@oldtreasuresforyou wrote:I have a larger store and am a one woman show. It seems as though there must be a subscription or program that integrates with Ebay that would keep track of listed items cost basis. ( What a seller has paid for that item.)
Rubylane allows you to put that in for items and it keeps track as you sell and list. Its a gift from above at tax time. I'm sure Ebay must have something but I cannot find it.
I've used what is now SixBit since '99, and I may be wrong, but I've always been able to track my per-unit costs, as well as the vendor purchased from and the purchase order, if I wanted/needed that much detail. For what I'm selling now, I use the average per unit on each item from a purchase. Since SixBit also tracks my eBay fees (and PayPal before that), including listing fees when applied, I can get a pretty decent profit/loss figure. Even better when I include my postage/shipping cost. I -could- add the average overhead per sale to the mix, but that's a bit deeper than I need to go -- I track those costs separately and report them as deductions to my gross eBay income.
The main issue, I would think, would be volume. Not historical volume -- that's low access stuff, getting lower the more time passes, and can be easily stored in secondary systems where it's available...just not as quickly. Real time volume - active listings, sold/unsold listings, drafts, pictures, communications... these have to be accessed faster and far more frequently, which adds expense. And expense decreases the net profits and so much be highly controlled.
Personally, I prefer keeping my business data on my business PC, under my lock & key so to speak. I get that with SixBit and I'm quite happy with it. Even when I was doing consignment sales, SB was able to capture and allow me to extract the data I needed to keep my clients informed about what had sold, for how much, and what fees applied against that sale. It also came in handy when filing tax forms... long before eBay was required by States & the Feds to do so. By being able to account for my sales and my deductions, I only paid income tax on what was actually income and not gross sales.
Automation is generally quite good at managing those nagging little details that can make the difference between profit and loss. If I had to track all of that on paper, by hand.... I think I'd go back to IT consulting. It would still be 1099 work, but at a significantly higher hourly rate, and much easier to track expenses.
Your instinct to have your PC track all that is good. Expecting eBay to manage it all, and be concerned enough to correct 'glitches' and the data they damage, may be a bit 'rose colored glasses'. It's your business, your bottom line, your income taxes. Get automation and don't rely solely on eBay records.
I don't recall seeing anywhere that eBay does that yet... and there's an aspect of "business partner" in managing that kind of info for sellers. Plus... if you get decent automation of your own... it can probably manage that same data from other venues as well... allowing you to more easily grow beyond just eBay.
I'm looking forward to hearing from others..... that's usually where the best solutions come from - mixing what works from a variety of sources to create what works best for me, or you, or anyone else.
-Bob.
