Building Business Resilience through Financial Strategy

In this episode, Matt Putra, a seasoned fractional CFO whose expertise has transformed over 60 brands worldwide, shares secrets to e-commerce financial success. Matt masterfully navigates the financial labyrinth of Amazon and other e-commerce platforms, turning complex financial challenges into opportunities for growth and profitability. From his beginnings in corporate finance to co-owning Keep Nature Wild, Matt shares his personal journey and the strategies that have made him a sought-after advisor. He offers a blueprint for scaling and transforming businesses with revenues ranging from two to a hundred million dollars.

Join us as Matt reveals the critical importance of robust bookkeeping and financial planning to effectively manage inventory financing and margins. Learn about the indispensable tools like A2X and Soligo that streamline accounting processes and how scorecards can provide a clear financial roadmap for your business. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the numbers game in e-commerce, this episode is your guide to mastering financial intricacies and ensuring your business thrives in the competitive e-commerce landscape.

Learn more about Matt:
linkedin.com/in/mattputra
https://eightx.co/ 

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The Planet Amazon podcast, brought to you by Phelps United, addresses all things Amazon and other eCommerce marketplaces. In each episode, we talk with Brands, Agencies, and Sellers about Amazon news, new features, policies, brand policies, logistics, marketing, issues, and challenges, among other topics.

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Episode Transcript

Announcement (00:00):
Welcome to the Planet Amazon podcast with Adam
Schafer, where we explore theworld of Amazon and other
e-commerce marketplaces.
Join us as we delve into thelatest strategies and tactics
for successful selling on theworld's largest online
marketplace.

Adam Shaffer (00:17):
Hello, welcome to Planet Amazon.
I'm Adam Schafer, and PlanetAmazon is the place where we
talk about all things Amazon ande-commerce related.
Today, we have a truly specialguest joining us, someone who
has been instrumental in helpinge-commerce businesses not just
survive but thrive.
Matt Putra is a seasonedfractional CFO with an

(00:38):
incredible track record ofscaling, transforming and
financing small and medium-sizedbusinesses.
As a key financial strategistfor e-commerce companies and
agencies, he brings a wealth ofexpertise in financing,
forecasting, cash flowmanagement and profitability
optimization.
Currently serving as afractional CFO at 8X, matt

(00:58):
specializes in predictingbusiness patterns, future
outcomes and profitabilityacross industries.
He has worked with well-knownbrands like True Earth, the
Tumeric and Lusum, ensuringtheir financial stability and
growth.
But that's not all.
Matt is also a co-owner of, andCFO and COO of, keep Nature
Wild, proving that he doesn'tjust advise businesses, he's

(01:20):
actively doing it.
Welcome to the show, matt Putra.

Matt Putra (01:27):
Thank you so much, Adam.
It's so great to be here.

Adam Shaffer (01:29):
Okay.
So first of all, before we getstarted into this, tell us a
little bit about you and alittle bit about 8X.

Matt Putra (01:36):
Sure.
So I was a CFO of a privateequity group a senior partner
and CFO, and it was great andeverything.
But one day a friend and hiswife called me to ask about
their e-commerce business andcould I help and figure some
things out for them.
So I worked with them for ayear and I really enjoyed it.
And then I worked for one oftheir friends and their friends

(01:58):
and anyway that ended up beingway more fun than working
corporate.
So I quit that, started my ownagency and now I've been running
ADEX for five years and sinceyou know, at five years we've
now worked with probably morethan 60 brands with revenues
from two to a hundred million inrevenue US, uk, canada,
australia, amazon, shopify,walmart, cpg, retail.

(02:20):
So we work with a lot of peopleand we really drop into
somebody's GPS system helpingthem navigate, growing, scaling,
exiting, all that kind of stuff.

Adam Shaffer (02:34):
Yeah, I mean so it's awesome.
So we've never really had afinance specialist on our show
before.
And again, I think peoplediscount the importance of
financial planning, accountingbut Amazon is so, and in
e-commerce, but so manytransactions it's so complicated
and Amazon doesn't always makeit easy.
There are certain platformsthat try to help you with this,
but there's always a charge forsomething.

(02:55):
There's always things you needto be looking out for.
So just the basic accountingand reconciliation side is
complicated.
But then the financial planningof buying inventory, how much
inventory you're going to have,how do you finance that
inventory and how do you ensureyou're making the margins that
you actually think you're makingon Amazon.
So, with that kind of introinto what I see people

(03:19):
struggling with, talk to usabout how you help Amazon
sellers and brands navigate thisand plan.
You know there's a thing youcall scorecards and maybe you
could talk a little bit aboutthat and then get maybe into
more detail.

Matt Putra (03:32):
Sure.
So I mean, I guess, if we'retalking about the universe of
helping an Amazon brand, youknow I'm going to start at the
foundation, which is goodbookkeeping, and people do it a
whole bunch of different ways.
There's A2X.
You can use Soligo to integratewith NetSuite, let's say, or
A2X to QuickBooks.
There's all kinds of things,but the foundational part that I

(03:53):
believe of the Amazonbookkeeping process is there's a
bi-weekly report thatsummarizes how much Amazon has
sent you, how much they'rewithholding, what were the ad
spend, what were the fees, whatwere the holdbacks.
And then it's a PDF and Iforget where the name is, but
it's in the business reports orthe transaction summary.
That forms the foundation ofyour bookkeeping.
That one thing.

(04:13):
The reason why is this A2X willdo its own thing, so legal will
do its own thing, and they'llput transactions in all these
different places.
But that report is the is thetruth, and so if you use that,
you can check A2X, you can checkany software and true,
everything up once every twoweeks, I believe they send it
out.
So from there, once you getyour bookkeeping correct, the

(04:35):
next thing that I think isreally important is a financial
plan.
So again, we're building upfoundation, next level, next
level, so a financial plan,meaning that what do you think
you're going to do in revenuethis year?
How much do you think you'regoing to spend on ads, what's
your cost of goods going to be,what's your fixed cost?
And then can you work all theway down to a net profit and
maybe, even if you can'tapproximate a cash figure from

(04:57):
there, you can go well, I'mgoing to invest in this part of
the business or that part, butyou can manage your cash flow.
So that's step two, the Um, the.
The thing that I think is thecherry on top of all of this is
scorecards.
Um, I believe scorecards areprobably one of the most
important thing that people arenot doing at scale today.
People love dashboards, theylove Looker Studio, they love
Tableau, but they're not doingscorecards.

(05:19):
And and here's what happensDashboards are nice, they're
pretty, they look great, butonly the best people in your
company can tell you what adashboard is telling you about
your business.
So there's bar charts, there'sline charts, there's all these
things, but there's no flashingmessage saying do this or this
is wrong.
So only the owners and yourliterally best people can tell

(05:42):
you what to do.
A scorecard, for example, isgoing to flash two colors only
red if it's okay, or green ifit's okay.
Sorry, red if it's not.
So here's a really greatexample.
I work with a client and thiswas October last year their
fulfillment center.
There was a labor dispute, Ibelieve, and so they stopped
fulfilling orders.
My client didn't notice for twoweeks and then they noticed and

(06:06):
they had to fly there and ittook two weeks to fix it.
In the meantime they shortshipped Amazon and they lost
$300,000 of revenue in Octoberalone.
If they'd had a scorecard andthey managed fulfillment rates
or shipping rates, even on-timeshipping, let's say they would
have seen on-time shipping dropoff right in the one week that
it first happened, cause itwould have, you know, the target

(06:27):
would have been 99% on-timeship.