then you need to consider if you register and collect going forward where you still have a risk of any previous outstanding liability which I know within a sale you're very aware of to make sure you know both the seller and the buyer are aware of any business liabilities or do you go back in time and pay anything that you didn't collect in the past; which isn't fun. Collecting sales tax or paying in sales tax you didn't collect from the consumer on each individual sale. Joe: Yeah because that's directly coming out of your profits now instead of collecting and just passing it through. Scott: Yup. Joe: Okay, so let's jump to making this easy for people that are listening. The bottom line is that they need to start collecting sales taxes and remitting them. Obviously, get registered to collect sales taxes. There're software out there that does this right? Because you're talking about you need to do this, you need to do that, and for me as a former physical products e-commerce seller, my eyes would roll into the back of my head, I would [inaudible 00:15:15.0] more and I'd never wake up again. Can't … Can I just pay somebody to do this for me and if yes what are the options and how much would it cost me annually or monthly? Scott: Well the first part, so you don't pull out your own hair, is there are multiple services out there that will help you with the registrations and register you in multiple states because it will drive you crazy. Every state is a little bit different. On average I'll pay about $100 per registration plus $20 to $50 in registration fee for some states, that's the first piece. So if you've decided to register in two, five, ten, whatever number of states you need to get registered first and I suggest … it'll just drive you crazy, is would be to get registered and there are a number of services out there that can do that for you. Joe: Okay and we'll put those in the show notes but why Scott only five or ten whatever you decide to get registered? And why wouldn't you register for every state that requires you to collect sales taxes? I guess maybe because you never sell any … somebody in the state of- Scott: So one it's just that overhead in the cost of doing business. So the first thing there are 45 states that have a sales tax and we are all heading sometime … I would have said three to five plus years that we're going to collect sales tax on every e-commerce sale, it's now probably two to four years or two to three years. It's going to happen a lot faster but there is a cost even on the low cost tool or outsourcing it … and I'll talk about some of those numbers in a minute, but you really only at this point want to register for sales tax where you have to. You shouldn't have to if … now if you're already a 20 or 30 million dollars e-commerce business just suck it up and go to all 45. Joe: Right. Scott: Anybody else below there, you're paying more money for compliance and tools and registrations. And in some of these states when you register for sales tax nexus you are in some ways volunteering to pay income tax. Potentially depending on the state and the situation; minimum franchise tax like in California which is $800 a year, and then additional fees, and not only the sales tax cost but paying a CPA to file and deal with franchise tax returns and income tax returns. So you want to as a small business or even a medium sized business minimize that overhead and only do this in the states you need to but you definitely want to start the big states where the population are. California, Florida, Texas, and those other bigger ones is the basics to get that going but you would want an easier way in. So figure it out for the first batch that you're doing and then do another batch and another batch. So you just can't stop your whole business to do sales tax and you just have to balance those things out. But at the same time, you don't want to show this huge [inaudible 00:17:52.3] selling and talking to Quiet Light. This huge compliance overhead and its overkill and it's going impact your own profitability and the money you're taking out of the business. So just want to find a balanced approach as you get there. Joe: How do you determine that? Is there a tool or process inside of Shopify or if you're an Amazon Seller that tells you that you know what sales you have by state? Scott: Yeah so there are two … for sales price there's a couple of ways to do it. So the first if you're an Amazon FBA seller there's a great tool called wherestock.com you pay him $30 and they'll log in … we'll get you the link, and they'll connect your Amazon site and they'll … it'll take them about a day and they'll give you a report showing you all the warehouses where you have inventory and when it started. How far back in time if you had inventory in the Michigan warehouse and if you go through that list and you don't see North Carolina or some states because of the type of your products it'll tell you, you might have had or five of these main states that you've never had inventory in and you don't have nexus there; which is great news. The next piece is really a matter of downloading all of your orders out of Shopify for the previous 12 months or the last year and then just pivoting the data or doing a total if you know how in Excel to show you your sales; both the number of sales in each state and the total dollar volume in each state. So you want to know your own numbers and any that you're over $100,000 in sales or unfortunately $10,000 in Washington State, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma starting on Sunday I think. I think it just started Sunday. I think it was July first and it's happened right before it. Those are $10,000 in sales which is really low, everybody else is 100,000. So that'll … you'll go through those states and add up the ones that you have, look at the ones that you have the most amount of sales and income in and start with those. You want to know your own numbers and work through your own list. The other option is and I can provide a link to our tax calculator that we have in there … bunch of other people putting them out there that basically take your average sale amount enter it and it will total all those things up. But those are the two things; one, all of your income across all of your sales and then this Amazon wherestock report to let you know what's going on in FBA and that'll be in your information and then you just build a list and you work your way through your own priorities on how many you want to do; all at once or a few at a time. Joe: Okay so just to dumb it down a little bit. If you're doing 20, 30 million dollars just suck it up and do all 45 states. But if you're doing maybe just a million dollars in revenue, which is fantastic, do this report because you don't want to have to register in 23 states that instead of all 45 if you don't have to. Scott: Right. Joe: Someone else talked about it in this way. I mean that registration alone is going to cost you $100 to $150 so maybe $3,000 or so for 23 states that you don't have to register in. But if you're only doing $1,000, $2,000, $3,000 in revenue in the state of Montana it doesn't make any sense to register because a. you're not going to hit that threshold and b. realistically Scott is if someone in the state of Montana that works in- Scott: Montana is a bad example they're not on sales tax. Joe: Okay. Scott: So pick one of the few states that doesn't have one but Nevada or however else- Joe: How about Maine? Scott: So it's always a risk man, your question is so should you or not you … are you going to, can you fly under the radar- Joe: Yeah. Scott: Are they going to find you tomorrow and what's going on? So it's a risk management decision between the cost of compliance to your business versus the overhead and the cost of compliance and then the chance of being caught. There are four million Amazon sellers, there's between five and ten million businesses doing e-commerce these days. The states just had their handcuffs taken off and they're all going to go woohoo let's go get this money from out of state sellers. It's going to take them a while to ramp up and the chances of getting caught are very very low and they have been low and they're still very very low okay? But there isn't really no ambiguity now; there's no more well, maybe, or there's this court case, or whatever else. Joe: Right. Scott: So until now and whenever possibly the Congress does something or more lawsuits happen which take time this is the way things are today and you just have to make that decision of a risk management. So you never want to mess around with the IRS when it comes to payroll taxes or W-9s and contractors but for sales tax, you're going to have to balance those out. But the chance of being audited or being notified by the state is significantly higher than it's ever been in the past. Joe: Okay let's talk about the services that are out there; as in the software or services that you recommend for listeners just … you can do your download calculator that I'm going to provide in the show notes to determine the revenue by state and things of that nature to decide where they want to register. But what softwares or service programs do you recommend that folks check out that you have seen people use consistently that make this a whole lot easier? Scott: Yeah for people doing it themselves I would start with TaxJar it's by far the easiest to use most straightforward they … not only do they pull in all the data but they process the filing for sales tax and the payments in all 50 states. It's both the easiest and I, from what I've seen the lowest cost. They're a great tool. They have a great blog and a ton of information and support and it's the best way to do it yourself. The next one that's a little more powerful- Joe: Hold on a second. Scott: Yeah? Joe: In terms of a TaxJar thorough cost ballpark if someone's to put in all the states what would the overall cost be to … and do they do registration or just compliance? Scott: Okay so TaxJar does not do registrations. Joe: Okay. Scott: It's only the sales tax data aggregation to pull it all together from channels. Pull everything together. One note is if you have sales that are outside of Amazon, Shopify, or BigCommerce you have to import that data into TaxJar so that you have the complete thing. From all the sales so your filings are accurate. But in general, you're going to pay a monthly fee between I think 29 and up to 500 depending on the number of sales. Whether it's a thousand per month, 5,000 you know … in larger apps you're going to pay a base monthly fee no matter what; totally reasonable wherever your SaaS thing. And then you're going to pay a per-filing transaction. So if you're paying filing quarterly you're going to pay four times somewhere between $21 and $30 per filing. I don't have their pricing memorized. Joe: Sure. Scott: So if you're filing quarterly your costs are going to be lower. If you're filing annually it's going to be these monthly fees. So if you're a smaller seller the pricing can work out to be fairly affordable. They also have kind of an unlimited filing piece so if you get over a certain level … and I haven't done the math whether it's 20 states or 30 states but there's a certain point where you can pay it for kind of an unlimited plan and get to a max price. I think that's in the 4 to $6,000 for the year kind of total. But you can using that tool max that out and really lock that compliance cost in. Not counting your time making sure it's being done right. Importing data, dealing with notices, and just making … keeping an eye on it, it's not a set and forget process. Joe: So, on the high side it sounds like maybe $500 a month and your maxing out the services there, on the low side $29 a month so it all depends upon the size of the seller and how much you do. Okay, you are about to mention another- Scott: So the next one I would say is Taxify and that's what we use because we're doing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of returns every month. It's a little more powerful in certain ways. They have integrations. It can handle a wider range of different businesses and there's … it's just they're really kind of head to head but for DIY most people go with TaxJar just because it's easier to use. TaxJar is more powerful if you have a more complex business. You might want to consider it or compare the two. Pricing is pretty similar between those two and- Joe: Those using TaxJar you said TaxJar, not Taxify. Scott: No we're using Taxify. We are using Taxify. Our accounting practice for us to file we use Taxify but I've known the TaxJar guys for six years now and they really do have a great solution. And any of our stuff we talk about those two is really the primary ones to consider third one is- Joe: Hold on I want to just interrupt again sorry. On this option, you're saying you already use it which means that with your accounting services for sellers of a certain size I assume, the collection, the management, and remittance of the sales taxes are part of your services as well. Scott: Correct. Joe: So I don't have to learn the software, I can hire you guys to do it. Scott: Correct. Joe: Okay. Scott: Well and I'll talk about some other … outsourcing is absolutely a viable, just like you outsource fulfillment to a 3PL or to Amazon FBA, sales tax is something you don't want to geek out on. I've done it for the last six years, it drives me crazy but I geek out on it. It just … it will distract you from listing products and buying products and designing new products and all the front end stuff to generate more income. That is absolutely something you want to … you might like that we look at here's how you do it yourself and you should understand anything you outsource but we do that. We offer the service but we also do notice management. The states send all kinds of notices. Even if you pay on time they'll send you a notice but if you don't respond to the notice they'll fine you for not responding to the notice. So there's more to it than just a set and forget tools. These tools are phenomenal as they deal with the complexity. Because every return is different, they have 50 different fields. They really aggregate the data and reduce the complexity of filing and paying which is awesome which is why we use automation. But then there's there is more to it. Joe: Okay, you're about to mention a third option for folks. Scott: Yeah third option is Avalara TrustFile. Now if you really are already a 20 or 30 … so Avalara has two products, they have a smaller and a lower end one which I don't think is as powerful as TaxJar or Taxify called TrustFile which you can use. They've cleaned up their pricing but it's still a little confusing but they're a viable tool. If