Can't Calculate Payouts

[vintagebargainsgalore]

Hoping some kind person can help me make sense of this. I've been selling on here since 2004 but took a break and just started back the first of the year with managed payments. I can't make heads or tails of it. Just a small seller but still want to understand how much it's costing me to sell on eBay.

My total (clothing) sales for the past 90 days are $1003 including sale price of the item, shipping, and sales tax. No refunds to anyone. If I'm figuring it right, 15% fees plus .30 per sale (25) of that $1003 comes to about $158. My payouts total $539. So I don't understand where the rest of the money went. I'm sure it's something real simple that I'm doing wrong but at this point I'm about ready to throw in the towel. 

If anyone can shed some light on this it would be greatly appreciated. TIA. 

[mega-ma-roo]

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@vintagebargainsgalore wrote:

So if the buyer pays $70 with $9 Priority shipping for a heavier item, their payment not counting taxes would be $79. But I'm not getting $79 deposited in my bank, just $70. So I'm paying the $9 shipping out of the $70, not out of $79. 

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I'm starting to think I am being trolled here, because really this is not that difficult. One last try:

You are not paying the $9 shipping out of the $70, you are paying it out of the $79. You are not paying it out of your bank account, you are paying it out of payouts. Actually you are not paying it at all, the buyer is paying it.

[wooden_flower]

Let's try it this way. First I am going to start with the $868 total because I think the $1,003 includes the green prom dress in your sold items twice - I see it twice in your sold listings.  If this was a cancelled transaction, you need to make sure you are looking at a total that does not include that. The sales performance page should be reduced for that cancellation.

$868 total with shipping and tax

   -50  removed estimated tax (you can fill in the correct amount)

  -159  eBay fees

 -158  shipping labels

 $501 my estimate of your payouts you actually received $539

You didn't give me an exact amount for the selling costs - you said $300, so you can adjust that, too.

So you can see that you start with the amount including what your buyer paid for shipping and then you use that to pay for the shipping. In and out.

[vintagebargainsgalore]

I finally figured out that eBay saying my sales are $1003 and yet only paid out $538 is confusing. No way that's 17.5% but even if it was, I wonder how those grossly inflated amounts will work when I file taxes on it. If I owe taxes on basically half as much income as I actually have....???? This should be fun. 

[wooden_flower]

Well, I give up on your reconciliation, although I think I laid it out correctly below.

When it is time to do taxes, you'll need to acknowledge that you paid for shipping so you can deduct that as an expense on schedule C. You'll only pay tax on your net profit, so using the last 90 days as an example, the $538 less expenses outside of eBay. This could include what you paid for the items you sold, and any other expenses, like packaging materials, mileage to go to the PO, etc.

Good luck.

[vintagebargainsgalore]

I didn't see your newest reply or Juan's until now and I think I finally understand. No doubt y'all would both like to hit me over the head with something lol but I'm just not a left brained person. You can't teach an old dog new tricks but I can't blame it on my age; I've never been able to get my head around stuff like this. I'm trying. I have a shed full of things I've bought through the years that I need to sell and get rid of, so I need to keep slugging away with eBay. It was easy before because there was an itemized invoice where I could see exactly what I was debited or credited and what it was for. But now all I see is one lump sum and it's confusing for me. If there's a place to see the breakdown of  charges and credits I haven't found it yet. 

As I said, I think what threw me was that $1002 figure and my brain immediately thought "whoa that's almost twice as much as I made!" 

I truly do much appreciate yours and Juan's help and sorry I've tried your patience. Thanks! I'm going to tackle it again later today. 

[mega-ma-roo]

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@vintagebargainsgalore wrote:

It was easy before because there was an itemized invoice where I could see exactly what I was debited or credited and what it was for. But now all I see is one lump sum and it's confusing for me. If there's a place to see the breakdown of  charges and credits I haven't found it yet. 

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I think this may help. It's not as easy as it once was, but this should give you what you need to understand what comes in and what goes out.

Go to your Seller Hub "Payments" tab and then "Reports" and pick the "Statements" tab. Here is the URL:

https://www.ebay.com/sh/fin/report/statement#/

For the statement, click on the down carat next to "Download" and select "Full Statement (PDF)"

It will take a few minutes or 1/2 hour depending on how much data. When the statement is ready there will be a Download option.

You will get a summary page and transaction details showing each order and the eBay fee for each order. If you buy your shipping labels through eBay there will be a section for all those. There will also be another section if you have any additional eBay fees.

It is unfortunate that the summary page shows only your orders total minus the eBay fees. This makes it harder to reconcile amounts for your tax purposes. If would be a lot easier if these statements showed gross receipts (which is what you will see on your 1099-K) and total eBay fees as separate amounts. There are other reports available that have these broken out, but I find it easier to just keep a spreadsheet where I enter them myself for every sale. I only have a few hundred sales a year, so this works for me.

[wooden_flower]

No worries!  Math is easy for me, but I can't draw more than a stick figure - we all have our strengths 🙂

Run a transaction report - you can see order by order what was paid, the fees and the payout.

https://www.ebay.com/sh/fin/report

Always use the financial reports - those agree with the $ sent to your bank, so they are always right.  Statistics you see on your home page, like '90 day sales' are not always reduced for cancellations, refunds, etc.