Amazon Accounting for Sellers Made Easy – Trying to Automate As Much as Possible

hello friends it's rob cosman from selling 
from the beach and OAmasterclass.com   i put together a quick video i get this 
question a lot in my facebook group which   if you're not a member of join hit the 
link below and if you haven't subscribed   to the youtube channel subscribe to the youtube 
channel give it a thumbs up that'd be awesome   uh bookkeeping basics for amazon sellers so a 
lot of new sellers are like what do i need to do   i don't know what i need to keep track of so i 
want to kind of cover just a high level what i   would do if i was starting all over if i was a 
brand new seller and doing things kind of right   from the start you know it's important that 
you do get things right from the start because   keeping books of records is important for 
government agencies and paying taxes and all   that fun stuff okay so remember you basically 
need to keep track of everything that you're   selling your revenues your costs all the expenses 
everything needs to come together and if i was   going to do it all again these are the tools 
and how i would set it up so if i'm brand new   this is how i do it now yes you can go use 
spreadsheets you can do this you do that but   i'm just giving you this is an ideal you want to 
make your life easy you don't love bookkeeping   you know there's a reason why people go to school 
and make a career doing bookkeeping because it's   not necessarily easy but i think in this video i 
can give you enough information to kind of get you   going that should be able to do you know maybe 
75 80 percent of the work and then maybe that   other 20 you know you're getting your account at 
the end of the year to help you or clean up a few   things but if you're doing you know most of the 
heavy lifting here um using some of these tools   and spending a little bit of time up front setting 
up things correctly it'll save you all kinds of   headache later on okay so what i would do i would 
set up quickbooks online and i would pick the   essential version which is the middle one because 
it has multi-currency so i'm canadian i do canada   and us i mean if you're doing canada us australia 
eu you know multiversion currency is what you want   because you're going to be collecting and 
selling and all those different currencies   so you're going to use that you need 
to record your amazon revenues because   so many people incorrectly think hey i got a 
hundred dollars in my bank account from amazon   that's my revenue no it's not you probably 
sold a thousand dollars at first you paid 300   in amazon fees and amazon held back a bunch of 
money for reserve because you're a new seller for   refunds and so the correct amount is really 
the hundred dollars is what you really sold   plus you need to record all those amazon fees and 
you have a reserve which is an account receivable   so you need to record all those things not 
just 100 right and that i would use this   program called taxamate which is really cool 
software basically it links up with your amazon   amazon seller central pulls in all the reports and 
populates it into quickbooks for you once you do   a little bit of work up front to set it up it'll 
do it all automatically every time and that could   work in all the different marketplaces it can 
also work in a few other things that i'll show you   then you're going to record all your expenses 
so the great thing with quickbooks online   is you can link up with a lot of 
different banks and credit cards   so it'll automatically pull in the transactions 
once you kind of make those connections   so if you've got you know amex visa your different 
bank accounts boom you set them all up it pulls in   the transactions that's kind of half the battle 
then you just need to basically classify those   and what types of expenses they are and if you 
paid sales tax on them that you could recover   and then there's a few miscellaneous adjustments 
you know that i put through like journal entries   like for instance if you're selling in canada and 
you're paying gst hst on your amazon fees you get   that invoice once a month you want to claim those 
back i would do those at a manual journal entry   just little one-off things like that that are a 
little funky and just trying to use quickbooks to   do it but one thing to note quickbooks like some 
people get hung up trying to use like the gst hst   filing application in quickbooks i don't i don't 
use that because quickbooks traditionally is like   sends out an invoice um but we're not doing that 
we're doing journal entries to record your correct   amount right i mean it's easy if you just send an 
invoice for a hundred dollars and that was your   revenue but this isn't the case you're selling all 
across different provinces or different states you   have different tax obligations so you know don't 
try to do that you go to quickbooks online this   is what you're going to get i got links below 
for some affiliate links for quickbooks and   taxamate so hopefully if you learned something 
took some action for this video click the link   i'll make a couple dollars off of it and i'll 
keep pumping out more videos grab the essentials   again they always have different promos usually at 
the end of the year when everybody gets all riled   up like oh let's start getting our accounting 
organized they'll have a deal but check it out   sometimes there's coupon codes but this is what 
it is right now the essentials is the middle   now depending on they've changed their pricing 
over the years and if you have more accounts   or more users it might vary so just kind of be 
cognizant of that so i signed up for quickbooks   then here's a few things that you're going to 
do this is a bit of a checklist to go through so   turn on the multi-currency you're going to 
go into settings to do that you're going to   say turn on your multi-currency home currency is 
whatever you're reporting in so if you're canadian   it's canada canadian dollars you're going to 
set up your sales taxes correctly again that's   in the settings you set up your chart of accounts 
this is where you can add in different chart of   accounts you can buy our template i'll put the 
link below that you can just upload and you'll   have a bunch of very common you know amazon 
