Big wins for accountants as tech beats “blight” on ecommerce

Renowned Sage experts have launched new software that will help small and mid-sized practices to win and retain clients in the burgeoning online retail sector.

Eureka Solutions is already one of the UK’s best-known experts in Sage, as a Platinum Partner and five-time winner of the ‘Sage Custom Solutions Partner’ award, as well as being one of the leading UK NetSuite ERP Solution Providers, meaning its team know exactly what accountants need from clients.

Now the exciting fintech firm has developed its own software – aimed primarily at online retailers – where fast-growing firms are blighted by systems that won’t speak to each other, which also poses headaches for their tax and accountancy advisers.

Already a success story, Cloud Data Exchange (CDE) has proven its worth, automating almost 13 million transactions in 2021, its first full year, saving users from a total of 75,000 hours of lost productivity. Eureka Solutions say accountants can help take the CDE software to the next level by partnering with them.

Gillian Livingstone, the firm’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “Packages like Sage 50, Sage 200, Xero and QuickBooks are brilliant both for businesses and their accountants – but like any brilliant software they can be let down by other systems, apps or platforms that simply won’t speak to each other.

“With Cloud Data Exchange we’ve bridge many of those data gaps – and anything that makes accountancy software more effective can vastly improve working life for accountants, and by introducing clients to CDE they are proactively solving their headaches and eliminating much of the double entry involved in their bookkeeping.

“CDE is a simple, cost-effective way to banish one of the worst blights on modern business – systems that won’t talk to each other. When staff have to manually transfer information between systems it is a horrendous time suck and prone to human error.”

CDE is particularly aimed at online retail businesses, particularly those selling on major platforms including Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento, Amazon and eBay. That represents one of the fastest growing areas of the economy and a booming sector for small and mid-sized accountancy practices.

Gillian added: “Our 20 years of expertise with Sage means that we are already trusted by the profession and our technical proficiency with accountancy software is beyond any doubt.

“For professional advisers we know how frustrating it is to be working with clients who have top notch accountancy software, only for delays and errors to be introduced when their clients – and often their accountants – have to transfer and input vital information by hand from other systems.

“When an accountant can help a client to solve those problems, that is win on multiple fronts. The client is happier and more productive, the accountant is more efficient – and the business relationship is both stickier and healthier.”

The ingenious CDE software offers a host of constantly updated integrations with the most popular accountancy and business management software, including Sage, NetSuite, Xero and QuickBooks. It enables those packages to talk to ecommerce systems such as Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce, Amazon and eBay, and also customer relationship management platforms like Salesforce.

That means a host of vital business information can be automatically imported or exported, including invoices, sales orders, purchase orders, customers, stock updates and products that otherwise would have to be done by hand.

Gillian added: “We’ve not only developed a superb software solution, we’ve also taken it to the market and proven its value and effectiveness for well over 100 businesses and across millions of transactions.

“Now we are taking it to the accountancy sector for the first time, as we believe accountants and tax advisers are the people who will most immediately see how transformative this can be for existing clients and how valuable in landing them new business.”

Based in East Kilbride, Eureka Solutions is a £4.5m a year operation with 65 staff and delivers cloud-based business solutions to thousands of businesses across the UK. As well as its propriety CDE solution it deploys global platforms like Oracle NetSuite and Sage 200.

Find information on Cloud Data Exchange at https://www.clouddataexchange.com/partnerships/accountants-partnership/