When you’re a business owner who understands technology, you know just how broad the scope of what you achieve with it can be. You also understand what a challenge it can be to optimize your eCommerce and accounting software. You’re aware of how much data your store generates and the broad range of possibilities you could explore using plugins integrations. When you know all of these things, you also know that you need a robust connection between the eCommerce side of your business and your bookkeeping processes. Judd Dunagan owns multiple companies under the Bright Vessel brand, spanning from website management and WooCommerce plugin creation to website hosting. We spoke to him about how MyWorks helps him sync his WooCommerce with his QuickBooks accounting software in a way that allows him to process all the data needed.

The Bright Vessel group of businesses was founded in November 2013 by Judd Dunagan and his team. “We started as a typical agency doing the digital stuff,” says Dunagan. Then, Bright Vessel found their niche in WooCommerce website management. “We do full management, so we do everything under the sun. From help adding products to enhancements to connecting to fulfillment companies, to doing plugin updates, WordPress core updates, etc.” Their hosting business, Brighthosting.io, was borne out of demand for hosting services from website management clients who were too small to need Bright Vessel’s complete website management package. Their hosting services work “strictly with virtual, cloud-type servers, not dedicated boxes.” This means their team can stay remote. The last and fastest-growing business in the Bright Vessel family is Bright Plugins. Their plugins work with WooCommerce to create preorder and deposit options, facilitate an Elementor product builder, add a product preview function, add minimum/maximum quantity functions, and more. They have ten free plugins on their site, as well as three premium ones. They hope to expand their premium plugin range by three more products by the end of 2021.

Dunagan is currently very involved in this business, and when we asked him why he laughed, “I love creating software. It’s a lot easier to nurture a product than a client.” The Bright Vessel brand is one of only four in the world to be both a WooCommerce Verified Expert and a WordPress VIP partner. On top of all of this, Dunagan runs a printing business called Print Mavericks, which creates boat wraps. As you may be able to tell, Judd Dunagan is a very busy man who knows what he’s talking about. “I’m a 4 AM kinda guy. I get up at 4 AM, and I work,” he says.

So how does MyWorks Sync make his business run smoother?

Around four years ago, the Bright Vessel team transitioned from Freshbooks to QuickBooks as their accounting software. “We needed to do some more mapping,” Dunagan says, “and we loved the way that things have been improved.” When Bright Vessel launched Bright Plugins, they knew they needed to either upgrade their accounting automation process or be swamped by the volume of orders pouring into their bookkeeper from multiple successful businesses. “I could have gotten my bookkeeper to enter our sales data manually, but it would have been almost a full-time job,” says Dunagan, “having it auto-reconciled saves a lot of time.”

How does the Bright Vessel brand use MyWorks? “I can have both Bright Vessel, my WooCommerce website management plans be automatically reconciled, as well as Bright Plugins. So we have two different websites going into the same bank account, as well as being auto-reconciled with QuickBooks through MyWorks.” When we asked Dunagan about how the process is going, he replied that it “works pretty great! I kinda got rid of my bookkeeper because of it.” Because Dunagan set up the MyWorks Sync process directly, all his bookkeeper needs to do now is “look at the books at the end of the year and cross-check to make sure everything’s good.” The comprehensive data that MyWorks Sync automatically sends to QuickBooks has also allowed for a much more detailed reporting process. Looking at his Quickbooks data now, Dunagan has a “better understanding of where we’re inefficient and how we can improve things better.”

Though the process of moving from FreshBooks to QuickBooks was described as a difficult one by the Bright Vessel team, the MyWorks sync “integration was very simple.” “Doing your books the right way from the beginning is huge,” says Dunagan, and his MyWorks Sync “has helped tremendously, for sure.” One aspect of MyWorks that came in handy for him was the immediate support he received from our team. “I had a question, and I was able to chat with them right away, which is huge,” he says. “You guys were on the spot.” Dunagan likes MyWorks Sync so much that he’s even been recommending it to his customers. “I’ve referred you guys endlessly to tons of customers,” he says. One of those customers who took that referral is the team at Empower Generators.

Because they manage over 400 websites ranging from medium businesses to enterprises, there’s a high chance you’ve seen a Bright Vessel- WooCommerce managed website. If you own or operate a WooCommerce store, you’ve also probably have come into contact with a Bright Plugins extension. You may even be using one right now!

If these industry leaders in technology and WooCommercce developers choose MyWorks as their integration, why shouldn’t you? Schedule a demo here to learn more.

Explore our integrations below:

• QuickBooks Sync for WooCommerce
• Xero Sync for WooCommerce

Or get started here.