Questions About Recording Keeping

[naturemn]

Since I didn't set out to be an eBay business in the beginning, I didn't set up much of a record keeping system. I have since improved it, but everything is handwritten on paper with some reports printed off from PayPal and eBay as records more or less. My goal this year is to set up a good system and this seemed like the place to ask for advice. I hope to really grow this business this year and think I have learned over the last few years to make the right changes on how it is run to make it more profitable.

My system now:

I have 4 notebooks:

One is a small one kept in my vehicle to record mileage. I write the date, town and the locations I went to or if I was garage saling, etc and then of course the beginning and ending mileage for the trip.

Second one is for inventory purchased. This has evolved through the years and I am still working on the best way to do it. Currently I write the date and location of where purchased, list the items and the cost of each and staple the receipt(if I have one) to the page. I used to keep the receipts in a separate place and I am still not sure what is best.

Third notebook is my sales records. I have columns for the state it was sold to, the date shipped, item description, date the inventory was purchased by me(just started this column as it links my inventory notebook to the sales one this way), where purchased, total paid by buyer, shipping paid by buyer, actual shipping cost, and item purchase price. I would like some sort of spreadsheet for this that would automatically figure sales tax in a column if the first column is my home state. So every Minnesota sale would have a sales tax amount in that column and all other states would have a $0 in that column . I would like to add a column that would show if I paid sales tax when I purchased that inventory(just a simple T or N entered in it) and that would trigger it to figure that tax in yet another column as an expense if it is a T.

Last notebook is pretty much where I keep track of other expenses and bring everything together. The first page has a chart of expenses by month and income totals. That is the total of everything. The next pages are by month and I write in dates, location purchased and cost of other expenses(mostly shipping supplies) and staple the receipts to those pages.

It is a new year and I would appreciate any tips, suggested programs, etc that you may have.

Figuring expenses and print outs:
I print off my PayPal shipping transaction amounts for each month for shipping costs.
I print eBays sales reports for fees - they list the total eBay fees and PayPal fees for each month in a 3 month group. Do I need to print everything for every transaction(that would be huge) or are the monthly totals okay? In other words eBay separates out each listing fee, final value fee, store fee, etc, so it would be many pages.


That is my current old fashioned and inadequate system. Any programs you would suggest? Any changes you would suggest? What should I be printing for records from eBay and PayPal? What should I be downloading?

On another bookkeeping topic.....I have never kept a beginning and end year inventory record. I have very few multiple listings, everything is different. My tax accountant said that I can do it the way I am (figuring COGS as they sell), but I am sure that is not the optimum. I am not sure how to change that system midstream. Also, the reason I didn't do that to begin with was I was just selling things in our possession to start off with, things from years past, etc. By the way I use the cash, not accrual system.

If you made it through all of that I thank you! If you could lend your expertise I would be grateful. TIA

[4jacks]

Hey welcome to the boards. I've sold a bunch of stuff on ebay, but I never did the kind of volume to worry about. I think you are on the right track, and that experience will help you stream line your process. I do think that looking at your ebay and paypal fees every month should be fine. That is how your going to file your taxes and analyize your profits anyway. Unless you really want to look at the profit from every single item.

[BananaRama48]

If you have a scanner you can put all your old records under a filing system on your computer, for past records a folder on your desktop might be a good storage system. I have heard good things about Quickbooks for record keeping, but it is good to look around if you don't want to spend a lot of money on a system. Excel is great for record keeping as well and can calculate totals at the end of each month or whenever you wrap up your records. You don't necessarily need to print records from ebay and Paypal as long as you are putting the number into a system, if you want hard copies you can either download the records from them and put them into a desktop folder or you can take screen shots and save them as well. I have found that paper filing is time consuming to do and to find old records, but putting records on your computer into designated folders makes finding your old records easier and faster.