taxes 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

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

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 Poshmark file is.

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

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

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]

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.

It’s Official: We’ve launched

Seller Ledger on March 31, 2023

Launch day! Seller Ledger has officially exited its “Beta” period and now offers automated bookkeeping software that’s specifically designed for online sellers.

First, a “thank you” to our Beta customers

There is no way we could have pulled this off without the help of more than 300 online sellers who took the time to bang on our software to find the bugs, the data discrepancies, and the things that just weren’t easy enough to use. Your commitment to helping, your patience with the flaws, and your continuous communication made this possible.

What does it mean to “launch?”

No, we’re not throwing some big event (though we can’t rule that out for future milestones:) Launching simply means we are at the point where we’re asking folks to pay to continue using Seller Ledger. It also means we’re committing to supporting the product going forward. We still have big plans for improving the product. In addition to adding new marketplaces like Etsy, Amazon and others, we will also continue to prioritize smaller improvements to make the product easier to use.

Do I have to pay now?

While we’d certainly appreciate it, we are giving all of our Beta customers the same 30-day trial period they would receive if they just signed up today. But they have the benefit of keeping all of the data already in their account (including transactions for the full 2022 year where available.)

Beta customers can see their paid plan options here: https://app.sellerledger.com/settings/billing

What does this mean for brand new users?

If you’re new to Seller Ledger, you can sign up for a free 30-day trial, import up to 90 days worth of sales and expense history from eBay, PayPal, banks and credit cards, and see for yourself how well the product eases your bookkeeping burden. We don’t ask for a credit card or any form of payment up-front. At the end of your trial, decide for yourself whether we’re providing enough value to pay for continued use. If the answer is no, that’s ok. We’ll just do our best to earn your business in the future.

Try for free

Thanks again to all of our Beta and future customers. Stay tuned for more improvements!

The Seller Ledger Team

Banks, credit cards and PayPal, oh my!

Seller Ledger on March 3, 2023

In one of our biggest steps toward building a great product (and filling the void left by GoDaddy Bookkeeping,) we are pleased to announce that Seller Ledger now lets you link most banks, credit cards, and even PayPal.

How to link banks, credit cards and PayPal

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:

Click the button on the right side of the screen and follow the steps. Choose from the top banks listed, or search by name (which you will want to do for PayPal.) Once linked, we will pull in 90 days worth of transaction history for each linked account.

On a related note, we have also added some new categorization features. You will initially see a lot of transactions marked as “uncategorized.” We now make it super simple to choose a category and apply it to every other transaction like it – both in the past and future.

More than 90 days of history

Based on a handful of banks so far, it appears that we will be able to import the full prior year’s data in many cases. Not only that, but our cracker-jack development team has figured out a way to do the same for eBay data. We now have the ability to go back and get your prior year’s sales and expense history from connected accounts.

Updated pricing and a way of saying “thanks”

For those who may have noticed on our home page, we have updated our pricing section to reflect a couple of changes:

First, we plan to offer annual billing plans where customers pay for 10 months and get 2 free (we like round numbers and offering incentives.)

Second, every free trial will start with 90 days of transaction history. To receive more than 90 days, we will ask customers to commit to an annual plan. The reasons are twofold: one, that much data does increase our costs materially, and two, we’re excited to be able to deliver the full 2022 tax year, but it wouldn’t be fair if we allowed customers to receive this while only paying for a single month.

For those of you who have been with us on this journey to date, we decided that one way to say “thanks” was by going ahead and importing all of your 2022 data for you. Feel free to log in and view your 2022 sales and expenses. Thanks again for your support and wonderful feedback.

Help other sellers with 2022 taxes

Having read multiple discussions online (e.g. the eBay and Etsy community boards, and even Reddit,) there appear to be a lot of sellers who were left in the lurch when GoDaddy Bookkeeping shut down in mid-2022. While we can’t make this offer indefinitely, we wanted to let folks know that we’ll keep the free 2022 data imports going through the end of this month, until March 31. If you know anyone or have seen any calls for help in different communities, feel free to send them our way before the end of the month, and we’ll get their data back to Jan 1, 2022. Please let them know that we’re still in Beta, and we continue to work on improvements, but hopefully, we can help some of them out.

