Tradebox - Ebay Accounting Package

Over the next month we will be reviewing the most popular ebay accounting packages around at the moment and will outline all of the costs that are involved with the running of the software. The costs will include initial costs and ongoing costs for usage (yearly licensing costs ie. Tradebox).

None of the reviews are paid for by any of the software suppliers and as such we will give our own opinion on the packages that they sell and our thoughts from the perspective of an ebay seller through the lifetime of the ebay business life cycle (or private seller) for that ebay seller and the return on Investment (ROI) if they purchase the software that we are reviewing.

Our views on the software are our personal views and should be viewed as such and regardless of the view expressed we will not try in anyway to undermine or put across a view of the software provider as being underhand or in any way dubious.

This being the case we also do not appreciate being threatened by any of the companies. After we posted our views on Tradebox (our first in a series of reviews) the software company ‘Platform One’ contacted my partner and threatened to go to a lawyer and take us to court regarding our opinion on their software!!!

This is the age of ‘FREE SPEECH’ and as such we are able to express our views regarding a piece of software that is on the market and freely available to buy.

Why is a company contacting us and acting in a very threatening manner to us after we post on a blog regarding their software?

Do they have something to hide? well i do not know in all honesty but after this episode I will in no way recommend their software in the future ( I have recommended it in the past to gold power sellers) , as how could i recommend some software when I would be unsure how a customer complaint would be handled if such aggression is shown after a simple blog post by myself?

That’s all for now and I will be posting further reviews soon and hopefully none of the other software providers will be contacting us with threats after we review their software packages.

Technorati Tags: e trader, Ebay Accounting Package, Ebay Accounts Package, Ebay Sage Package, sage accounting software, tradebox

Tradebox is an ebay sage package that downloads your transactions via the ebay api automatically. Tradebox may sound like an ideal solution for many ebay sellers but it does come with a very high cost involved.

Ideally most sellers would want to buy a reasonably costed package for around £57-£87 that is a one off fee, includes upgrades for at least a year with no yearly costs involved. In essense buyers want an all in one package.

Who would pay a subscription to use windows every year? not me for sure!! if I pay for some software I do not expect a subscription service unless the software is a anti virus.

With TradeBox (formally known as E-trader) you have to first pay the basic fee of around £250 then you need to purchase the Sage Accounts line 50 package. This is expensive to use if you are anything but a gold or platinum ebay power seller, so anything less then you are putting out good money for a bad return on investment.

The comes the yearly fees for both Tradebox and sage, so lets add up the maths here:

• base start fees - £250 + sage = approx £400
• Yeary fees on top around £250
• say we use the software for the average ebay lifetime of 6 years

This gives an overall cost over the life time of your ebay business is around £1900 !!!!!!!!!!!

If you are paying this much money out of your ebay profits then you are already losing profits from day one. Where else would you pay approx £2000 for a simply package that allowed you to download your ebay transactions, collated the information and give you a few stats and graphs on your sales then allow you to export your sales to such sources as excel? In all honesty you would not pay this type of money for any software never mind a software package such as this.

if you wish to join the Tradebox gravy train then by all means go and buy the package (im sure they will love taking more money of ebay sellers who have not worked out the full cost to them) but if you wish to save your hard earned cash and take a more profitable and sensible route then we do have an answer.

We will initially profide a free excel spread sheet for anyone to use or share to track all of your ebay sales and work out your costs and profit and loss amounts per month and year. We also have in development a free tool that will allow you to import all of your ebay sales from the downloadable spreadsheet that ebay provides via your sellers dashboard.

You will be able to get information on your sales etc as well.

We will be putting an opt-in list for people who want to beta test the product around mid january and beta will be underway in early feb to enable us to iron out all the bugs before we release this on the web site for FREE. Yes free with no fee to buy and no subscription service like the platform one product Tradebox.

Note that all of the opinions in this post are personal opinions on the ebay software provided by this company and we are not in any way suggesting that platform ones business practices are in any way underhand or misleading. We will be covering the other ebay packages available by other companies over the next few weeks and discuss the cost and subscriptions (if any) that they also incur.

Technorati Tags: e trader, Ebay Account Package, Ebay Accounting Package, Ebay Accounts Package, Ebay Sage Package, Sage Accounts, tradebox

 

We all know of the global phenomenon of the auction site ebay. In the past few years their has been an estimated 140 million users who buy and sell on this global network from both home and business premises. Everything from apple ipod nanos to wedding dressers are sold on the site today.

The popularity of the site has made the environment ideal for the budding entrepreneur who is looking for his next business opportunity or just to simply make some extra cash from home. The ability to have millions of potential customers within a click of a mouse has massive appeal, and with the ability to sell using methods such as paypal make the process of taking payment by credit card even a simple process.

problems on ebay arise when the level of sales becomes such that traders require some basic knowledge in order to keep any finances in recorded correctly. If the traders sell only knick knacks as to speak and do not use ebay to subsidide their income then this is not an issue.

But in all cases a record of the sales should be kept in case the tax man comes calling regarding larger amounts of revenue from ebay sales.

The thing that must be remembered is when does a hobby become a business? and when should I contact the inland revenue? What information would they require and how do I go about minimising the risk of any approach from the tax man? What bookkeeping software should i use?

Possible Sage Software or even Ebay Software?

Let’s outline a checklist for people starting an eBay business or frequently sell ebay goods.

Things that should be carried out when starting an eBay business:

1. Set up any wholesaler account for the product you wish to sell. try and set up a credit account with the wholesaler. You can the buy and sell before paying the wholesaler accounts 30 days later, after you ahve been paid for your ebay sales. This reduces your initial payment layout.

2. Create an eBay account and set yourself up with their free listing and seller tools.

3. Open a paypal account for credit card payments.

4. Contact the inland revenue Within three months of you starting a business. Start off as either a limited company or becoming a self employed.

5. Work out any deductions that you can use to reduce against the taxes to pay (laptops etc)

6. Ensure your accounting records are in good order and keep track of everything that is bought and sold. We will cover some of this in future blog posts and give details of any bookkeeping software or free utilities for book keeping that we create for use within ebay.

Now here are some things you should NOT do:

1. Ensure that you keep your ebay business seperate from your personal spending. use 2 different accounts.

2. make sure that you do not assume ebay will inform the inland revenue of any taxes. This is your responsibility.

3. Don’t ignore rules or any authenticity rules. If you plan to sell goods you have to ensure they comply with safety standard and are not fake.

4. Don’t bury your head in the sand. If you income over the year has increased then you have to inform the inland revenue of the monies received and agree with them the amount of tax to pay. Also you must be aware of the VAT thresholds and how to register of you go above those thresholds.

Well thats all for now and be sure to subscribe to our rss feed to keep upto date on new posts and free software.

Technorati Tags: bookkeeping software, e trader, ebay business, Ebay Software, Sage Software, tradebox