posted on August 16, 2001 06:04:06 PM new
Anything works to track income even a ledger book. What you need is something to track your business. If you don't track your business, you won't have any income. I use an Access database that I cobbled together. Everything I need to know, or care to, is in there and it lets me print all my forms, labels , etc in Word. I can spill all my dollar totals into an Excel spreadsheet using a simple query.
There are auction software programs that might suit your needs. In my case, there wasn't because I sell in different venues.
posted on August 17, 2001 07:19:18 AM new
I use an excel spreadsheet to track all my auction activities - with a different sheet for each venue I sell in. I've found it an excellent tracking mechanism for my auctions. I transfer the financial data over each month into Clarisys, a freeware accounting program, and it produces my financial numbers each month.. was fairly easy to set up and anyone with basic bookkeeping knowledge should be able to do the same.
posted on August 17, 2001 07:53:29 AM newimagecomposer
What's best for you?? Depends on the parameters of your business....
My wife does her entire business (cosmetology) out of a day timer and just submits a ledger to me at the end of the year with the pertinent income and expense items. She can tell me who she is going to work on, when, and how much her income and expenses are at any time just by opening that darned thing...*G*
I, on the other hand, use a software program called MYOB to manage my machine shop, what with payroll, inventory, job charges, etc....very complex. Many fine details to be managed and reports to be generated....
Many of my customers use management software costing into six figures to track their employees and jobs in real time via wireless and GPS technology....
Where do you fit in?
Personally, I feel most small sellers who report their eBay income could do well with Quickbooks or just Quicken (if you don't stock inventory)....especially if you use Intuit products to file your income taxes...
Many programs have trial versions you can download for free and try...I recommend it when applicable...there's nothing like a hands-on experience help in your decision...
posted on August 17, 2001 08:26:33 AM new
If you're like me and don't want to invest in some other software other than MS Office (i.e. Excel), then you can figure your numbers by hand. It's really not that difficult.
Here's the steps I take:
1) Keep all my receipts from the post office and type those in at the end of the month to figure my total shipping expenses.
2) Keep a log of all the cash I've paid out to get inventory (things to sell). This includes when I buy overstock/surplus in bulk (etc.), garage sale items to resell, etc. This is my inventory expenses.
3) Keep a log of all the cash I paid to get supplies. This includes bubblewrap, tape, packing peanuts, etc. This is my supplies expenses.
4) Put the total that eBay charges me for the month. This is my eBay expenses.
5) Download a text file from PayPal that shows your total PayPal fees for all your transactions. If you can figure out how to do this (I have) you can import the text file into Excel and you have an instant log of all your PayPal payments, and the fee PayPal charged you. I put this number down and it becomes my PayPal expenses. If you had some other payment service you used that charged you a fee, you would have to use that too.
6) Keep a log of every item I ship. I put the amount paid for the item, including shipping. This number shows my total sales amount.
Did I miss something? There may be another expense that I can't remember off the top of my head.
Basically, #'s 1-5 are expenses, and I compare that to my total sales, #6. The difference is my profit. It looks like this when I'm done:
Total Sales $1000.00
Minus Total Expenses -$850.00
--------------------------------
TOTAL PROFIT $150.00
(sorry if those numbers didn't line up)
This is just an example.... These are my expense categories. Others may have other expenses, like expenses for hired employees, but since I'm a small time seller, I don't.
Also, I work from the 15th of one month to the 15th of the next month. It helps to keep on eBay's billing schedule.
I keep all the logs of my expenses in Excel and make my final expenses/profit report in Excel also.
Hope this helps. That's how I figure my expenses/profits. It doesn't take much time and seems to work very well. I don't have all the numbers on individual auctions, but I get the total number, and that's what counts the most to me.
posted on August 17, 2001 08:41:42 AM new...Very easy to use. My accountant even uses it, and when it's tax time I burn an "accountant's copy" on a CD and hand it to him and he uses that...
posted on August 17, 2001 08:47:56 AM new
WeRule - you have a pretty good, basic system for handling the cash basis of accounting for your auction activities. I break my things down into a lot more detail, but as an accountant, I want to be able to do a lot more analysis of my activities.
Mine looks like the following:
Revenues:
Ebay Sales
Ebay S/H
Half.com Sales
Half.com Sales S/H
Yahoo Sales
Yahoo S/H
Amazon Sales
Amazon S/H
Other Sales
Other S/H
Other income
Expenses:
COGS (Ebay, Half.com, Yahoo, Amazon, Other)
Fees (Ebay, Half.com, Yahoo, Amazon, Other, Billpoint, Paypal)
Mailing Supplies (boxes & bubble mailers, address labels, top loaders, plastic sleeves)
Office Supplies (paper, ink, business cards, ledger books)
Craft Supplies (yarn, buttons, stuffing, etc for producing handmade items which is my new area of selling)
Postage (USPS and UPS as needed)
Commissions (Payments made to those who gather inventory me, to share profits with them)
I think that's most of everything.