you're already let's say five or really 10 million and you're doing more than just e-commerce you can consider Avalara AvaTax which is their higher end tool which will give you more control automated. If you have an accounting department it is definitely a tool you would consider. Quite a few CPA's and accountants use AvaTax as well to do more complex larger sales tax across multiple businesses. So those are really the key players, there are other smaller players out there but those are really the key players that are really focused and understand what's going on out there. Joe: Okay. I was listening to your better half Patti on your YouTube channel. She does a great job, by the way, great Q and A's there. I think she mentioned SALT experts and what they do and what not. Can you define what a SALT expert is and why someone listening might want to consult with one of them? Scott: Absolutely so a SALT; Sales And Local Tax expert, these are people that will do one, they can do a nexus study which tells you where you have nexus and it'll tell you whether your products are taxable or not, are they a food, are they a candy, do they have flour in them, are they clothing or … they can go look at all that. You can all interpret what the states say but these are people that do it all the time and will contact the state anonymously or you. The next thing they will do is what's called a voluntary disclosure agreement. If you owe a state tens of thousands of dollars of back tax and you want to come clean because you want to clear out your liability to sell your business and just make sure everything's done right, they'll go to the states anonymously and say I have this seller and they'll represent you. And in some cases get penalties, sometimes interests, and can potentially get a payment plan if you're cleaning up historical sales tax. And you want that person representing you a SALT expert, not your CPA. Unless they've done it multiple times in their own state you really want to talk to someone that's an expert. They're the people you want to call if you're audited to represent you and help you get through an audit. So those are the unique things we haven't talked about but the main thing is you can outsource your sales tax compliance to them. They will do the registrations and most in almost every case they will set things up. Most of them are very technical … in our case we at Catching Clouds we're really great at setting up Shopify to collect sales tax right and Amazon and eBay and in the more technical configurations. So we're very technical accountancy but they will help advise you on those things. They're all over it. They talk to me about the technical stuff, we're really good friends. It's a great community. I'll try to just solve this for sellers but then you can pay them a monthly fee or a per-state fee to take care of the data collection which you have to give them. The filing, the payments, notices, and kind of provide a complete service to outsource your sales tax. You can go to one person, pay them to take care all of your sales tax that's going on and advise you and then they're the ones that are keeping tabs on all the changes that happen every week; every month if that's the route you want to go. Which is a good way to go, in general, I'll give you a safe number, you really want to budget at least $50 per state per month. So you're looking at between $600 and $1,000 per year for this to not be an issue to worry about but you need to budget the right amount. Plus you want to have that same space because everyone's … Arizona's awful that they'll come back the second year and hit you with hundreds of dollars additional fees per county and everything else that you didn't count on and you can't get around and they'll deal with these random issues. Joe: Okay, great. I have a list of those from your website for those listening again in the show notes SALT experts will be available. Sounds like a one stop shopping place to go and just outsource all of this. Of course, some people that want to do the work themselves will have those calculators that you talked about there as well Scott and the links to the Taxify and TaxJar and Avalara. A couple of quick questions before we wrap this up, and maybe they're not quick questions but historically when someone sells their website … their physical e-commerce business in this case, the question of liability for past sales taxes that should have collected is really really gray, right? Scott: Yeah it is. Joe: And only once for those listening how do you solve that problem as a buyer? In most cases, most buyers don't worry about it. They really never have and these are people that are a lot smarter than you and I combined. They don't worry about it; pretty high level folks. In one case I had and think about this as a seller, I had someone that it was … the business sale total value was around $758,000 but they did the math and they said look in the 24 months that you've been around you should have collected X amount of sales taxes and let's call it $50,000 in that purchase price, in that $750,000 in the asset purchase agreement $50,000 was set aside in Escrow for potential sales tax liability purposes. And when the buyer went out to register to get their sales tax in the state of California, Texas, whatever if that state said yes, of course, we'll register you but we know that you owe us from this brand, you didn't own the company but from this brand you owe us $17,000 then that money would have come out of that 50,000. For the record, the buyer was able to register in all the states that he wanted to register and not a single state said okay great but you owe us money hence all 50,000 was released. How does this Supreme Court decision in economic nexus change that liability moving forward for the buyers of these businesses? Scott: I don't think it … I think it only increases the chance of the state contacting you and having to either answer the questions or go through an audit and all of these things are moot until you're actually audited. And you're at that point where you're dealing with an auditor and then then they ask for historical records and financials and everything else. Up until then, it's not really an issue. Unfortunately, though it's the decision of that state; are they going to hold the new business and whoever bought that Amazon seller account? They want to attach the liability to the Amazon account where it was being sold that you buy a continuing Amazon account which is what most people do or is it tied to the prior business and the business owner? The people selling you need to be concerned when you get that big chat to set some of this money aside if the states come after you historically because if you've spent it all, it really … in most cases tends to tie to the original business owner of the business. So I would say that there's … it's really if you're buying [inaudible 00:34:44.4] sale you have to be worried about it more than anything else. If it's an asset sale you're buying this asset, starting a new business, you've got to register fresh and move forward. There's a small risk but only after you've been audited. So it's just a couple of nuances there. Joe: So very very small risk and only after you're audited and the odds of being audited again, incredibly small. Scott: Correct. Joe: Okay. Let's talk about those out there that are wholesaling. They're buying products and wholesaling them, they don't have to collect these sales taxes is that correct? Scott: They don't but you have to follow the rules. The first is and what really does this finding really change is instead of collecting tax exemptions certificates; so for every B2B sale you have to get a tax exemption certificate and it's not just a picture of the sales tax license on the wall of someone's cell phone. You have to have something that has your business name on the top that other companies who you sold it to their tax licenses whether it's one state or multiple states. And it doesn't matter which states they are and an owner or a business manager an approved person of that company signing at the bottom saying they're responsible for the sales tax. Okay? Joe: Is it on a form? Is it an official form that they would fill out? Scott: There's a form per state and there's a great multi-state form. I can get you all of the links and if you want to have a process that you have them and keep in mind that they pretty … a lot of them expire every year. So you want to have all of these forms from your five or 10 or 50 or 500 B2B customers on file. And if you get audited by any given state then you need … then you have these to say hey I didn't have to collect sales tax but if you don't have the forms or they're expired or you're missing them that … then they can say all of that was taxable and you owe the sales tax. Even if the other company sold it and collected sales tax they can double dip and come after the information. What this decision really changed was two things related to B2B sellers. But first, as most people tend to collect tax exemption certificates for their own states where they're filing where they would expect their own business to get audited. Now that it's kind of every state can look at all this information, B2B sellers should start collecting tax exemption certificates on every sale. And if you have your top five or ten B2B customers, go back and get them from those ones and … to make sure you've got this filed. And then just set it aside in case you're audited. The second big impact of this for B2B sellers is now your B2B sales, number of transactions, and dollars volume count towards these economic nexus thresholds. It's all of your sales. It's your B2C sales and B2B. And even if you're 100% B2B and you have no tax you're still going to cross this threshold. And the states are still going to expect you to file a return. And it is going to cost you the same amount in compliance for you as it does. Even if you give them no money like every number is zero. Joe: That's really important for people that are doing both B2C and B2B. I was thinking just wholesale B2B but we have a lot of clients that they'll sell to let's say for instance chewy.com they're selling their own website but they wholesale to Chewy. They need to pay attention to this stuff as well. That's great information. Scott: It's all of their sales. It combines both and it's looking at all of your sales. Because what the really the states are doing and all these laws are meant to do is to get to the point where every transaction is taxed and they get a sales tax from every sale. That's what they're trying to do so pretty much most of the pain goes away if you register and collect in a state. You don't have to worry about different fines and fees or other unknowns, you can start defining your cost of compliance but that's really where we're going. Joe: Okay. Do you think this Supreme Court decision is good or bad? Overall for the individual states that are going to be applied this collect and collect is what I'm saying. Scott: I think it's bad for e-commerce sellers. I really do. The compliance costs just went from an unknown maybe I can avoid them to … and we're heading that way so I think it's bad for e-commerce sellers. Of course, it is great for the state bureaucracies that are going to go out and collect a bunch of money from other states until something else changes to back it down. I think it's going to increase the risk for smaller sellers and even mid-range sellers of having more unknown's that could impact your business. From us, as consumers, we're really getting to the point as a company … a country since we're so consumer based, it's all about products and services and things along those lines that we're really heading to the point where we're going to pay a sales tax on everything. It's just that the cost and the complexity and potential risks to all small businesses, not just e-commerce businesses, anybody that has a product and ships it out of state or does anything else now has to be concerned about that much more in running a business that you know e-commerce businesses are 24/7, running really fast, the rules are constantly changing, you just didn't need this additional in my opinion large overhead of cost of doing business to really impact them. Joe: Right at the end of the day hopefully it would be great for states and the roads and highways and schools in the state in which you live. But for now, it's a major complexity that you as an e-commerce owner have to deal with. Scott, as always you're fantastic. These details are great … for me personally they're overwhelming many times but that's the point of the show notes and simplifying it and really … perhaps hiring that SALT expert to do the vast majority of this work for those listening that choose to go that route. Scott before we depart any last thoughts or recommendations for people that are listening; both buyers and sellers? Scott: Yeah. Just take a deep breath plan out time once a month or a quarter to focus in on this. Add up your numbers, decide your risk tolerance, and then move on. And then don't worry about it for that month or quarter. And then when you decide to do it, think about what it is you're doing and make a decision and move on. You don't have to stop all your business or sales or everything else. Just take a practical approach. This is one more thing that has to be on your regular process; like checking your insurance or other things that you're validating. And just keep moving; keep selling and growing. Balance the risk and then just move on. Joe: That's great thanks, Scott. As always appreciate it look forward to seeing you at the next event and hopefully lots of folks will reach out to you here. And be at peace of mind here with what you've shared. Thanks so much, Scott. Scott: Well, thank you. Links: Catching Clouds eCommerce Accounting Patti's Q&A about Sales Taxes and the new SCOTUS Ruling Catching Clouds Academy Fox News Supreme Court sales tax ruling: The winners and losers MSNBC Supreme Court Rules States Can Require Shoppers To Pay Online Sales Tax Internet Sales Tax | What Online Retailers Need to Know Sales Tax Nexus Threshold Calculator Sales Tax Permitting with SalesPermitted.com Get your FBA stock locations summarized and delivered to your inbox. Sales and Local Tax (SALT) Experts – Outsource Everything Cathie Stanton and Lauren Stinson, Cherry Bekaert ► http://cherrybekaertsalestax.com/ Michael Fleming ► www.salestaxandmore.com ► https://www.salestaxandmore.com/chart… Diane Yetter ► www.salestaxinstitute.com ► https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/res… SaaS Sales Tax Apps: TaxJar ► https://www.taxjar.com/ Taxify ► https://taxify.co/ Avalara ► https://www.avalara.com/us/en/index.html

