Tracking source costs

[tthodgepodge]

Any tips or suggestions or even cheap app suggestions that help track purchase prices on items I sell?  I have a feeling tax time is going to be painful.  I keep every purchase receipt.  For shipping costs, pirate ship and ebay make it pretty easy.  But what about refunds, returns and most importantly source costs.

Any experienced sellers have some advice?  Beyond my stack of receipts strategy?

Thanks in advance.

[mam98031]

All you have to do is download the report available to you in the Seller Hub, then the Payments tab, select Reports.  

[tthodgepodge]

I'm referring to costs that eBay knows nothing about.  i.e. the cost to purchase items I sell.  Any suggestions?

[mam98031 · Accepted solution]

Your original post was a bit unclear as you asked for help in tracking your  purchase prices on items you sell.

So what you are actually looking for is a way to track your sales verse cost of sales.

For me, my husband built me a database in Microsoft Access.  I have data entry screens to enter my sales and a place to run reports as needed.  And I have data entry screens to enter my COGS [cost of sales] as they arise with a place for reports too.

So many sellers this isn't something they need.

If you know how to utilize a worksheet program like MS Excel, you could build a worksheet to track your sales and COGS.  Or you could look into something like Quickbooks.

[dhbookds]

There are various ways to enter source cost on a listing........you could use SKU box;  at one time some sellers used a "code" to enter it into a title or description...........  But that still entails picking the amount  up and putting into some spread sheet to come up with totals.

[stainlessenginecovers]

At this point; a pen will work

Using the 'reports' and just adding a line manually to that report showing 'cost of item'. The report will show the date, the description, the fee paid, the shipping paid (if you used Pending Payments- or go to Paypal for 'payments sent report' if you paid for shipping that way). 

Then all you have to do is add the 'cost' to any of the blank lines that will come up on the report.

[mam98031]

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@dhbookds wrote:

There are various ways to enter source cost on a listing........you could use SKU box;  at one time some sellers used a "code" to enter it into a title or description...........  But that still entails picking the amount  up and putting into some spread sheet to come up with totals.

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I don't believe that is what the OP is asking for.  They just are looking for a way to track their sales and COGS.  There are more costs to selling than just the price of the product.  There are shipping supplies, labels, office supplies, inventory sourcing, etc.

[dhbookds]

@mam98031 

This was what I was going by:

I'm referring to costs that eBay knows nothing about. i.e. the cost to purchase items I sell. Any suggestions?

message 3

[mam98031]

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@dhbookds wrote:

@mam98031 

This was what I was going by:

I'm referring to costs that eBay knows nothing about. i.e. the cost to purchase items I sell. Any suggestions?

message 3

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I understand, but as you and I know there is more COGS than just the price paid for the item any given seller is selling.  And they did say "I'm referring to costs that eBay knows nothing about"  the rest was just an example hence the "I.E. " to denote it is an example.

[dhbookds]

@mam98031   I was just trying to answer the OP's question as I understood it.......sorry if you feel it was incomplete.

[mam98031]

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@dhbookds wrote:

@mam98031   I was just trying to answer the OP's question as I understood it.......sorry if you feel it was incomplete.

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And I'm sorry I offended you.

[luckythewinner]

I attach the cost documentation to the item when I list it, so that when the item is in inventory it has the cost documentation right with it.

When I ship an item, I remove the cost documentation and put it in a COGS folder.

Refunds already appear in the transaction detail report.

[mam98031]

That is a great way to track your cost of the product you are selling.  How do you track your other costs?