Revenues less Expenses = Net Income (Loss)
All my receipts are filed by month in an envelope and kept in a filing box in my desk for easy access for research and double checking on things. Between my receipts and my records, I'd be well-prepared in case of an audit.
I use the accrual system of accounting, so I maintain an inventory of current items available for sale, which I track on Excel spreadsheets and do a regular crosscheck for accuracy, with the biggest one being in late December, in time for Tax Time.
I run on a Monthly schedule, although one of my Ebay accounts is billable on the 15th - I have to take that into account. This makes it easier to file my quarterly income taxes and annual income taxes.
I track my auction activities on Excel and my financial activities in a ledger book, which I enter into Clarisys on a monthly basis to produce financial reports and do analysis (is Fees vs revenues per site, gross profit per site, S/H vs Postage/Mailing supplies). The monthly analysis really helps me to see what is working, what isn't, and what needs to be changed.
I have a very detailed system, but as an accountant, I can follow the flows fairly easily and it meets my needs - that's the key - find a system/software that meets YOUR needs best... if you can manage in a three-ring binder to track everything and get a good # at the end - don't spend $99 on a software program... but if you're running $5k through a month - I'd think the $99 software program would be well worth the expense - and its a business expense as long as you use it exclusively for your online activities.
posted on August 17, 2001 09:00:19 AM new
katiyana-
I did have a more detailed system as well. I am a very detailed person. My initial system was very detailed. I was finding that keeping track of everything was taking too much time. I am not a high volume seller, so the small amount of time I have to sell online I be sure to use that time wisely. In my situation, that meant listing more items instead of playing with the numbers.
It was hard, but I managed to make my system a lot simpler. Now I'm happy.
I do billing and A/R in my full time job, so that's how I understand the account part a bit.
You're right though. The same system won't work for everyone. You need to find what works for you.
posted on August 17, 2001 09:12:26 AM new
Now that I have my system "down" I find it only takes me 30 mins to an hour to do the books at the end of each month... I write up the journal entries for Supply/Inventory purchases in my ledger book as they're made and keep a Postage Log so I can do a single entry for all postage paid each month - the most time consuming part is the Revenues & COGS entries each month and splitting them properly between AR and Cash received....
Since things have been slow the past month and a half, its getting even faster to do my record keeping... Something I'd prefer to get MORE difficult cuz that would mean I'm doing more business.. 8)
posted on August 17, 2001 09:18:13 AM newWhat would an accountant's copy be actually?
I burn a cd of my year's files called an "accountant's copy". (I do it once a year, but it can be done as many times as you need to)
I give that cd to my accountant. He opens up my file on his computer, using his version of Quickbooks. He is able to see my entire file, which I do on a day to day basis. If there are any changes that need to be made, he can make the changes on that cd. Whether it's an expense I forgot about, or something I put in the wrong category, etc - he can make any changes and save it.
I can then put that cd in my Quickbooks, and update my files with all the changes he made so it will be correct.
posted on August 17, 2001 11:13:07 AM new
If you don't want to keep hand written books and don't want anything real elaborate and hard to learn, take a look at the Accounting program from owl software. It's a single entry system that is very small to download, has a 30 day free trial and a low cost to purchase. I'm giving it a try right now and it seems pretty simple to use.
posted on August 17, 2001 12:17:09 PM new
I use Money to track both my personal and auction expenses. I set up categories for my auction income and expenses and created a report that just pulls the information from those auction categories. I use it at tax time and also peek at the results every month to see how I'm doing.
posted on August 17, 2001 07:33:51 PM new
One word of advice is not to micromanage everything. Sure you can tally every FVF, but that's a waste of time, makes your system more complex and eats up hard drive space. You need just a handful of numbers each month even as you itemize things. Instead of entering all those fees, your accountant just wants to know how much eBay charged you in August. Save those Invoices from eBay in a folder. That's one Excel column with 12 numbers and a sum total for the year, not a formula in hundreds or thousands of cells.
I can quickly figure my profitability in a similar way. Just give me the average dollar amount of my items in a month.
posted on August 17, 2001 08:25:22 PM new
I use plain old Quicken for both my personal and auction related finances. Giving some thought to the categories up front made it easy. I have a lot of freedom to write reports, etc. and every penny from acquisition cost to FVFs is accounted for.
Now all the receipts that back this up...that's another story (and a mess). Just a big shoebox for each month. I haven't had too look back and prove anyting yet, but when I do I am in for some long days at the home office!
Gerald
"Oh but it's so hard to live by the rules/I never could and still never do."