fees and titles like that that you could use   um that's an option and that's where you can make 
certain accounts some people get hung up with   should i put this in office supply should i put 
this in you know whatever you can your chart of   accounts is what works for you so if you want 
a line item that is software if you want a line   item that is virtual assistants you know you 
can put those items in your chart of accounts   just make a new account for it and you know you 
decide how you want to track it you know it's   not a big deal really the big buckets are like 
are these expenses or these cost of goods sold   the rest of it i mean just try to be reasonable 
and then consistent year over year with how   you book it if your software always goes to the 
software line put it there if your va's go to a   consultant line put it in there okay invite your 
accountant we do this all the time because then   you can invite your accountant to your books 
and then they can just pop it online it's really   easy take a look see if there's anything that 
needs to be cleaned up or you have a question   that's where you get into you know like for me 
somebody has a question they'll send me an email   i can pop in the book i can do a quick screen 
video um just hey this is what i see this is how   you do this one go do these other five this exact 
same way and then send them a link to that and   it's just easy to share and get on the same page 
right link your bank accounts so you're going to   go through you're going to type in your bank they 
have so many of them here if yours isn't there you   might have to manually create it and upload the 
statements but a lot of them should be here and   should just automatically link that's part of the 
power of quickbooks online once you've set up that   connection with your bank and your credit cards 
then it'll automatically pull in the transactions   when you first start it'll usually only go back 
so far depending on how far the bank allows it or   the credit card so in that case if you need to go 
back further months you might have to download the   statements usually in a csv file and then upload 
them into you know just manually that's not a big   deal because you're gonna bulk upload what i would 
suggest when you first do that if you have to do   it take out the csv file just upload like one or 
two uh transactions so that you make sure when you   map it you map it correctly so it goes you know 
it's like amount spent or amounts received because   if you mess it up you only have to delete like two 
you know two lines as opposed to like 30 or 40.

So   i always suggest just do a trial first make sure 
that okay how you mapped it when you upload it   was correct then you're going to start to 
go through and you go to the banking tab   once you've got all these transactions in and 
you're going to start classifying them so this   is an example here of adobe that you know i always 
set up a supplier customer so adobe's the supplier   so you can set that up you're going to categorize 
it set up adobe i'm going to put this as software   subscriptions and adobe doesn't right now 
doesn't charge me sales tax so i put zero rated   and as you can see this is in us dollars and 
switched over to canadian because it's a us credit   card but this is what i would do and then i would 
press add and there it goes now i've categorized   it i put it in i've added it in i've approved it 
i filled out these things but the real power then   is if you want to set up rules so you start to put 
in if you start classifying the same things like   if i go through and i put in walmart and i say 
it's got 13 hst on every one of those purchases   then the rest of the transactions that have 
walmart will come up if i do one or two   quickbooks will try to prompt me and say hey do 
you want to set this up as a rule so you can go   through and manually set them up or you can do 
it with you know kind of quickbooks prodding   you along so in this case i said hey every every 
one that comes through on this credit card that   says walmart in it it's going to be an expense i'm 
putting it to purchases canada cost of goods sold   to pay use walmart.ca and i'm saying that has 
13 hst now if you've got things like groceries   maybe you're buying and some stuff has taxes 
on and some stuff doesn't you'll need to be   more aware in splitting out those transactions 
based on what taxes you actually pay but this is   so powerful and if you're doing the same thing 
all the time especially if you're doing like oa   and you're buying from the same vendors it just 
makes life so much easier you can kind of set   it up to automatically classify then you just 
go along and press add add add or you can set   the rules up to automatically add it it's up 
to you but that's where you save a ton of time   the next step then is taxamates you know 
if we're capturing most of the expenses   and things through the journal entry sorry through 
the banks and the credit card statements taxamate   will take care of the revenues and the amazon 
fees so sign up for the free trial link below   you're going to go through and connect your 
marketplaces so i'm talking about amazon.ca   amazon.com if you've got shopify walmart you can 
connect all these different ones okay then you're   going to come figure out where everything maps so 
it'll walk you through and i'll say okay here is   fba fees where do they go which account do you 
want to put it to and you can use the defaults for   most of the time but what i would suggest is for 
the sales and the taxes i would put it to separate   accounts depending on the market so if you're 
selling on.com i would have account that sales   says sales amazon.com and then if it's dot ca i 
would put it to a sales amazon.ca right just so   you know which sales are coming from which because 
that'll help you when you do tax reporting okay   so i would go through and i'd do that then you're 
gonna you're gonna link it up and usually because   of the throttling on amazon's api and seller 
central it might only pull in a couple of the   past settlements so you might have to manually 
upload them it's really simple taxom8 has a   great support and really good how-to documents so 
you're basically going to go into seller central   go to a certain file download the files and then 
just upload them to taxom8 it'll prepare the   settlements then what i suggest you do is you take 
