This week I am getting into an app you should strongly consider including in your arsenal.

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Let’s get to it.

Even though I sold my CPA firm last year, I continue to be a fractional CFO for a few companies. I really enjoy the advisory and system-building work I do for my clients.

For one of those clients, I am training their accounting team on the system I had set up earlier this year: BuilderTrend + QBO + Dext.

I have used Dext since 2017, but this past week, I spent a fair amount of time in Dext Prepare, and I had forgotten how powerful Dext is. There are features that I am still discovering.

When my client’s team is fully leveraging Dext Prepare with QBO, a few things happen:

1. 1. Their time spent bookkeeping drops significantly;
   2. Errors rate decreases; 
   3. Their sales team is connected;
   4. The visibility of expenses and transactions is amazing;
   5. Source documentation is audit ready;
   6. Their workflows are standardized and able to scale. 

If you are using QBO, Dext has to be the second tool in your belt. 

QBO is the engine for completing the compliance work for your client, but Dext is the fluid connection between you, your bookkeeping team and the client. 

Through some acquisitions, Dext has an evolved platform of tools to help you build the firm you want.   

The platform consists of:

• • • Dext Prepare
    • Dext Commerce, and 
    • Dext Precision 

Bookkeeping

If your firm does any manual data entry or bookkeeping, you are bogging down your team and leaving profit on the table. Plain and simple.

Dext Prepare is that launch pad into cutting out the data entry.

You attach Dext Prepare to the beginning of the workflow, so you can easily extract bookkeeping data from receipts, bank statements and expense reports without any added friction.

Although data extraction from third party documents has been duplicated by other competitive apps, Dext was one of the pioneers of this tech and continues to bring value to your CAS and bookkeeping services.  

Another feature I love is that Dext Prepare also actively searches the reconciled transactions in QBO. This means you won’t push a duplicate bill into QBO, but instead you’ll attach the support to the transaction. This feature saves a massive amount of time, especially when clients upload old receipts for previously reconciled transactions.

Ecommerce

Ecommerce is the fastest growing segment for SMBs. The pandemic sped up the adoption of online purchasing significantly, and although people are returning to stores, the convenience of ecommerce continues to grow.

I created this infographic from Stripe’s founder letter earlier this year. It breaks down online payments from their perspective.

These bullish figures on ecommerce, in conjunction with Shopify’s quarter-over-quarter merchant processing fee increases, show the sustained demand for ecommerce solutions.

This graph shows Shopify’s revenue from transaction processing fees,  which, I think is the best representation of the growth of actual end user business transactions.

If your firm doesn’t have a solid workflow to accept and support ecommerce clients, you are missing a large part of the current and future retail market.

Luckily, Dext Commerce is one of the best solutions to build that solid workflow.

Take all the automations and AI from Dext Prepare and add intuitive mapping and processing from all ecommerce platforms. If you’re hesitant to get into the ecommerce space, this is the tool to get started with.

It is an easy plug and play solution for all major platforms your clients are using.

Advisory

As compliance is being done better and faster by bots, firms will have to provide value differently.

Advisory is just that service, and Dext Precision is just that tool.

Dext Precision not only helps clean the data you are using (finds discrepancies and double entries) but also provides insights, financial health scores and dashboards.

It is attached to the back end of QBO, so the information from QBO and all other connected tools has a common destination, ready for analysis.

As a firm, you must move from selling compliance services to selling solutions and road maps to growth.

Exclusive Offer

If you want to level up your QBO + Dext world, join me for a Free exclusive webinar with Brad O’Reilly from Dext. This is an intimate question-and-answer webinar where we can discuss how to build the firm you want.

On Tuesday, Nov 15, at 1pm EST, we will run through a few demos as well as get down to what you need to launch into ecommerce and advisory solutions.

There will be a special pricing offered for those that attend live.

Looking forward to seeing you in the webinar.

Build The Firm You Want,

Mark