How to Collect eBay Sales Data for Tax Purposes: Part 2
In order to determine your profits from your sales, you'll need to detail items sold, the cost of each item, what each sold for, PayPal, Google Checkout and eBay fees, shipping costs, web hosting costs and packaging supplies.
Part 1 in this two-part series addressed how to collect sales data from eBay and PayPal. In Part 2, learn how to collect additional sales data from your own website or Google Checkout.
Non-Ebay Sales
EBay sellers can save a significant amount in fees by selling outside of eBay. For tax purposes, these additional sales can't be overlooked. If you sold on sites like Blujay or eCrater or you had your own website outside of eBay, you will need to collect that sale information, unless the customers paid via PayPal, in which case, the information will be included in your PayPal download. For cash and check payments, you will need to contact your bank, if you did not keep records after each sale. For any sales paid via Google Checkout, you can extract the information off of their site.
How to Collect Sales Data from Google Checkout
Unlike PayPal, Google Checkout doesn't have a comprehensive download capability. Instead, you can only extract up to 31 days at a time and the download does not include fees paid to Google. Start collecting sales data from Google Checkout by logging into your Google Checkout account. Click on the "Orders" tab. Scroll down to the bottom and click on "Download Data to Spreadsheet (.csv)." Select your date range and click "Download." Do this for each month that you had sales. Once the download is complete, open it in a spreadsheet. From there you can calculate the fees for each sale, using the applicable rate at the time of the sale. Once you've got the fees and amount sold, you can import the cost of each item into your spreadsheet to give you the total profits earned, which will then be subtracted from your shipping supply costs and hosting fees to give you a complete picture of your 2009 profits.
Published by Nik Minor
Nik is a freelance writer, editor, law student, and small business owner. View profile
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4 Comments
Post a CommentHelpful follow-up Shanika.
Good info. I hate taxes though.
What she (Nancy) said. One baffling tax thing I DON'T have to do.
This is very good info for eBay people, Shanika. I'm just glad I don;t have to do it!