bookkeeping Archives - Seller Ledger

Import Mercari sales report into Seller Ledger

Seller Ledger on November 8, 2023

We are pleased to announce that Mercari sellers can now import their sales report into Seller Ledger.

Like Poshmark, Mercari does not provide a public API, so we can’t automatically grab your transaction history like we can with Amazon, eBay and Etsy. But, just as we do with Poshmark, we allow you to upload the Mercari sales report.

Step 1: Download your Mercari sales history

In your Mercari account, navigate to the Seller dashboard (under your profile image.) From there, click on “Sales report.” You will be asked for both a beginning and end date for your transaction report. Once you have selected the date range, click the “Generate report” button.

You should see a .csv file generated, with a name that begins with “Custom-sales-report” and ends with the date range you selected. Download that file to your computer.

Step 2: Add a Mercari account in Seller Ledger

When you click the “Add account” button under Connected Accounts on your Seller Ledger dashboard, you will now see an option to “Connect to Mercari.”

After clicking the Mercari button, enter a name for your new account and click “Create Account”

Step 3: Upload your Mercari sales report file

Once you’ve created your new Mercari account, you’ll see it among your list of connected accounts on the Dashboard. Note the icons that differentiate between accounts that automatically connect and those that require CSV files be uploaded.

Clicking into the balance shown for your new Mercari account and click the “Import History” tab. Here you will see the option to upload a CSV file. Choose the file you downloaded from Mercari and click “Save.” Your file will be uploaded and your transaction history will be imported into Seller Ledger.

Trial users

If you are still in your trial period, Seller Ledger will only import the last 90 days of transaction history, regardless of how large your Mercari file is.

Step 4: Categorize your Mercari payouts properly

If you have connected a bank account to Seller Ledger, there’s a good chance your Mercari payout totals are showing up there. To ensure that nothing is getting double-counted, make sure to categorize those payouts as transfers. Simply scroll to the bottom of the categories list and find your new account.

Step 5: Remember to regularly update your Mercari sales in Seller Ledger

Because we can’t pull in your new sales and expense information on the daily, you’ll want to make sure to come back every once in a while to upload your latest sales history. How often you choose to do so is your choice. We show the date of the most recent imported transaction on the Seller Ledger dashboard to help remind you.

Lastly, if you make a mistake with any of your uploaded information, it’s not a problem. The “Import History” tab shows you all of the files you’ve uploaded over time, with the ability to simply delete one or more and try again.

We know there are other channels out there that provide CSV files of transaction history. If you would like to see other channels supported, please email us at [email protected] with your interest and, if you’d like to be particularly helpful, a sample of a transaction history file from that channel.

Cheers,

The Seller Ledger Team

Automate your Amazon accounting with Seller Ledger

Seller Ledger on October 24, 2023

We are proud to announce that Seller Ledger now connects directly with your Amazon Seller Central account to help automate much of your Amazon business accounting. As with eBay and Etsy, you can link your Amazon Seller Central account to Seller Ledger and we’ll regularly import your sales and expenses and automatically categorize them for you. Just log into your dashboard and click the “Add Account” button to link your Amazon account.

Also, like with eBay and Etsy, you can always change how you’d like to see your Amazon information categorized by customizing your settings.

Thanks again to the customers who helped us in testing this new integration. Amazon did limit the number of people we could link during the beta period, so we may yet see some new transaction types. If this happens, you may see your Amazon import pause, and we’ll be notified on the back-end to add support for the new transaction type.

Amazon has also listed us in their Selling Partner Appstore, where customers are able to learn more about the product and leave reviews. We’re big fans of customer word of mouth, so if you have an opinion about Seller Ledger and would be willing to share it with other prospective customers, please do.

Next up:

We’re actively working on a Mercari import solution (similar to what we recently announced with Poshmark) and the ability to upload CSV files for poorly or unsupported banks. If you would be interested in beta testing either of these features, please email us at [email protected].

Until next time…

The Seller Ledger team

5 Things Online Sellers can do this fall to prepare for Filing 2023 Taxes

Seller Ledger on October 18, 2023

So often we find ourselves in the springtime questioning why didn’t we do more to prepare,
and tax season ends up being a time-pressured, stressful undertaking. It doesn’t have to be
that way though, as there are many things you can do now to make the process much easier
after the end of the calendar year.

1. Ensure you have a consistent means of tracking your finances, including both your sales and expenses, every month.

There are many different ways to do this, and you should select the method that is right for
you. Some sellers track these manually in a spreadsheet and others use automated
bookkeeping software such as Seller Ledger to make the process faster and easier with
automated imports from sales channels and bank/credit card accounts. The key is to ensure
you are tracking every sale and every expense, and it’s a good idea to summarize this data
monthly to see how your business is doing.

