eBay Bookkeeping Archives

Tracking cost of goods sold with eBay

Seller Ledger on June 29, 2023

eBay cost of goods sold tracking has been a challenge for years (as we have heard from both customers and members of the eBay management team.)

Not too long ago, Seller Ledger rolled out inventory tracking, complete with some nifty automated cost of goods sold calculations. But for eBay sellers, that functionality depends on the use of an optional listing field called “Custom label (SKU).” And it turns out, that field is not shown by default when creating listing templates. So, we thought we’d help folks learn how to find and use that field, and what magic it can potentially unlock.

When you start to create a listing, one of the first things you’ll do is create a title for your item. By default, you will see two fields: Item title and Subtitle. However, if you click on the link to the upper right, called “See title options“, you will see a few more options pop up. One of those options is “Custom label (SKU)”.

Click on the selector to turn that field on, and you should see an updated form that looks like this:

Now, you have the ability to enter information about this item in the Custom label (SKU) field. But what should you put there, and why is it important?

You can choose to put anything you’d like in there, but, if you follow this guidance in conjunction with Seller Ledger, you will see two major benefits:

Have your inventory reduced and your cost of goods sold automatically calculated when an item sells
See how much money you make on each sale

The key concept here is to have a unique identifier (SKU) for each item you sell on eBay. How you create that identifier is up to you. Some people put a combination of letters and numbers, with some parts relating to the product name, or the bin number in which they are are currently stored. Others simply choose ever-increasing numbers. What matters most is that each SKU value is unique to that eBay item.

In Seller Ledger, when you purchase items for resale, you now have the ability to create a product/item, complete with a Product SKU field.

If you enter the same value in your eBay listing under “Custom label (SKU)” that you enter in Selller Ledger under “Product SKU”, you can sit back and watch the magic happen. When one of those items sells on eBay, Seller Ledger will match the order to your inventory, reduce the number of “in stock” units in inventory, and automatically calculate the cost of goods sold for that item, and show you the gross profit for that sale, as seen below.

Feel free to dig in for a more in-depth look at how Seller Ledger helps automate inventory and cost of goods tracking.

Interested in giving this a try? Seller Ledger offers a 30-day free trial, no credit card required.

Try it Free

Categorize eBay transactions the way you want… plus more

Seller Ledger on April 5, 2023

Now that we have officially launched, it is time to get back to making the product better and easier to use. To do that, we’ve focused on a number of enhancements that came directly from our customers.

Customize how eBay transactions are categorized

First up, we heard from a number of people that they would like to be able to change how eBay data gets categorized when it comes in. As a refresher, here is how Seller Ledger handles eBay transactions by default.

But, we’ve heard some great reasons to change the default settings. Some examples include:

Putting eBay fees under the “Advertising” category rather than “Commissions and fees.”
Putting Shipping costs under “Cost of Goods Sold” instead of “Office Expense.” There’s an interesting debate here, which we plan to tackle in a future blog post.

However, one of the coolest ideas was to let customers have eBay order amounts go under a subcategory of Product Sales, so that, if you are a multi-channel seller, you could have a profit and loss that starts with something like this:

Categorize eBay transactions — Custom eBay sales categories

To make this possible, just go to our new “Customize” page under the Settings tab, and edit the transaction types you’d like to change:

Remember, if you want to use any sub-categories for eBay data, you’ll want to create those sub-categories first.

See your profit or loss by month, quarter or year

This one is pretty self explanatory:

On a related note, we also added totals to top right of the Income and Expense tabs, so when you drill down or filter for a specific date range and/or category, you can see the totals. This will also match the numbers your click from the profit and loss report.

Ability to delete sub-categories

A small enhancement, but for those of you who add a sub-category but then decide you don’t need it, or made a mistake, you can easily delete them. Of course, if you have categorized any transactions using that sub-category, you will need to re-categorize them. We won’t give you the option to delete a sub-category if there are any transactions using it.

That’s it for now. We’ve got a few other improvements coming soon, so stay tuned.

Bookkeeping for Multiple eBay accounts

Seller Ledger on February 14, 2023

Seller Ledger now supports bookkeeping for sellers with multiple eBay accounts.

Based once again on feedback from our wonderful Beta customers, we have added the ability to link multiple eBay accounts to Seller Ledger. This is especially important if you are looking to match the 1099-K that eBay sends. If you have multiple eBay accounts under a single Tax ID, eBay combines the totals for all accounts under that Tax ID.

Learn more about 1099-Ks and why bookkeeping helps you avoid unwanted discrepancies.

Connect multiple eBay accounts in Seller Ledger

If you have multiple individual eBay accounts, it’s simple to link them with Seller Ledger.

Just add each account, one at a time, and watch them show up on your dashboard.

You can see each account, the net sales amount, and how many transactions have been imported. Click through to view the transactions within each account.

To make tax time much easier, we roll up your sales and expenses across all of your eBay accounts into a single Schedule C tax report.

Automated bookkeeping for eBay sellers just got a lot easier for sellers with multiple accounts.

As always, keep the feedback coming. We’ll see you at the next feature announcement.

New Bookkeeping Website for Online Sellers

Seller Ledger on January 31, 2023

We’re Seller Ledger and we’re here to automate bookkeeping for online sellers.

Why a new bookkeeping website?

Hi, this is Kevin. I was the founding CEO of Outright.com, a bookkeeping website for online sellers that eventually became GoDaddy Bookkeeping. As many of you are painfully aware, GoDaddy Bookkeeping was shut down mid-year in 2022. We were not happy with the demise of something we had worked so hard to create.

We then looked at the market to see what alternatives existed and if folks were happy with those solutions. Turns out, not so much. So, we started reaching out to sellers to see if there might be interest in a new bookkeeping website for online sellers. The response was very positive.

So, in a rapid sprint, we’ve put forth a new product called Seller Ledger to fill the gap in the market. Our initial focus has been on eBay sellers, with plans to add additional marketplaces and sales channels soon. With the help of a tremendous group of initial customers/alpha testers, we’ve built and launched a first version of the product.

See for yourself

What Seller Ledger does

Our product helps automate your eBay bookkeeping in 3 easy steps:

1. Import your sales and fee history

Connect your eBay account to Seller Ledger and we will pull in your transaction history every 3 hours.

2. Generate real-time profit and tax reports

We categorize all of your transaction details, including shipping amounts collected and fees charged, showing you an up-to-date profit and loss report as well as a pre-populated Schedule C tax summary.

3. Manually enter other transactions

To complete your financial picture, simply add business transactions we don’t know about, like the cost of items you sold, off-marketplace sales and even mileage expenses.

Give Seller Ledger a Try

We’re keeping Seller Ledger free for the time being, as we continue to add features and functionality. During this time, we encourage prospective customers to reach out to us directly.

Category: eBay Bookkeeping