Again, please keep the feedback coming. And stay tuned for the next update.

1099-K threshold change delayed

Seller Ledger on February 9, 2023

Small online sellers who generate more than $600 a year in receipts get to breathe a sigh of relief…for one more year.

On December 22, 2022, the IRS delayed the implementation of the $600 threshold for payment platforms to provide 1099-Ks for online sellers. Instead of receiving 1099-Ks in early 2023 for the 2022 tax year, everything is being pushed back a full year.

For the 2022 tax year, the same thresholds of $20,000 in payments received from more than 200 transactions apply.

Get ready for next year

This delay in the 1099-K threshold change in no way absolves small online sellers of their tax obligations for the most recent year. But, it does give them another year to make sure the numbers they file on their Schedule C will match the 1099-Ks that get filed. Perhaps a new bookkeeping website for online sellers could help.

1099-Ks for Small Sellers

Seller Ledger on February 8, 2023

Last year, the IRS made a major change that will send a LOT more 1099-Ks to small online sellers.

Prior to this change, only sellers who had at least $20,000 in gross receipts across more than 200 transactions in a year would received a 1099-K. Some states have already lowered the threshold.

As part of the American Rescue Plan of 2021, this threshold was changed to a mere $600 per year. That means nearly all online sellers should expect to receive a 1099-K going forward. The change was originally intended to take effect for the 2022 tax year, but small sellers just got a slight reprieve as the IRS pushed back implementation by a year.

What’s the big deal?

Form 1099-K for online sellers — Should small online sellers dread the 1099-K?

The primary concern for many sellers is that a 1099-K means they will owe taxes on the amount reported in Box 1a (see the image above.) Sellers are also concerned about reporting the correct amount on Line 1 of their Schedule C (see image below) and matching that amount to their 1099-K.

Schedule C Line 1: Forss receipts or sales — It’s better when numbers match

Avoiding mismatched numbers

Here are some things that could cause differences and what you can do to avoid them:

Shipping

Box 1a of the 1099-K WILL include shipping amounts that you collect from the buyer. You should make sure that these amounts are also included in Line 1 of your Schedule C. Additionally, you’ll want to be sure you’re tracking and reporting all of your actual shipping costs as expenses.

Transaction Fees

Box 1a of the 1099-K WILL NOT include any fees that may have been taken out of your order (e.g. final value fees, transaction fees, etc.) This means the amount you actually receive in your bank account will be less than what gets reported to the IRS. Therefore, it’s very important to keep track of all of your selling fees and report them as expenses.

Refunds and Discounts

Like with fees, Box 1a WILL NOT include refunds and discounts. It is up to you to keep track of these separately, and place the total amount in Line 2 of your Schedule C tax form.

Multiple channels and multiple payment providers

It’s important to remember that each payment platform will be sending 1099-Ks to any sellers with more than $600 in annual transactions. If you sell on multiple channels, and they use different payment processors, you are likely to receive multiple 1099-Ks. In an ideal world, the sum of the 1099-K amounts should equal Line 1 on your Schedule C. However, this assumes that each payment platform treats all of these numbers the same. If anyone finds examples where this isn’t true, please shoot us an email and we’d be happy to dig into it and see what’s going on, then share with the broader community.

What about Sales Tax?

There seem to be many questions about whether sales tax should be included in Box 1a. Based on 1099-Ks shared with us by customers, and language from eBay’s help website, sales tax that is both collected and remitted for you will not be included.

Good bookkeeping makes this much easier to handle

While you can’t control what gets reported to the IRS, you can control what you file on your tax return. You can ensure the numbers in your tax return match what the IRS sees through good bookkeeping practices. If you are looking for help on that front, consider Seller Ledger, a bookkeeping program that’s specifically designed for online sellers. Seller Ledger’s automated solution breaks out those shipping, refund and fee details and make sure they roll up to the correct tax lines to match the 1099-K.

Disclaimer

The content in this page should not be construed as legal or tax advice. Please consult an attorney or tax professional regarding your specific tax situation.