Hello everyone and thanks for joining us today. My name is Phyllis Wischer. I am an eBay Education Specialist, and co-founder and Business Success Coach for Certified Solution Provider SageFire, Inc. - creators of KeepMore.net. I am also a Public Accountant with over 20 years experience in helping thousands of small business owners with their bookkeeping, accounting, payroll and tax needs.

As a Certified Solution Provider, SageFire specializes in helping small business owners' track their business financial activity using its online accounting, contact management and document storage solution. Our solution, KeepMore.net makes it simple for you track your business while maximizing your tax benefits.

I stated last month during our initial introduction to the new Accounting Assistant (AA) program that I was excited to share the new product with you. Now, after working with AA for the past month I am even more excited. My goal for today's workshop is to provide you some instructions that will help you quickly and easily setup Accounting Assistant so that you can download your eBay transactions into your accounting program.

During our session today I am going to cover the following:

• Step 1 – Getting Started




• Your "Chart of Accounts"




• Step 2 – Initial Setup and Customization of Accounting Assistant




• Initial Setup




• Step 3 – Importing Your eBay transactions using Accounting Assistant

Today's workshop is a step by step guide to assist you with initial setup and customization of AA. Answers to any questions other than the setup process should be directed to eBay and their AA support staff. You can either email eBay at accountingfeedback@ebay.com, or go to the www.ebay.com homepage, click on the Help button in the upper right hand corner and click on the Contact Us link under eBay Help.

Step 1 – Getting Started

There are many benefits to using AA; the goal is to help you be more profitable in your eBay business.

The success of importing your eBay transactions into you accounting program depends on getting your accounting program set up correctly to accept the imported transactions, getting your PayPal account linked, getting the Web Connector linked and correctly mapping your accounts to handle all the different items that make up an eBay transaction. Let's start with getting your accounting program set up correctly.

What items make up an eBay transaction?

You will be asked in the mapping process (discussed later) to identify what QuickBooks or KeepMore.net account you want each item posted to. If you already have your accounts set up to handle each of the items listed above, that's great; you can skip the next section. If you are just starting your eBay business or just starting to use AA and need help, I recommend you visit with your accountant and ask them a few basic questions.

Your "Chart of Accounts"

When you buy or sell an item(s) on eBay the various parts of the transaction needs to be posted into your accounting program. But a determination needs to be made as to what "type" of account should be assigned to each part. I have listed below some items that could be set up with different "types". It would prudent on your part to visit with your accountant or tax advisor before you assign "types" to your eBay transaction.

eBay "sold" transaction

• PayPal Fees – paid as part of any "sold" transaction




• Cost of Goods Sold – Part of Purchases


• Cost of Goods Sold – Other Costs


• Direct Expense




• Sales Tax Collected as part of any "sold" transaction




• Sales Tax Payable


• Income




• Sales Tax Paid as part of any "sold' transaction




• Sales Tax Payable


• Direct Expense

• Shipping and insurance




• Normally considered part of the cost of product for resale




• Sales Tax Paid




• Sales tax is not normally paid on items bought for resale – the sales tax is collected from the end buyer and remitted to the proper tax authorities

• eBay Fees




• Advertising


• Cost of Goods Sold – Part of Purchases


• Cost of Goods Sold – Other Costs


• Direct Expense




• Shipping to Customer Costs




• Cost of Goods Sold – Part of Purchases


• Cost of Goods Sold – Other Costs


• Direct Expense

Again, we highly recommended seeking the advice of your accountant or tax preparer to assist you in setting up your accounts to report the items listed above according to your business requirements. We do have a sample QuickBooks Chart of Accounts that we can send you on request to phyllis@sagefire.com. Please remember that this is a sample Chart of Accounts and is not intended to represent accounting or tax advice.

Step 2 – Initial Setup and Customization of Accounting Assistant

There are multiple steps to complete the initial setup and customization of AA. Let's discuss each one briefly.