2. Learn about the changes coming for 1099K regulations in 2023.

In 2022, the IRS had planned to require sales channels like eBay, Amazon, and Etsy to issue
a 1099K to anyone selling over $600 (vs $20,000 previously), only to announce at the last
minute that the change would be delayed to 2023. Many organizations continue to lobby for a
higher dollar threshold, but as of the time of this article, the IRS states that it will require 1099K
forms for anyone selling $600 or higher in 2023. Note that different companies may calculate
their 1099K’s differently and you’ll want to be aware of how they do it.

3. Develop your strategy to know how much inventory you have on hand.

There are many ways to manage inventory. Some sellers count their inventory monthly,
quarterly or annually to assess its value, and this is ideal, but it is too huge a task for others. It’s
important to document the purchase price of your items when you buy them so you know how
much you’ve spent on Inventory. You can do this in a spreadsheet, or Seller Ledger makes it
easy to categorize inventory purchased through your connected bank/credit card accounts.
When an item sells and you ship it off, the value of your inventory goes down by the value of
that item, and that amount becomes Cost of Goods Sold for your taxes. Seller Ledger can
manage this process automatically for you so you’ll always know how much inventory you have
on hand and you’ll know your Cost of Goods Sold amount for tax time.

4. Make sure you are tracking things like mileage expenses and home office expenses so you’ll remember to include these in your 2023 tax filing.

Every time you drive to a store to purchase inventory, or drive to the post office to ship
products, you are using your vehicle for your business. You can either deduct vehicle expenses
individually (such as buying a business vehicle, or car insurance), or you can use the mileage
deduction every time you take a trip on behalf of the business. If you’re using Seller Ledger,
you can just enter the number of miles you traveled for work and Seller Ledger automatically
uses the IRS standard mileage rates to track the expense for you. Your home office and things
like your storage spaces are deductible too. Make a list of all the areas in your home that are
dedicated to your business and you’ll have it handy when needed for taxes.

5. Consider investing in accounting/bookkeeping software that can automate much of this process for your business.

Seller Ledger currently supports eBay, Etsy, Poshmark (through CSV uploads) and Amazon (in
beta) with additional channels coming soon. There is a 30-day free trial and pricing is
$10/month for up to 250 transactions/month. There are no additional fees for selling through
multiple sales channels or for using advanced features such as inventory management. You can
connect your sales channels as well as Paypal and your bank and credit card accounts for
automated data imports. Drop down menus make it easy to categorize expenses. Monthly,
quarterly and annual financial reports help you to understand how your business is performing,
and make it easy to prepare for estimated quarterly tax payments. For annual taxes, a pre-
populated schedule C form is prepared for you.

If you’re going to begin using an automated software platform, the sooner you start on it the
better. Some banks have limitations on how far back they’ll allow you to go in directly
importing transactions (many restrict it to 90 days), so to capture the most data possible, don’t
wait before signing up. You can start your free 30-day trial at SellerLedger.com.

Import Poshmark sales history into Seller Ledger

Seller Ledger on October 10, 2023

Today Seller Ledger has launched the ability to import your order and fee information from Poshmark.

Unlike sales channels such as eBay, Etsy and Amazon, Poshmark does not have a public API to which Seller Ledger can automatically connect. But fear not, for they do provide downloadable files (in .csv format) with your sales history. And Seller Ledger’s new import tool makes it super easy to get all of your information from Poshmark into Seller Ledger.

Step 1: Download your Poshmark sales history

Just follow the steps Poshmark outlines to receive a .csv formatted file.

Step 2: Add a Poshmark account in Seller Ledger

When you click the “Add account” button under Connected Accounts on your dashboard, you will now see an option to “Import Poshmark.”

After clicking the Poshmark button, enter a name for your new account and click “Create Account”

Step 3: Upload your Poshmark sales history file

Once you’ve created your new Poshmark account, you’ll see it among your list of connected accounts on the Dashboard. Note the new icons we’ve added to differentiate between accounts that automatically connect and those that require CSV files be uploaded.

Clicking into the balance shown for your new Poshmark account and click the “Import History” tab. Here you will see the option to upload a CSV file. Choose the file you downloaded from Poshmark and click “Save.” Your file will be uploaded and your transaction history will be imported into Seller Ledger.

Trial users

Step 4: Categorize your Poshmark payouts properly

If you have connected a bank account to Seller Ledger, there’s a good chance your Poshmark payout totals are showing up there. To ensure that nothing is getting double-counted, make sure to categorize those payouts as transfers. Simply scroll to the bottom of the categories list and find your new account.

