How to reconcile Sales and Shipping transactions when the Transaction Report is NEVER CONSISTENT?!

[pristine10_auctions]

If someone can give me a tip, that would be great.  Because when I download the Transaction Report, it becomes very difficult to match up the sale transaction and the shipping transaction (usually because it may not be done on the same day).

But the problem I have is that to tie those transactions together (the unique identifier), sometimes the Legacy ID that matches, sometimes it's the Item ID that matches, and sometimes it's the Order Number.....

WHY IS IT NEVER CONSISTENT??!!  I should haven't to manipulate the data 3 times to simply match up the Sale and Shipping transaction.... 

[slippinjimmy]

Why do you need to match up the two?

For year end accounting purposes you only need the totals.

If you are trying to figure out your "profits/expenses" at the individual item level you might need to find a new way to track the numbers instead of using eBay reporting.

[pristine10_auctions]

Well, considering the spotlight on transactions due to the IRS now being involved, reporting has got to be better.  People are going to need the ability to reconcile data (in the event they are audited).  You’re right, in theory, for a handful of items a month, simply manually tracking the Sale Price, Shipping, Ebay Final Fee, and Actual Shipping cost should be fairly simple, but if someone is doing tons of transactions a month, it’s just not realistic.  A Seller should be able to quickly download a CSV with 1 line item that shows the shipping amount, and another line item(s) that shows Sale Price, Shipping, and Final fees…. All grouped together.  I mean, I get it…not a lot of people do a reconciliation like this (even though they should, as I’ve caught double shipping costs before), but with increased IRS visibility now, people need the options to get all their data quick and ACCURATELY.  The average person doesn’t do X, V and H lookups in Excel, and that’s what I had to do to get the data I needed…..  Sellers shouldn’t need to do that.