On June 21, 2018, the supreme court sided with the state of South Dakota in their suit against Wayfair. On the surface, it appears to be a fair ruling.  But for small online businesses, it is not that simple There are over 12,000+ sales tax jurisdictions in the United States, and that should leave you concerned about your business. So join Kristin Ingram, CPA, MSAT and Jeffery Ingram as the discuss the potential impact of the ruling on your small business.  For complete show notes check out the podcast on @ smallbiz.life/146 SOUTH DAKOTA v. WAYFAIR, INC., ET AL. Sales Tax Nexus risk after the Wayfair Case Types of nexus Links ((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Visit Show notes ))))))))))))))))))))))))) http://smallbiz.life/146   ((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Mentions links ))))))))))))))))))))))))) SOUTH DAKOTA v. WAYFAIR, INC., ET AL. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-494_j4el.pdf Sales Tax Nexus risk after the Wayfair Case https://www.salestaxinstitute.com/sales_tax_faqs/what_is_nexus   ((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Rate and Review us in iTunes ))))))))))))))))))))))))) https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/small-biz-life/id1039595496 Small Biz Life Podcast   ((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Like our Facebook Page ))))))))))))))))))))))))) https://www.facebook.com/smallbizlifepodcast/   ((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Join our Facebook Group ))))))))))))))))))))))))) https://www.facebook.com/groups/SmallBizLife/   ((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Twitter  ))))))))))))))))))))))))) https://twitter.com/JefferyWIngram https://twitter.com/KristinLIngram https://twitter.com/SBLPodcast   ((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Affiliate Mentions links )))))))))))))))))))))))))   TaxJar https://www.taxjar.com/?rfsn=1495821.f3c4e9

