[GNC] Need help with eBay - tagging multiple sales into one payout hitting checking two business days later

[Jim DeLaHunt]

Bruce:

Welcome to GnuCash, congratulations on the eBay business, and I hope it 
goes well for you.

It sounds like your question is not about GnuCash, it is about 
accounting. Once you know how the information should get tracked as an 
accounting matter, it will be straightforward to explain how to record 
that information using GnuCash as the recording tool.

Do you have an accountant advising you?  If so, ask them for their 
advice about how to record this information.  Have you read an 
introductory accounting textbook?  If not, maybe this is a good time for 
that learning.

You say,

> …Under Income I have eBay Transactions (and I want this to reflect the 
> eBay All Transactions page).…

 From what you describe, this sounds to me like it should be an Asset, 
not Income. It is something like Accounts Receivable from eBay. The eBay 
All Transactions page as you describe it lists a sale, where eBay starts 
to owe you money, then a deduction for cost of sales, where eBay reduces 
the amount they owe you, then a payout, where eBay reduces what they owe 
you to zero by sending you money. So: it sounds to me like the type of 
this account should be Asset, not Income.

> …Things get way out of hand when I make multiple sales in one day. I 
> would enter a split transaction for every sale, so if I had four 
> transaction – I would show four split transactions made up of the 
> sale, the final value fees, and the shipping label. However – I would 
> only have one payout. So if I take the income from the sale and post 
> it directly to checking, I end up adding 1 of 4, 2 of 4, 3 of 4, … to 
> the front of the description field. Then when looking at my checking 
> account – I would need to add together each individual transaction to 
> equal my payout.…
It sounds like you should be entering only one transaction from the eBay 
Accounts Receivable account to the chequing account, to correspond to 
the one payout per day. There is no need to make a transaction between 
these two accounts for each eBay sale. The amount of the one daily 
transaction equals the amount of the eBay payout, and the amount which 
arrives in your chequing account.

Note that the balance in your eBay Accounts Receivable account starts at 
zero each day, increases as eBay makes sales, decreases as eBay charges 
you fees, then drop to zero when eBay makes the daily payout.

> …When I look at my checking account, I can match it by the dollar 
> amount, but since payouts post in two business days, the date does not 
> match up. But it is simple enough to figure out.… 
In my finances, it is completely normal for a transaction to take 
multiple days to play out, so the statements from various parties to the 
transaction will have different dates.  For instance, I pay a store by 
credit card on May 1st. When I get my credit card statement, it has two 
dates for the transaction: transaction date, and posting date.  The 
transaction date is May 3rd, because the store did not report the sale 
to the credit card company for a little while.  The posting date is May 
4th, because the credit card company also took a little time to process 
the transaction.

GnuCash only has one date field per transaction, so I choose one of 
those three transaction dates as the representative date to record in 
GnuCash.

It is possible to enter multiple GnuCash transactions to record the 
separate steps and the time delay in transactions, but I almost never 
find it worth the bother.

Does this answer your question?
       —Jim DeLaHunt


On 2024-05-31 10:25, Bruce Griffis wrote:
> I’m looking for help in figuring out GnuCash for a small eBay 
> reseller, basically selling items from home, but occasionally 
> purchasing an item for resale. I’m looking at this from the 
> perspective of viewing sales from the My eBay / Selling / Payments / 
> Total Sales page.
>
>
> Under Assets, I have Checking account, Savings account, Cash account 
> and eBay Inventory account (I get that GnuCash does not support 
> inventory – I just build this using a CSV export from Libre Office 
> Calc). Under liabilities I have a secured credit card.
>
>
> Under Income I have eBay Transactions (and I want this to reflect the 
> eBay All Transactions page). Under expenses I have eBay Final Value 
> Fees, eBay Shipping Labels and eBay Refunds. I also have standard 
> small business chart of accounts to support basics of purchasing 
> boxes, bubble wrap, bubble mailers, tape, poly bags, …
>
>
> When I look at making just one sale in a day, this approach works 
> pretty well:
>
> On eBay All Transactions I have one entry that gives Date, Description 
> (the item that was sold),
>
> Amount (this is gross amount), Fees (this is eBay Final Value fees), 
> Net (the net amount I receive – if I pay shipping (offer free 
> shipping), net gets reduced by my shipping label costs), Total Funds.
>
>
> I then see a second transaction under All Transactions for the 
> purchase of the shipping label. This includes Date, Description, 
> Amount and Net. Since Total Amount is the amount in this account 
> before payout, my total amount in this account gets modified (it gets 
> reduced by shipping label amount).
>
>
> I then see a third transaction. The third is my payout. This includes 
> Date, Description, Amount and Total Amount. Amount is the dollar 
> amount that hits my checking account in two business days. Total 
> Amount is the Total in this account (eBay Funds? I need to figure out 
> what to descriptively call it). If I only had one sale in a day and 
> did not make any new sales then Total is zero.
>
>
> To reflect this, I enter a split transaction.
>
> I enter the Date, Description and Gross amount for the sale.
>
> I enter another transaction in the split. This is Date, Description, 
> eBay Final Fees (an expense). This goes into Expense account eBay 
> Final Fees.
>
> I enter another transaction in the split. This is Date, Description, 
> Shipping label cost and goes to eBay Shipping Labels expense account.
>
> I enter a third transaction. This is my payout. It usually simply 
> matches Imbalance-USD. This goes to my Income account Checking.
>
>
> When I look at my checking account, I can match it by the dollar 
> amount, but since payouts post in two business days, the date does not 
> match up. But it is simple enough to figure out.
>
>
> Things get way out of hand when I make multiple sales in one day. I 
> would enter a split transaction for every sale, so if I had four 
> transaction – I would show four split transactions made up of the 
> sale, the final value fees, and the shipping label. However – I would 
> only have one payout. So if I take the income from the sale and post 
> it directly to checking, I end up adding 1 of 4, 2 of 4, 3 of 4, … to 
> the front of the description field. Then when looking at my checking 
> account – I would need to add together each individual transaction to 
> equal my payout. Now I am not matching on date (posted two business 
> days later) and amount (I need to add individual sales together to 
> correlate with the days payout.
>
>
> Additionally, Refunds get pulled out of the running eBay Funds account 
> (that I need to create in GnuCash). If the funds in that account 
> aren’t enough t cover it, the refund comes out of checking as a direct 
> debit.
>
> Any recommendations on how I would show multiple sales in a day making 
> up one entry into my checking account? Do I need another account – 
> send my payouts there. Then group multiples in another split (if I can 
> do that?) to show the days transactions? Or do I need to think about 
> doing an accounts receivable kind of thing and bundle multiple 
> transactions into an A/R account for the day for when I have more than 
> one sale in a day?
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