Step 5: Automate your inventory and cost of goods sold

One of the more powerful things about the Poshmark platform is that they let you enter SKU information for each item you sell. And, if you do so, they provide that information in their sale history file when you download it. This allows Seller Ledger to automatically update your inventory levels, calculate cost of goods sold, and per-item profit as soon as you upload your file. Not familiar with how this all works? Check out our video on inventory management through Seller Ledger.

Wrapping up

While a bit more effort than our fully connected accounts, uploading CSV transaction history doesn’t take a lot of additional effort and provides the vast majority of the benefits that are available through Seller Ledger. Just make sure to come back every once in a while to upload your latest sales history.

Plus, if you make a mistake with any of your uploaded information, it’s not a problem. The “Import History” tab shows you all of the files you’ve uploaded over time, with the ability to simply delete one or more and try again.

Poshmark is just the first sales channel for whom we’ve built CSV-based functionality. But it’s pretty easy to extend to other channels (like Mercari, which is coming soon.) If you would like to see other channels supported, please email us at [email protected] with your interest and, if you’d like to be particularly helpful, a sample of a transaction history file from that channel.

Cheers,

The Seller Ledger Team

Pay eCommerce estimated taxes – accurately and on time

Seller Ledger on August 19, 2023

In time for 2023 third quarter estimated taxes, Seller Ledger has released a new feature to make calculating your tax obligation easy.

New “Quarterly” taxes tab

Under the Taxes section, you will see a new tab labeled “Quarterly”. Clicking on it will bring you to a screen like this:

Seller Ledger now estimates your quarterly tax payments based on your year-to-date business results and shows you the correct payment deadlines for the selected year. We take care of the rates for Social Security and Medicare, and let you choose the federal income tax rate that applies to your situation (see the new “Business” tab under Settings:)

If you under- or over-pay for one quarter, Seller Ledger will remember that for future quarters. To record payments, just use the new “Estimated tax” category that has been added to your account, so Seller Ledger knows to apply the payment correctly.

Click here to get a copy of the latest IRS form 1040-ES.

As always, feedback is very much appreciated, so let us know how we can improve things at [email protected].

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

Seller Ledger adds easy inventory tracking for eCommerce sellers

Seller Ledger on June 20, 2023

eCommerce sellers, large and small, now have the ability to track inventory with Seller Ledger. Until now, customers could only write off inventory as “cost of goods sold” when purchased. But no longer!

Why track inventory in Seller Ledger?

There are a number of reasons to track inventory:

For most eCommerce sellers, the IRS requires that you do so.
It better aligns costs with your sale.
If done properly at the item level, it can help automate accurate stock levels (avoid stockouts,) as well as tell you how much money you make on individual orders and items.

So what does Seller Ledger offer in terms of eCommerce inventory tracking?

There are now 2 main ways to track inventory in Seller Ledger: what we call “balance-level” and “item-level” tracking.

Option 1: Balance level tracking (a.k.a. “periodic inventory”)

For those sellers who don’t want to track every item of inventory, the IRS uses a simple formula to help you calculate “cost of goods sold”:

Cost of Goods Sold = Beginning balance + Purchases – Ending balance

We’ve modeled our new inventory view after this simple formula:

Using this approach is pretty straightforward – you only have to do a few things:

Count/estimate the cost of all of your unsold inventory once per year (or quarter, or month – you choose)
Track purchased goods/materials for resale throughout the year
Do some simple math (or let Seller Ledger do it for you)

Read a more detailed explanation of exactly how this works in practice.

Option 2: Item level tracking (a.k.a. “continuous inventory”)

Do you already keep a spreadsheet of all of your inventory, including how much you paid for each item? When an item sells, do you have to go back and update it? Have you tried to figure out how much money you make on each sale? If you can answer “yes” to any of these questions, then this option is for you.

While a bit more effort is required, the steps are quite simple:

When you purchase goods for resale, categorize them as Inventory purchases
Within each purchase, enter each item, including a unique SKU value, and the item’s cost. This process works very similar to splitting transactions.
Alternatively, you can start from your list of sold items (the order history we’ve already imported for you) and just tell us which purchase transaction included the item sold.

If you provide Seller Ledger with this level of detail, we do a few things for you automatically when an item sells (matching first based on SKU first, then by name):

We reduce the stock level for that item in your inventory
We calculate and generate the cost of goods for that item
We show you your gross profit for that order

Learn more about how to use “item level” inventory tracking.

Do I have to track inventory in Seller Ledger?

You do not. If you would prefer to just categorize inventory purchases as “cost of goods sold,” you are free to do so. But, you might want to make sure you understand the risks with that approach. We’ll be writing another post about that option soon.

How do I try this out?

Just discovering Seller Ledger? Start a 30 day free trial right now – no credit card required.