Hey guys! Here is my motivational quote for the week:  "When you're no longer willing to tolerate something, that's when your life changes" In this episode I talk about the new tax ruling that has come through and below is a link to an article from TaxJar that tries to decipher what this new ruling means: A Sales Tax Expert Weighs In on the South Dakota Supreme Court Ruling Also another update on the review situation and suspensions, below is a great article from my friends over at Viral Launch where they talk about some of the changes they've seen including over 1 million reviews being removed in the month of May!!! Check out the article here. Be safe out there! 

Jennifer Dunn is our guest today. Jennifer works at TaxJar, a company that helps you track and automate the process of filing sales tax payments for your physical products. There's an important deadline coming up about sales tax and you'll want to hear this conversation before the deadline passes. You can read the show notes and look at the resources mentioned in this episode by clicking here. Also, if you'd like to get more reviews for your products on Amazon check out Salesbacker.

We sit down with Mark Faggiano to discuss how he scaled his SaaS business TaxJar to more than 9,000 customers.

  Amazon lost over $8Bn on Shipping last year, Chances are if you're doing anything off Amazon you are wasting loads of shipping costs, Good news is I have a solution, Tune in to Find out! What is AiHello? What is the Benefit of AiHello? How can AiHello help you lower your shipping costs by at least 10%? How you can out price your competitors due to the margins of saving on Shipping?   Useful Links Make sure to stay on top of US taxes and save countless hours with Taxjar, Sign up today! Sign up today to AiHello for $10 per month for Limited Time! Take control of your cash flows before the Q4 rush.  Sign up for Payability today and get your Amazon payouts next-day, every day instead of waiting weeks for your money.  Sign up here! Join the fbaallstars Facebook group to Network with over 6300 Amazon Sellers to figure out how to dominate Amazon! Need Help Growing Your Brand? Today's Sponsor GlobalAMZ helps consumer brands scale and expand on Amazon, at home and internationally to build your brand big time without the work. The post How Can AiHello Save you at Least 10% on Shipping Costs off Amazon and AiHello can Give you the Competitive Edge over Competitors ALL-166 appeared first on FBA Allstars.

Today, on the Early-Stage Founder Show, I'm talking with Mark Faggiano, the founder and CEO at TaxJar, a SaaS startup that automates your sales tax calculations, reporting, and filings in minutes so you can spend time on your business. As a startup founder you need to be versatile and prepared to wear dozens of different hats in order to get things done, but if you let the company itself get pulled in too many directions, it's going to be hard to make progress. In our chat, Mark dives into the importance of focus in early-stage startups, how their own focus has given them a competitive advantage, and how you can figure out what really matters in your startup. If you feel like there are dozens of paths you could take but are unsure what one is best, then this is the episode for you.

In episode 11, I interview CEO Mark Faggiano of Taxjar who breaks down who needs to pay sales tax, when you may need to pay sales tax and then lastly Mark presents the Taxjar solution. A hassle free solution that allows sellers to take US sales tax compliance off their plate and onto Taxjar's plate without it costing an arm and a leg. Better still, Taxjar even provides an accuracy guarantee to keep you getting fined or out of jail!! Gain your exclusive 10% discount when you sign up to Taxjar using my affiliate link AND use the discount code “BUSINESSHACKER”.

  It’s nearing the end of the year and most sellers are so busy preparing for a great fourth quarter that they aren’t thinking a bit about preparing for tax season. That’s pretty normal but could be a mistake. You’ve got to begin thinking through your tax liability a long time before tax season comes. That’s why Scott is doing this episode with his friend and business accountant, Josh Bauerle. Josh works with lots of online entrepreneurs and Amazon sellers and has a great deal of experience dealing with the tax implications of those kinds of businesses. You’re going to learn some great things from Josh on this episode so make sure you carve out the time to listen and get yourself ready for tax season. One of the biggest tax mistakes Amazon sellers make has to do with inventory. As a seller of online products you naturally have inventory. Inventory is the products you purchase to resell through your online platforms. You can write off your inventory when it comes to taxes - BUT inventory for tax purposes is NOT what you might think it is. You’ve got to know what the IRS considers to be inventory, how it handles these things, and how it requires you to keep your inventory records. Josh Bauerle is an expert on these things and he’s got a very clear explanation of how you need to handle your inventory issues - and he shares it on this episode. Sales tax is a real headache for eCommerce sellers. Do you know how to handle it? Every person or company who sells products online is liable for sales tax on those products. It's not only a federal issue, it also varies with each state in which the products are sold. If you spend even a small amount of time thinking about that you’ll realize that the potential sales tax liability for an Amazon private label seller can get pretty heavy, pretty quickly. And on top of all that, every state handles the rules differently. You’ve got to get this one figured out though - it could make or break your business. CPA Josh Bauerle is Scott’s guest on this episode and he’s got lots of wisdom for you regarding taxes and tax liability. Why it’s legally vital for you to keep business funds separate from personal funds. Many people start out in business flying by the seat of their pants. Every business expense and every personal expense seem to be the same thing because they are living off of the money they make from the business. But today’s guest, Josh Bauerle is a CPA who has worked with business people for a long time and he’s got some horror stories about the kind of things that can happen when you co-mingle your personal and business expenses. On this episode, he highlights the reasons you need to keep those funds separate and how you can easily track and coordinate them to keep you out of tax trouble. This section alone is worth the time it will take you to listen. Are you getting all the business tax deductions that are rightfully yours? When you start a business of any kind you’re going to spend money for a variety of things that go into the operation of your business. From office supplies, to educational resources, to trips, you can legally and ethically write off many of the expenses you have in order to decrease your tax liability. But there are guidelines for how you do it that you have to understand so that you don’t get yourself in trouble with the IRS. Find out how to do tax deductions the right way from Josh Bauerle, CPA on fire, on this episode of The Amazing Seller. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast with Josh Bauerle. [4:00] Josh’s experience with Amazon clients so far. [6:15] How you should track inventory for tax purposes. [11:18] The variety of business entity options you could form for your business. [16:30] The essential nature of using a separate checking account for your business. [20:00] The tax advantages of forming an S-corp. [25:50] What is sales tax and why it’s a mess for Amazon sellers. [33:30] The tax breaks that come through business deductions. [42:00] Why bookkeeping is vitally important for eCommerce sellers. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE www.CPAOnFire.com - Josh’s company website. www.TheAmazingSeller.com/143 AND www.TheAmazingSeller.com/241 - episodes where Josh was featured in the past. www.TheAmazingSeller.com/257 - episode about sales tax. www.TaxJar.com www.JungleScout.com Quickbooks Xero Wav Apps Freshbooks