one once you figure out you've got it mapped and   you've got things kind of set up i think correctly 
i would push one settlement through to quickbooks   check it see if it makes sense see if 
you have it set up the way you like it   and map correctly and if it does then you can 
push the other ones and set it to automatically   go and you never have to touch it again if not 
you can just go back to texamate you select delete   that one change your mappings push it through 
again real simple okay so you test the setup   then you just start matching your bank deposits 
so whichever bank you're using you're getting   paid into um taxamate will say okay there's the 
deposit and when the cash comes in it says oh   we've already matched it you say yes boom there 
you go so now we've taken care of the revenues   the only other few things just some miscellaneous 
items that you got to think about again remember   people go to school for bookkeeping people do 
this as a profession so you know some things are   a little complicated but we've covered the most of 
it because you're going to get your revenues with   taxom8 all your expenses should be coming through 
you know with credit cards and bank statements   now if you have credit if you have stuff you're 
paying cash or out-of-pocket those aren't going   to be there those are the one-off things you 
might have to do manual journal entries for but   so be it a few things to think about opening 
balances on the accounts like if you first link up   a credit card and it has an opening balance that 
might pull through so depending on how you have   it set up be wary of that cutting over your ends 
so some people will say you know what i'm going   to switch start quickbooks you know january 1 
or whatever your year end is use those opening   balances of whatever you have from your taxes 
that you filed use those starting to go forward   manual journal entries for tax invoices 
so in amazon.ca you get these tax invoices   where you're paying gst and hst i've 
got videos on here on how to do them   on my youtube channel check them out i 
always do a manual entry for those things   also determine how you want to record your 
inventory and cost of goods sold so taxon made   if you want taxonomy can help you estimate your 
cost of goods sold every month i'd suggest this   more for private label sellers that maybe only 
have like 10 items and you can go in the back   and specify okay each one of these and how much 
the you know what their cost is and then it'll   make journal entries to the cogs for you so what 
you would do is you would always put everything in   your inventory first all like every purchase that 
you're making put it to inventory and then taxamay   would just pull that out and put it to the cost of 
goods sold cost of goods sold is only when things   are actually sold and expensed right inventory is 
the asset cost the expense so determine what you   want to do there like for me i do oa so basically 
i just go through and i put everything to cogs all   year long expense it and then at the end of the 
year i say okay what is my ending inventory value   and then i adjust it that's the kind of things you 
should talk to your accountant about at your end   but i mean whatever whichever way you 
decide whenever you're doing the purchases   just stick to that so for me i put everything to 
cogs and you saw that with the walmart example   boom that's where it goes i suggest logging 
in monthly make sure that things are all still   connected sometimes like for instance american 
express will kind of throw up and it won't   connect for a few days so you just kind of to read 
press the refresh to reconnect maybe log in again   but then it should go back if you wait like four 
or five months and you don't do it then you might   have to go back and manually upload statements 
again paypal if you can avoid it i would you know   as the timing this tape paypal's a pain in the 
butt because it pulls in different currencies and   doesn't really recognize them correctly so it's 
really difficult with quickbooks um i don't know   why these guys really haven't figured it out but 
they haven't if you only have a single currency   like if you're in the us and all you deal with 
is us then great or if you're in canada and it's   just canadian but most you know people are sending 
money all over the place at different currencies   so that becomes a pain in the butt um the 
accounts i said you might have to manually upload   do the small test and the other thing is utilize 
the quickbooks bank reconciliation so quickbooks   will actually hook up with some banks and pull in 
the bank statements and there's a little feature   that gives you the bank reconciliation where 
basically what you're doing is at the end of every   month or the end of the bank period you're saying 
okay what is in quickbooks what is on the bank   statement everything that's on the bank statement 
and the quickbooks should match and if it doesn't   that's because something's missing somewhere so 
we need to figure out what is missing or what's   incorrectly classified because everything should 
match and the bank reconciliation tool lets you   kind of quickly figure that out and find those 
weird anomalies and fix them before it gets too   wild i think you know it's again supposed to 
be high level i'm not going there's all kinds   of resources in quickbooks and how to do things 
even better and more detail but i just want to   give somebody you know give you guys a high level 
of hey if i was setting up brand new this is what   i would use i'd use it as a sole proprietor 
i definitely would use it as a corporation   you know obviously these things are tools and they 
cost money but these things are really important   you know keeping track of your books and records 
and your tax obligations and stuff like that   that's kind of key and if i'm going to spend a 
little bit of money i'm going to spend some money   doing that to make sure i'm organized because then 
you can free up so much more time to be doing what   you're better at which should be sourcing finding 
new products launching new products selling stuff   right so hopefully this helped again links 
below for a couple affiliate links some offers   be sure to join our group like our 
youtube channel keep updated thanks

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