Try it free

For existing customers, just log into Seller Ledger, and you will see two new changes to the website. First, on the left of your Dashboard, we have added and made visible a new “Inventory” asset account. Second, there is a new top-level navigation link for Inventory. For those who previously categorized inventory purchases as “cost of goods sold,” you can elect to switch to properly tracking inventory. We explain more about how that works here.

Is there an additional charge for tracking inventory in Seller Ledger?

No – this feature is available to all customers at no additional charge. Unlike other accounting/bookkeeping platforms, we think even the smallest sellers should be able to see how much money they make on each item and keep on top of their inventory stock levels.

Please tell us what you think

This is a pretty big release, and represents weeks of work and planning. It’s also something we never got to tackle with Outright/GoDaddy Bookkeeping. As such, we’d love to hear from you as you try this new functionality – the good, the bad and the ugly.

Thanks from the Seller Ledger Team

Split a transaction into multiple categories

Seller Ledger on May 2, 2023

Another one of the most frequently requested enhancements has arrived: the ability to split transactions into multiple categories.

Do you have charges on your credit card for multiple items that belong in different categories? Do you have deposits in your bank account from marketplace payouts that represent net amounts, after combining sales, shipping and subtracting fees. Well, you no longer need to choose a single category for each of those. Now, when you click the button to “Categorize” a transaction, you will see a new option to “Split” that transaction:

Now, click on the “Split Transaction” to break that transaction into multiple categories:

Notice that as you enter an amount in each row, the remaining difference is updated, to let you know how much of the original transaction you still need to account for. As you can see, you also have the ability to “Add Splits” to provide more detail.

For those of you selling on platforms like Poshmark, Mercari and others, who don’t provide APIs, this feature should help you get your numbers more accurate (in order to better match any 1099-k’s you may received.) Though feel free to contact those platforms and tell them to “get with the times”:)

As always, please let us know what you think of this change by emailing us at [email protected].

Categorize many transactions at once

Seller Ledger on April 26, 2023

One of the biggest remaining tasks that we’ve been working on simplifying is the ability to categorize all of your “uncategorized” transactions as quickly as possible. Well, today we took a big step forward by announcing 3 changes:

First, we’ve added some logic to shorten the descriptions we receive from banks and credit cards to shorter, more recognizable merchant and customer names.

Second, when you click on a dashboard button for “uncategorized” transactions (or if you click the “Uncategorized” filter button in your account view,) you will now be presented with a page that shows all of your uncategorized transactions grouped by merchant name or description, sorted by transaction count. This allows you to knock off the biggest grouping of uncategorized transactions as quickly as possible.

Three, we have added the ability to select multiple merchant names/descriptions so you can categorize multiple groups of transactions at once. Do you see multiple vendors where you buy items for resale? Select them all, click “Categorize”, choose “Cost of Goods Sold” and boom!

Please let us know what you think of this change by emailing us at [email protected] or commenting on this post.

Update: April 2024

In the time since we launched this feature, we’ve updated some elements of the user interface. See below for a more current description.

When you click in from the dashboard, you’ll still see “uncategorized” transactions grouped by merchant/transaction name. But you may notice that we have some additional filters in the account views. You can always reproduce this option by clicking the “Type” filter and choosing “uncategorized”.

Connect your Etsy store to Seller Ledger

Seller Ledger on April 18, 2023

We are now officially multi-channel!

Seller Ledger now supports a direct integration with Etsy to bring in your product sales, expenses and fee information.

How to link Etsy

From your Dashboard, below your current connected account(s), simply click the “Add Connected Account” button and you will see an updated screen with a new option:

Connect to Etsy — Connect your Etsy store to Seller Ledger

Click on the button with the Etsy logo and follow the steps to give Seller Ledger permission to import your information. If you have more than one Etsy store, just repeat the process for each store.

By default, Seller Ledger will import 90 days worth of transaction history when you connect Etsy. We will then categorize them as follows:

Etsy value	Seller Ledger Category
Order value	Product Sales
Shipping	Shipping Collected
Discount amount	Discounts
Refund amount	Refunds
Shipping Label	Office expense
Etsy fees	Commissions & Fees

If you’d prefer, Seller Ledger also allows you to customize how you’d like to see your Etsy information to be categorized. Just go to the Settings tab and click the Customize button:

We posted earlier about ways you might want to consider using this feature.

Help spread the word to other Etsy sellers

We have seen a number of posts on the Etsy Community about GoDaddy Bookkeeping going away. If you have a chance, we’d love your help in letting folks there know that a new solution is available.

Let us know what you think

We’re always looking for constructive feedback, so please let us know what we can do to make Etsy bookkeeping easier and better. Email us at [email protected]