So many people are having such great success selling private label products on the Amazon platform through FBA that it’s not too far of a stretch to think that some of them may be interested in selling their business. You may not be thinking about that possibility now but the opportunity may come your way someday. That’s why Scott wanted to have someone on the show who is experienced at buying and selling online businesses who could shed some light on what can be done ahead of time to ensure that should the time come that you want to sell your business, you’ll be able to do it with the least amount of trouble and the greatest amount of profit. You can hear more about this exciting possibility on this episode of The Amazing Seller. If you do the right thing by your customer, you won’t have any problems. Too often businesses are built on the strategy of doing everything possible to take advantage of the loopholes in a sales platform’s terms of service. The practice may result in huge profits in a short amount of time but as soon as the platform learns that sellers are abusing the system you can be sure that changes will be made and those businesses will be dramatically hurt, and possibly kicked off of the platform. Today’s guest has tons of experience buying and selling e-commerce businesses and his advice is simple: Do the right thing by your customers and you’ll be OK when it comes to surviving whatever changes do come. You can hear more sage advice like this on this episode. Set up good clean financials to sell your business more easily and get more offers. Many entrepreneurs start out doing whatever it takes to make a buck. They may set up one umbrella LLC or Corporation and run all the finances for many smaller business ventures through that one entity. That’s OK at first. It’s entirely legal and most people have to do that to get started. But if you ever want to sell one of those businesses you’re going to discover that there will be fewer buyers interested because you won’t be able to clearly demonstrate the profits of that business on its own. So today’s guest has some tips on how to set up good clean financials for your business so that you can be ready to sell it easily and for more when the time comes. A business that is successful both on and off of Amazon sells faster and for more. If you’re considering the sale of your Amazon private label business it’s entirely possible. But will you get top dollar? You won’t if your business is only selling on Amazon. A potential buyer will be more averse to buying your business if you are selling your products on only one platform because if something on that platform changes in a way that adversely impacts your business, their revenue stream could dry up if they were to buy your business. But if the risk is spread out over many sales channels, they’ll be more open to considering your business. On this episode of the podcast, you’re going to learn how important it is to start building those sales funnels and establishing an off-Amazon presence for the sake of selling your business in the future, on this episode. Buying an existing business can be a very good investment. There’s so much emphasis these days on building a great online business, and it’s a great strategy for many people. But what if you’re a person who doesn’t really want to go through the hassle and hard work of building a business from the ground up but would be open to buying an existing business and growing it? That’s a great strategy, one that today’s guest sees implemented all the time. If you’ve got money to invest in a business and are curious how it works you can learn a lot from Scott’s guest today, so be sure you listen. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER   [0:03] Scott’s introduction to the podcast! [4:23] How Joe developed his expertise selling online businesses. [5:36] How updates on web platforms can impact ecommerce businesses. [10:22] How often do people sell FBA businesses? Is it possible? [12:50] How to set up a business so it’s easier to sell in the future. [17:00] Why a business that is both on and off of Amazon sells faster and for more. [21:48] How do sales funnels and traffic generation figure into the sale of a business. [26:43] How Joe’s company specializes in buying and selling businesses. [29:40] The price ranges of investors Joe’s company deals with. [32:35] What is the #1 thing people starting a business do wrong when selling. [36:40] Why it’s vital to keep track of inventory to get the best value from your business. RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Joe’s business: www.QuietLightBrokerage.com - Get Joe’s free ebook. Centurica www.TaxJar.com

One of the most unaddressed and confusing issues when it comes to selling any kind of products online is the collection of sales tax. One of the reasons it can be so confusing is because every State has its own set of regulations surrounding sales tax as well as its own process business owners need to go through in order to register and pay their taxes. That description alone should show you how difficult it is to remain in compliance. State sales tax issues are one of the most frequently asked questions Scott receives so he decided it was time to get someone on the show who could answer the basic questions about sales tax. That someone is Mark Faggiano of Taxjar. You can hear their conversation on this episode. I have to collect State sales tax? Really? Sometimes the fact that the internet is worldwide makes it seem like State and National jurisdictions don’t apply to what goes on, on the World Wide Web. But the fact is that when a product is purchased that transaction is taking place in a particular place. In other words, the purchaser is sitting at a computer or other device within a specific jurisdiction. It makes sense that States would want to collect sales tax when that happens. So yes, as a seller of products you really do need to be collecting sales tax with each product you sell. But how do you do it? That’s what this episode of The Amazing Seller is all about, so be sure you listen. As an Amazon seller, what States do you need to collect sales tax for? When it comes to knowing what States you should collect sales tax for it comes down to a couple of issues. First is the issue of “nexus.” Nexus refers to the place where you as a business are actually doing business. The most obvious qualification for where your business nexus is located, is the State in which you reside and do your work. But what if you have employees in a different state, or a warehouse in yet another State? And what if Amazon is warehousing your products in a number of States? As you can see, it gets very complicated. But Mark Faggiano from Taxjar is on the show to help us sort it all out. He’s Scott’s guest on this episode. Do I really need to register with a state to pay a very small amount of sales tax? What if you discover that you’ve sold enough products in a particular state - let’s say Maine - to owe $15 in tax to the State of Maine. Does that mean that you should register with the State of Maine so you can fork over that $15? Technically, probably so. But there’s another way to look at it that most people who do product sales for a living feel is safe and ethical. You can hear abou the varying approaches to the issue on this episode as well as hear all of them explained in detail. What are you waiting for? You should listen to this one. What if I had lots of sales in the past and never collected sales tax at all? It’s entirely possible that many people who sell products on Amazon - either private lable or retail arbitrage - are just now hearing about the possibility that they may owe sales tax to various States. If that’s you, here’s something important you should consider. What kind of sales volume have you done in various states in the past? That may impact whether you should be concerned about the issue or not. But at the very least it’s an issue you should look into because of the possibility that a given State may decide to audit you to come after their Sales tax money - and that could be even more costly than paying the tax of your own accord. Find out how you should think through the issues on this episode. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode and his guest, Mark Faggiano of TaxJar! [1:14] How Scott came to do this episode in the first place. [3:29] How Mark got into the business of dealing with sales taxes. [6:03] What is meant by “nexus?” [10:37] How do product sales impact the States I collect tax in? [12:44] Can you limit where Amazon moves your product inventory? [15:00] The 2 camps sellers tend to fall into when it comes to State sales tax compliance. [19:30] Does Amazon send State sales tax on my behalf as a seller? [21:57] How many States does Amazon have warehouses in? [23:42] How Taxjar helps sellers keep track of their tax liabilities. [25:41] Stories of Amazon sellers who are being audited for sales tax issues. [28:10] What’s the easiest way to register in various States? [30:44] The first steps for brand new Amazon sellers. [32:32] How you can get your tax data for free from Taxjar. [33:25] How to deal with past sales on which you may owe tax. RESOURCES MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE: www.TheAmazingSeller.com/TaxJar (affiliate link) TaxJar blog Support (at) taxjar (dot) com

Running a business is complicated in and of itself. There are all kinds of things you have to keep track of including taxes. There are many common mistakes made when it comes to taxes and on this episode of the podcast, Scott is talking with his friend Josh about the common questions that come to him when it comes to business text questions. Being a CPA, Josh has the actual answers you need in order to do things legally and ethically. You can hear all of these common questions and their answers on this episode of the podcast. Are you calculating your product inventory the RIGHT way for tax purposes? Many people think that in order to calculate their taxes correctly when it comes to inventory they simply need to add up how much they have spent on products during the calendar year. Scott's guess today is a certified public accountant and he says that is actually not the right way to do it. You will find up providing wrong figures to the IRS if you do so, and you could be liable for a much larger payment, plus penalties by doing it. On this episode, you were going to learn the right way to calculate inventory for tax purposes. Is an IRS audit something you should be afraid of? When you hear the phrase, “tax audit” it may cause you to break out in a cold sweat. But do you really need to be so concerned? What is the likelihood that you were really going to be audited? And if you are, which kind of audit is it that you should be concerned about? And this great conversation with a certified public accountant you were going to hear about the different kinds of audits, what each of them really is about, and what you should do if you are audited. It's a great episode to dispel a lot of the myths that are floating around in the business community, so make sure you take the time to listen. What meals and entertainment are deductible? Many people who run a business have been told that they can deduct meals and entertainment that have to do with their business with no problem. But is that entirely true? When this episode of the podcast a certified public accountant is going to tell us that you actually only get to deduct 50% of your meals and entertainment, and you can only do that if those are directly related to a business activity of some kind. If you want to hear the full story on this important issue, make sure that you listen. It could save you a lot of money in the end. What business entity is best for your business? There's a good deal of confusion about which business entity you should choose for your business activity. Should you be a sole proprietor? What about an LLC? Or maybe an S corporation or C corporation? If you're confused by all of these possibilities you are not alone. On this episode of the podcast, you will hear the definitions of each of these, what their advantages are, and how you should go about choosing the one that is right for you and your business. This section of the podcast alone is worth the time it will take you to listen. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:09] Scott’s introduction to this episode! [3:19] How to deal with inventory as a business expense - the RIGHT way. [11:29] Turning common personal expenses into business deductions. [13:15] Home office space - how do you deduct it as a business expense? [16:14] When the IRS contacts you for an audit - how does it happen? [19:10] What meals and entertainment are deductible? [21:06] Bookkeeping issues: How should you keep your records? [25:41] A good rule of thumb for withholding federal taxes. [27:20] The various business entities you can do business as. [34:20] Can an S-corp be backdated to the beginning of your LLC creation? [38:40] The issue of sales tax: How should you handle it? RESOURCES MENTIONED ON THIS EPISODE www.TheAmazingSeller.com/ask www.TheAmazingSeller.com/143 - Previous episode with Josh www.CPAonFire.com - Josh’s business website Xero accounting software www.Quickbooks.com www.WaveApps.com www.Freshbooks.com Bench Bookkeeping Service www.MyWifeQuitHerJob.com www.TaxJar.com

