What does the total sales figure include in the invoice? Returns, postage?

[marjak15]

Hi, Just wondering if the total sales figure in the monthly invoice deducts returns and postage. Thanks for any help.

[chameleon54]

I use the figures shown in selling manager for my taxation records. ( 30 day and 120 day ) These give me bare sales without postage, but not including deductions for returns. I dont worry about recording returns as I only get one or two a year.

I only charge my customers the actual cost of postage, plus ebays 10% commission, plus "self insurance" for lost items, so dont profit from postage. I have a seperate credit card that is specifically used for ebay postage and nothing else. This gives me my postage cost records.

With all of these systems there is a bit of basic maths to work out averages for allowing for 365 days sales as apposed to 120 day selling manager recorded figures x 3 etc. The purists and pedants wouldnt like it, but its " good enough for the shielas I go with" LOL and VERY VERY quick and simple, not wasting time logging every sale.

I would expect the monthly account to include postage costs as ebay charge commision on this. Likewise refunds for returns should be included as ebay refund fees for approved returns. ( buyer changes mind or there is a problem with address ) .  I dont know about returns that are forced on the seller but would expect these to still be counted as sales, because ebay do not refund the fees on these sales. The seller is also paying the return postage on these sales, just to complicate things.

[englishrosegardens]

There's a bit of writing just under the pie chart on the invoice that tells you exactly what's included in your sales figures.  Unpaid items aren't deducted from the total sales figure and postage isn't included unless you do free postage and have it as part of the item price.  If unpaid items aren't deducted I doubt that returns would be either - it's just the sales you've made, whatever happens after they sell.

[chameleon54]

I just checked the individual transactions on my invoice and postage was included. There was a link to customise the invoice including showing invoice without postage cost included. It looks like there could be different systems in place with some people seeing one thing, others seeing something else.

This is not unusual on ebay. There are at least three different listing pages for selling items in operation on ebay Australia, each offering quite different features. This is why people sometimes ask a question about a certain feature and an experienced seller will ask what they are on about, because they dont have that same feature.

[jfmgray]

I download an excel spreadsheet each month from the reporing option in SMP.  This has separate colums for purchase price and postage.  It also takes into account cancelled transactions and refunds providing these occur before you download the report (ie if you download the report on 1st of the month for the previous month's sales, it will not count cancelled transactions that occurred after you download the report).  It also shows paypal fees but I prefer to use a paypal report for their fees.