Back 
Joseph Cox is an entrepreneur who has used his first-hand experience in growing a successful e-commerce business to create an accounting firm that specializes in helping e-commerce companies manage their finances effortlessly.
Guided by Pragmatism
Nick Levine: What led you first to enter the world of finance?
Joseph Cox: I never wanted to become an accountant, but after studying psychology at university and suddenly realizing how hard it would be to get into research psychology, I realized I needed a job to earn some money.
Nick Levine: Specifically, why did you narrow this down to accounting and finance?
Joseph Cox: A family friend ran a small accountancy practice and was clearly doing well for himself. He had an amazing house and a swimming pool, and he was a super generous and nice guy, too. He had an entry-level role open.
Gaining Experience from Scratch
Nick Levine: What kind of accounting and finance experience did you get at the practice?
Joseph Cox: The firm was really small, consisting of just five people, so I got exposure to everything from bookkeeping, through to management accounts and tax. It was quite a traditional firm, so we used desktop software, manually wrote up receipts, and relied heavily on Excel.
Nick Levine: It must have been really frustrating to rely on manual processes. Roughly what year was this in?
Joseph Cox: This was in 2010. This allowed me to gain a solid grounding in how to do everything if the internet goes down. However, I became aware of the rise of cloud-based ledgers like Xero and saw the benefits, such as automating bank feeds and reconciliations.
Nick Levine: Did you try to convince the firm to adopt these new technologies?
Joseph Cox: I tried to gauge interest at the firm about making the switch, but they weren’t interested. It didn’t necessarily suit the client base they had, but I made sure to use the latest cloud tools to manage the finances of my own e-commerce company.
Building a High-Growth E-Commerce Side Hustle
Nick Levine: What did your e-commerce company do?
Joseph Cox: We sold cat toys through Amazon under the brand name The Natural Pet Company. We would find suppliers on Alibaba, order them wholesale, and then have them packaged and shipped to Amazon’s warehouses around the world.
Nick Levine: Did you do this at the same time as your day job in finance?
Joseph Cox: Yes, I did this while at the accounting firm and made sure to ask for permission. They were fine with it. I would occasionally get emails from suppliers during the day, but I would mostly work on [The Natural Pet Company] on weekends. It got to the stage where I think my online business was making more money than the accounting firm.
Nick Levine: How did you manage the finances of The Natural Pet Company?
Joseph Cox: I used a combination of Xero and spreadsheets. The business was heavily reliant on automation, and I wound it down so I could go travelling after I finished my accounting exams and quit my job.
Establishing Ecommerce Accountants
Nick Levine: I imagine that combining your accounting and e-commerce experience must have made managing the finances of other e-commerce businesses an obvious niche.
Joseph Cox: That is right, but I set up Ecommerce Accountants almost by accident when I found out the domain was available. I couldn’t believe it was available, so I bought it.
Nick Levine: How did the business go forward from there?
Joseph Cox: I had friends who had started e-commerce businesses and needed someone to handle their bookkeeping, tax returns, and company filings. Before I knew it, I had half a dozen clients.
Nick Levine: How many clients do you have now, and can you tell me about the mix?
Joseph Cox: We have around 350 limited companies and over 600 when you include directors and individuals. Our clients specialize in selling a wide range of products, including pet supplies, kitchenware, skincare, and supplements.
Nick Levine: What are the main platforms your clients are selling through?
Joseph Cox: The main ones are Shopify, eBay, and Etsy. Also, TikTok has exploded like crazy over the last three or four years.
Automating Bookkeeping for E-Commerce
Nick Levine: A focus area of the Next Gen Finance Leaders series is to showcase best practices in automation. Do you have an example you can share with us?
Joseph Cox: We’re actually in the process of building out our own tool, called Ecommerce Fusion, designed to automate bookkeeping for e-commerce companies.
Nick Levine: What were your frustrations with inventory management that led you to create Ecommerce Fusion?
Joseph Cox: The bookkeeping tools on the market for e-commerce companies had significant drawbacks related to the way they process sales data. They lacked granularity across sales territories and lacked control [related to segmentation], making reconciliations difficult and time-consuming.
Nick Levine: How does Ecommerce Fusion solve this?
Joseph Cox: We’ve automated large parts of the bookkeeping workflows, with our tool breaking down data from marketplaces and connecting to accounting platforms. This is much more efficient than downloading and uploading data onto spreadsheets. The quality of the data is also better, making it easier for senior members of staff to review the work of others.
Joseph’s journey aligning his interests in finance and e-commerce is one of the many inspiring stories we’re sharing as part of the Next Get Finance Leaders series. If you’ve enjoyed his story, read some of the others in the series.