This week Mark Faggiano from TaxJar talks with Shira Abel about how he sourced, hired and onboarded his remote team as well as how inbound has worked so well for TaxJar. Mark quit corporate life in 2000 and became an entrepreneur. Since then he's started 6 companies. Some have succeeded, some not so much. He's the CEO of @TaxJar now and it's a blast. He has an amazing team that's using technology to solve a super complex problem for ecommerce businesses. Shira Abel is the CEO and Lead Strategist at Hunter & Bard, an inbound marketing and branding agency. She is also Acting CMO of Cyara. Clients include: Totango, Cyara, Sarine Technologies, Pushbullet, AXA Tech, CloudEndure, AppsGeyser, Pitango VC, Chipolo, Allianz, and more. Creator and host of the SaaS Insider podcast. Creator of the Behavior Engineering Canvas. Mentor at 500 Startups. Former professor of Marketing for Startups at Tel Aviv-Jaffa Academic College. MBA from Kellogg School of Management. Loves family time, cooking, and travelling. Hates writing about herself in the third person.

It makes sense that when your Amazon business is up and running well, you may want to add a totally different brand or niche to your overall business strategy. There are so many opportunities that kind of approach can provide. When heading in that direction it might be tempting to open a second seller account with Amazon. Is it legal (with Amazon)? Should you do it? Scott’s got some very clear ideas about the subject and is eager to share them with you on this episode, so be sure you listen to get some perspective on whether or not it’s time for you to create a second seller account. Why do you want to open a second Amazon seller account? Many people who are successful at Amazon private label sales are entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurs are known for having tons of ideas bouncing around in their heads. One of the struggles every entrepreneur faces is keeping their own ambition and eagerness in check so that they don’t get too strung out. It may seem like a great idea to build a new brand but most people take that on far too soon. On this episode you’re going to hear Scott’s thoughts about why you should reconsider that choice and what things you can do instead to maximize your profitability and business. What are some of the hassles of opening a second Amazon seller account? When you open a second Amazon seller account you’re not breaking any rules. Amazon will let you do it, but they will want to see certain things in place. For example, you’ll be required to have a different business entity for that account than the one you have on your first account. You’ll also be required to provide different banking information. These are just two things you’ll have to restructure in order to open a second account - and there’s even more besides these. Scott’s going to walk you through every one of the things he can think of that makes it difficult to manage and deal with two brands and two Amazon accounts. It’s all on this episode so make sure you take the time to listen. Building out a product line instead of starting a brand new brand. Instead of building a second brand, what would happen if you totally maximized every opportunity you have in your current private label market? In Scott’s experience, most people who are selling on Amazon have not done their due diligence to build out their product line and opportunities to the greatest effect. They’re missing things like sales funnels, email lists, external sales channels, social promotions, and more. Where are you in the stages of building out your current product line? On this episode Scott will show you the kinds of things you need to consider when thinking through whether you should open a new Amazon seller account or not. Why an external sales channel is the next step for any Amazon business. Scott strongly believes that every Amazon private label seller should work hard to establish a sales channel outside of Amazon after sales on Amazon have become consistently successful. He subscribes to the idea that you should never put all of your business eggs in one basket - and though Amazon is a very LARGE basket, it’s still only one sales channel. On this episode Scott walks through the main ways that you can build your own sales machine independent of Amazon and tells you why you should focus your efforts there instead of building a second brand on Amazon. It’s a great summary for you to consider, on this episode. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:03] Scott’s introduction to this episode of the podcast! [4:03] Starting two differing brands - Is it time to take that leap? [9:00] Considerations when growing/scaling a business - multiple accounts. [14:32] 5 reasons to reconsider opening a second seller account. [18:06] The complications that come from a second brand as opposed to a broader existing market. [19:45] Why the next phase for any Amazon business is external sales channels. RESOURCES MENTIONED: www.TheAmazingSeller.com/workshop - Get into Scott’s next free, live workshop www.TheAmazingSeller.com/209 - The episode with Papa V Scott mentioned. www.TheAmazingSeller.com/live - Find out about the next TAS live event. www.TaxJar.com - sales tax info. www.Freshbooks.com www.QuickBooks.com www.Periscope.tv/ScottVoelker Join Scott on Periscope

If you’re an Amazon seller, either through Retail Arbitrage program or through private label products, you know how frustrating it can be when you hit a snag in your business and don’t feel that you have anywhere to turn. Wouldn’t it be great to have a “voice of experience” you could turn to who could guide you through the challenges? That’s EXACTLY what you get on these Friday episodes of the Amazing Seller. Scott Voelker does his “Ask Scott” session to field your questions about Amazon sales and the challenges of doing it right. If you want to submit your questions for Scott to answer on one of these Friday shows, you can find out how to do it on this episode. How can I improve my pay per click (PPC) campaign so it doesn’t cost so much? A listener to the Amazing Seller recently called in with a question about his pay per click campaigns. He’s at a point where 70% of his profits is being eaten up by the cost of paying for traffic through Amazon PPC. Something about it just doesn’t feel right and he wants to know what he’s doing wrong. On this episode Scott responds to his question with some insights about how you can modify your PPC campaigns over time to hone in on the exact keywords that are going to bring you the biggest bang for your buck. You can hear Scott’s response on this episode. What warehouse should I send my products to as an international seller? Anyone who sells private label products on Amazon Has the option of sending their products to various Amazon warehouses for the option of making sales in various countries. On this  episode of the podcast, an international seller calls with a question about where she should send her products to get the best sales. She's also concerned about the kinds of taxes she will have to pay if she is going to send her products to the United States. Make sure you tune in to listen to this episode where Scott replies to her question. Should I go after a product with lower margins but higher volume? Scott usually recommends that sellers look for products where they can make at least $10 of profit on each sale. But on this episode of the podcast listener calls in to ask whether it is worth it to sell products that only get $4 to $5 profit on each sale but has a very large volume of sales possible. You might think Scott would say to avoid that kind of product, but he actually says the exact opposite and gives you very clear reasons why he would go for it. You can hear his entire answer on this Ask Scott session of the podcast. How long does it take for products to rank to page 1 after an initial surge of sales? On today's episode of the podcast Scott reads A post from a member of his Facebook community, reporting how his product launch has gone. He had some great and initial sales and just looking forward to a very successful product line. But his product is still on page 8 of the Amazon search rankings. He is curious how long it takes for products to rank all the way to page one after an initial surge of sales like he is experienced. On this episode Scott gives some great insights about how products rank within the Amazon framework, and what you can do to boost your products toward the top. You won't want to miss this one. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:03] Scott’s introduction to the podcast! [1:47] How you can get in on Scott’s next live event. [3:29] QUESTION ONE: 70% of my revenue is going to PPC. What’s wrong with the way I’m doing it? [10:36] QUESTION TWO: I’m an international seller and I want to send from China to an Amazon warehouse. How do I choose the right location? [17:50] QUESTION THREE: Should I go after a product with lower margins but higher volume? [22:43] QUESTION FOUR: How long does it take to rank for your product after a surge of sales? RESOURCES MENTIONED: www.TheAmazingSeller.com/ask - Ask your own question. www.TheAmazingSeller.com/FB - join the TAS Facebook community www.TheAmazingSeller.com/live - get in on Scott’s next live event. www.TheAmazingSeller.com/resources - get the software resources mentioned. www.TaxJar.com - a tax service that could help with your selling. www.TheAmazingSeller.com/workshop - get into Scott’s free workshop.

Nexus, which is used to define your physical presence in a particular location, is important when calculating whether or not you should be collecting sales tax. To help clarify this confusing part of an online seller’s business, Danni is joined by TaxJar.com’s Chief of Content Jennifer Dunn. Other segments include Why Won’t They Buy, Hot […]

Nexus, which is used to define your physical presence in a particular location, is important when calculating whether or not you should be collecting sales tax. To help clarify this confusing part of an online seller’s business, Danni is joined by TaxJar.com’s Chief of Content Jennifer Dunn. Other segments include Why Won’t They Buy, Hot […]

There are so many people who are eager to get into Amazon Private Label sales, and they should because it’s a great platform to build a viable business that can support and even transform your lifestyle. But there are a handful of common mistakes that newbies to Amazon FBA make again and again. On this episode of the podcast Scott Voelker covers the top 5 rookie mistakes that trip up new sellers. Product research can be frustrating, but don’t give up. Perhaps the most difficult part of selling products on Amazon is finding the product in the first place. The product research phase is very difficult because there are so many variables and so many possibilities. What most rookies do when doing product research is work at it for a couple of days and then give up because it is so frustrating but that is the worst thing you could do. On this episode Scott’s going to teach you how to push through the product research base to make sure that you find that product that is going to set you up for Amazon selling success. You can’t forget about the depth of your potential market. It's great to find a product that seems like it's going to be a winner on Amazon FBA. But if you don't take into consideration the depth of the market you're trying to enter, you could be setting yourself up for a terrible loss. On this episode Scott once again covers the issue of depth of market, and give you some tips to help you understand what you need to look for, why you need to watch out for those things, and how to maximize your chances of setting up a product that will be successful. If you misunderstand your profit margins on Amazon FBA, you’ll be sorry. It's easy to hear all the success stories about Amazon FBA sales and think that you can do that too. And you can. The problem is that many people don't recognize that the figures they hear from success stories don't typically reveal the costs involved in the research, packaging, shipping, and fees related with feeling that product on Amazon. The end result is you may have an unrealistic idea of what the actual profit margins for a product are. On this episode of the podcast, Scott is going to point out some of the things you need to consider when calculating profit margins so that you can know and accurate estimate of what your profits will be. Don’t be fooled by seasonal products. You may find a product to sell on Amazon that appears to be a wonderful opportunity. But always take into consideration whether or not that product and its related products are seasonal in nature. Seasonal products are great for a very short time but throughout the year don't provide the consistent income that you really want to achieve an Amazon private label sales. On this episode Scott is going to give you some things to watch out for when considering the possibility of selling products that are seasonal in nature. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:25] Scott’s introduction to the podcast! [1:34] A shout-out to a TAS community member. [3:11] How you can get in on one of Scott’s live workshops. [4:04] Why giving up during product research is a huge mistake. [14:30] If you forget about the depth of your market, you’re going to blow it. [18:30] The pain of misunderstanding profit margins. [24:26] Be sure to pay attention to issue of seasonal gifts. [29:17] There’s a strong tendency to overthink and over complicate.   www.TheAmazingSeller.com/workshop - get in on the free workshop BOOK: The Compound Effect Get Jungle Scout: www.TheAmazingSeller.com/JS (affliate link) www.TheAmazingSeller.com/165 - Going back to basics episode www.TheAmazingSeller.com/156 & www.TheAmazingSeller.com/161 - episodes on depth of market. www.GoogleTrends.com www.CamelCamelCamel.com www.TheAmazingSeller.com/162 - a “hot seat” episode dealing with seasonality. www.TaxJar.com www.TheAmazingSeller.com/101 - My updated launch plan.  

Danni is joined by Taxjar.com CEO/Founder Mark Faggiano for some important information on sales tax do’s and don’ts for your small business. Other segments include Why Won’t They Buy, Hot Sale of the Week, The Good/Bad/Udderly, and Pick It or Pass It.

Danni is joined by Taxjar.com CEO/Founder Mark Faggiano for some important information on sales tax do’s and don’ts for your small business. Other segments include Why Won’t They Buy, Hot Sale of the Week, The Good/Bad/Udderly, and Pick It or Pass It.

Show Notes The guys sit down with Mark and Ryan from Taxjar and talk about startups, scaling business, and how un-sexy taxes can be. Hosts Phillip Jackson – @philwinkle Kalen Jordan – @kalenjordan Guests Mark...

  One of the most powerful ways for you to learn about anything is to have the opportunity to ask a “nothing off limits” question from somebody who’s already doing what you are trying to do for the first time. That’s what this episode of The Amazing Seller is for - it’s an “Ask Scott” episode where you get to Ask Scott Voelker your own question about selling on Amazon, either through Retail Arbitrage, Wholesaling, or Private Label sales. In this episode you’ll hear questions about tax issues, private websites, and sending email to customers. Pull up a chair and get ready to learn as you hear from an experienced Amazon seller about the practical parts of building and running a successful FBA business. What percentage of sales profits should an Amazon seller set aside each month?   That’s a very important question, and it’s one asked by a listener on today’s episode of “Ask Scott.” Naturally, there are variables to consider for each situation including your state of residence and personal tax bracket. But most importantly, you want to base your decision off professional advice from a qualified accountant or tax attorney. Having said that, Scott tells what he does, including how he reinvests profits into his Amazon business so he can get additional tax write offs. It’s practical stuff you won’t want to miss… and you’ll only hear it on this episode of The Amazing Seller. Should you set up a website for your Amazon products?   Many Amazon sellers do set up a website for the products they sell on Amazon to give a greater sense of legitimacy to their business. But Scott’s not sure that the investment in a website is really all that important, especially as you first get your business rolling. He’d rather invest that time and money in things that will get his product more reviews and greater exposure in the Amazon system. Find out why he recommends that and how he goes about doing it on this episode of The Amazing Seller. Getting reviews on your products is vital. How can you do it most effectively?   There are many 3rd party software programs that enable you to track your Amazon sales and solicit feedback from your customers. But is there a way to use those programs to solicit feedback on particular products rather than on your seller account in general? Yes, there is, and in this episode of “Ask Scott,” Scott Voelker walks you through how to do so in a couple of different software programs so that you can make the most out of those Amazon sales reviews and get your product ranking higher in the Amazon search algorithm. Every State in the U.S. has its own sales tax rate? How can Amazon sellers make sure they’re paying the tax that is due? Even experienced Amazon sellers will tell you that sales tax is one of the most confusing, frustrating parts of running a successful Amazon Business. A listener asks Scott a question about collecting and paying State sales tax in this episode, and as always, Scott gives practical, common sense advice about how to play by the rules when it comes to sales tax, and how to make sure you’re not taking those payments from your profits. Listen in to find out how you can ensure that your business is dealing with this important issue wisely. OUTLINE OF THIS EPISODE OF THE AMAZING SELLER [0:05] Welcome to this “Ask Scott” episode! [0:47] Scott’s having fun on www.Persicope.tv - join him - @ScottVoelker - or recorded at www.TheAmazingSeller.com/scope [3:07] How you can ask Scott a question - www.TheAmazingSeller.com/ask [3:50] QUESTION #1: A tax question - what is the percentage you set aside for income tax each month? [11:12] QUESTION #2: What is the value of having a private website for my products? Do you have one? If so, when did you decide to make that part of your business? [16:30] QUESTION #3: Is there any way to filter out who gets emails through Feedback Genius so I can focus on particular products within my brand? [23:06] QUESTION #4: How do you go about collecting sales tax for the various states? [28:35] Figure out your inventory for the upcoming holiday rush! [30:35] Your invite to one of Scott’s live workshops.   LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Scott’s recorded Periscopes - www.TheAmazingSeller.com/scope www.TaxJar.com - One of Scott’s recommended resources for dealing with sales tax. Scott’s free workshop  - http://www.TheAmazingSeller.com/workshop  

This quote won't come as news to you: In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. - Benjamin Franklin Today I'm talking to Mark Faggiano and he's the founder of , a cloud-based service that automates sales tax compliance for ecommerce sellers. If you thought you were somehow exempt from paying sales tax, unfortunately, that may not necessarily be the case. Please note that neither Mark nor I are lawyers or accountants, however, we are talking about the service he provides which takes the headache out of filing sales tax. Mark started his entrepreneurial journey in ecommerce and now he focuses on making apps that make the business side of ecommerce easier. He's passionate about solving complex problems for small businesses. You'll need to consult with a lawyer or accountant to get advice specific to your situation but when it comes down to actually wrangling the data and info you need to properly file your sales tax, then you might want to take a closer look at what has to offer. In my conversation with Mark, he shares lots of information about what does and how it can help you; not just Etsy sellers, but ecommerce sellers in general... So if you're selling on multiple channels online, listen up :) Topics discussed: Quickbooks vs. - what's the difference? Do you need both? How to determine if you need to file taxes in multiple states Autofiling of sales tax with Nexus...? What's that...? ...and all the other extra good bits that come along with a TaxJar subscription Contact TaxJar: Email: support[at]TaxJar[dot]com TaxJar and Please take a minute to subscribe and leave an honest review of the podcast in and . That really helps to get the word out about the show. Connect With Me: Twitter: Follow Facebook Group: - This is where I'm connecting with you after the podcast. Lots of fun convos & Etsy shop promos here too! Facebook: Like the Pinterest: Instagram: Google+: Email: Use the OR interview [at] convome [dot] com

Nasir and Matt look back at the last 100 episodes. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our 200th plus one episode. Wait. MATT: So, the idea was, this is #201. The idea was you can’t do a best of the first 200 if the episode is #200. That makes sense, right? NASIR: Well, I was also thinking, like, is it one of those things where 201 is the 200th episode because we didn’t start at episode 0? MATT: That’s not how math works. NASIR: That’s not how math works. Well, I was thinking, you know, the year 2000 where people talked about the new millennium and, like, never mind, because there was no year zero. Anyway, welcome to our business podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to these business news items that we cover, and we’ve done it about a couple of hundred times minus a couple of episodes here and there which were also recap episodes, right? Yeah, I think we’ve done one recap episode, right? MATT: Well, we did one on #20, I believe, because we were both gone or something. NASIR: Yeah, we were both gone. MATT: Then, we did one, I think 20 and 100 and then this one. There might be… I don’t remember. NASIR: Like, a true recap like a replay, kind of like a TV show where they just splice a bunch of clips together. That’s basically what we’re going to do. MATT: Ah, yeah. One, at most two, but definitely one because I remember doing it but, yeah, at most, two of them. NASIR: The first one, yeah, I was out of town and you just did the intro for it. It was like episode 20 which I think we should do. We should do it for this 201st episode and then again 20 episodes later. MATT: Just do a recap every 20 episodes. Well, that’s why the episodes are longer too. It’s made a little bit more sense. NASIR: That’s also true. Well, anyway… what we have coming up are basically the most popular episodes that we’ve had in the last hundred episodes, I think, the best of, right? MATT: Yeah, and I can probably give you a summary right now. it had to do with Uber, independent contractors, The Office, and pizza. NASIR: And Yelp. MATT: And Yelp. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Yeah, those five things. NASIR: All right. Well, enjoy the show! [] MATT: We have a great episode today. We haven’t had a guest on in a while – at least it seems like it’s been a while – but we have Mark Faggiano with TaxJar, the founder and CEO of Taxjar. Did I get your name right, Mark? MARK: You did. Nice work. Good to be here, guys. MATT: Well, yeah, thanks for being here. NASIR: Yeah. So, taxjar.com is a company in San Diego but what’s interesting about what they do – and, obviously, Mark can speak more of it – is on sales tax and dealing with, especially from a small business perspective doing online e-commerce, I know a popular business that seems to be kind of sprouting up probably in the last few years – and, Mark, you can probably correct me if I’m wrong – is these kind of online sellers that are using Amazon to fulfil its shipment and basically use a shopping cart instead of setting up their own website. What about the sales tax implications in that? I think sales tax in general is just a mess of laws because you have to deal with how each states applies different taxes, depending upon where it’s being sold and who it’s being sold to. Mark, this is something you deal with every day, right? MARK: Yeah. So, to call it a mess is really an understatement. There’s probably some more words that you don’t want to use to better describe it but you’re exactly right. So, you know, five years ago, if we were having this conversation, if you talked to an online seller, they would probably say, “I’m an eBay seller” or “I just sell on eBay” and what’s really happened and where we’re at now is that folks are multichannel, right? They’re selling on eBay. They’re also selling on Amazon most likely. They also have their own website and they’re using a point-of-sale device. They’re using Square to go to a craft fair on a weekend or,

Eeek! Taxes! TaxJar makes Sales Tax Compliance Easier

Nasir and Matt welcome Mark Faggiano of TaxJar to discuss how business owners cancomply with the various sales tax rules. They also answer, "I'm looking to incorporate in the next few months. How much should the tax consequences play a factor in my decision making?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast. This is Nasir Pasha where we cover business in the news and answer some of your business legal questions, and we also have Matt here too, for once. MATT: Yeah. You can just take over the entire show if you want. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: You’d have thought, after a hundred episodes, we would have gotten a good intro by now but I guess that’s not the case. We have a great episode today. We haven’t had a guest on in a while – at least it seems like it's been a while. But we have Mark Faggiano with TaxJar, the founder and CEO of TaxJar. Did I get your name right, Mark? MARK: You did. Nice work. Good to be here guys. MATT: Oh, yeah, thanks for being here. NASIR: Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, so taxjar.com is a company in San Diego but what's interesting about what they do – and obviously Mark can speak more of it – is on sales tax and dealing with it, especially from a small business perspective doing online e-commerce. I know a popular business that seems to be kind of sprouting up probably the last few years – and, Mark, you can probably correct me if I’m wrong – is these kind of online sellers that are using Amazon to fulfill its shipment and basically uses a shopping cart instead of setting up their own website. It’s an easy process if you have your own product that you can buy at wholesale or something to that effect, then it might be a good way. But what about the sales tax implications in that? I think sales tax in general is just a mess of laws. I mean, because you have to deal with how each state applies the different taxes, depending upon where it's being sold and who it’s being sold to. So, Mark, this is something you deal with every day, right? MARK: Yeah. So, to call it a mess is really an understatement. There's probably some more words that you don’t want to use to better describe it but you're exactly right. So, you know, five years ago, if we were having this conversation, if you talked to an online seller, they would probably say, "I'm an eBay seller” or “I just sell on eBay" and what's really happened and where we’re at now is that folks are multichannel, right? They’re selling on eBay. They're also selling on Amazon most likely. They also have their own website and they're using a point-of-sale device. They’re using Square to go to a craft fair on a weekend or, you know, some kind of trade show. And what that’s done is dramatically change their sales tax complexity. And, using Amazon as an example, by the way, there's no barrier to entry, right? To do all those things. NASIR: Exactly. MARK: It's not very hard to get a presence set up across the board on all those things. So, what's happening now is that there are so many sellers and they're competing, you know, head-to-head. One of the biggest differentiators for them is shipping. So, if you and I are selling a pair of Air Jordans, right? Just as an example, and you're offering next day – Amazon will provide this eventually – same-day turnaround and I’m providing kind of the traditional three to four day, I don’t stand a chance, right? So, that's why folks are using this Fulfillment by Amazon service because it allows them to compete much better and also the customers demand just quicker turnaround. What happens is when they use Fulfillment by Amazon, they are literally sending all of their inventory to Amazon and then Amazon takes care of the rest. But what Amazon is doing is just distributing that inventory based on their kind of internal algorithm to say, "Okay, Matt’s selling Air Jordans. We know that those sell in a particular part of the country so we’re going to send everything to our warehouse in Fresno,