Initial Setup

1. Open your QuickBooks accounting program

2. Login to eBay's AA site – www.ebay.com/accountingassistant - you will see the link when the new web based version is available

• Click on 'Login' in Step 1 – this will take you to the PayPal login page where you will need to insert your PayPal user name and password.





• Once the PayPal account is open, go back to AA and copy the boxed text as instructed


• Important – Now click on the blue link "Give Third-Party API Permission" it will automatically take you to the required PayPal page – you will not need to search for it in your PayPal account. Paste the copied text in the field provided.


• Select the third box labeled "Reporting and Backoffice APIs"


• Click the "Submit" button on the PayPal form


• Click "Give Permission" to confirm API Permission

Step 2 – Enter your PayPal email address

• In the space proved entered your PayPal Email and click on "Save"

Step 3 – Test the connection to your PayPal account

• Click the 'Test Connection' button

• Choose QuickBooks Desktop
  
  
  
  Step 2: Download your QuickBooks Web Connector
  
• Copy the QuickBooks Web Connector Password
  
• Click on the 'Download Web Connector' button
  
• On the 'Opening AccountAssist.qwc' window, select 'Open' [Quickbooks Web Connector (default)]
  
• A 'Downloads' window will appear indicating the file was downloaded to your Desktop
  
• There will be a slight delay before the "Authorize New Web Service" window of the Web Connector opens, then click 'OK'.
  
• There will be slight delay before the "QuickBooks – Application Certificate" opens, then select 'Yes, Always; allow access even if QuickBooks is not running'.
  
• Then select 'Continue'.
  
• An "Access Confirmation" window will open, click on 'Done'.
  
• Again, there will be a slight delay before the QuickBooks Web Connector widow opens.
  
• Once the Web Connector window is open, you will need to paste the Web Connector Password into the 'Password' field using the control / C keys.
  
• Once you have pasted in the password, hit tab and a QBWebConnector 2.0.0.107 window will open, click 'Yes' to save the password you just pasted in the Password field.
  
• Now place a checkmark in the small box next to 'Sagefire ver 1.0'.
  
• The last step is to click on "Update Selected".
  
• To verify that you have added the AA Web Connector to your QuickBooks file, go to 'Edit', select 'Preferences', select Integrated Applications and then click on Company Preferences. You should see 'eBay Accounting Assistant' as one of the application names.
  Step 3: Check the status of your synchronization with QuickBooks Desktop
  
• Click on 'Check Status'.
  

  At this point you will see a green circle with a checkmark. This verifies that you have linked AA to your PayPal account. You can remove any link by simply clicking on the "Remove" button. If you do not see the green check mark, you will need to run this process again.

  
  Step 4: Map eBay fields to your QuickBooks setup
  
• Custom Settings – you will need to select one option for each of the 5 questions
  
• Map Your Sales – you will need to map one of your QuickBooks accounts to each field in order to map your eBay sale transaction to QuickBooks. We discussed some of these accounts in the "Your Chart of Accounts´ section above.
  
• Map Your Purchases - you will need to map one of your QuickBooks accounts to each field in order to map your eBay bought transaction to QuickBooks. We discussed some of these accounts in the "Your Chart of Accounts´ section above.
  
• Map Your PayPal Shipping - you will need to map your QuickBooks account to the Shipping Field in order to map your PayPal Shipping transactions to QuickBooks. We discussed this in the "Your Chart of Accounts´ section above.
  
• Save Settings – Click on 'Save Settings' to save the mapping of your eBay transaction items to your QuickBooks account. You will receive a notice below the 'Save Settings' button – Accounting Package Mapping Complete. If you do not get this message, simply scroll to the top of your eBay Accounting Assistant page, click on 'My Activity', immediately click on 'My Settings', scroll down to Step 4 again and remap your settings.
  

Step 3 – Importing Your eBay transactions using Accounting Assistant

Now that you have successfully mapped AA to your QuickBooks accounting program it's time to process your imported eBay transactions and PayPal shipping transactions into QuickBooks. Scroll to the top of the AA page and click on 'My Activity'. This is where you will find all the imported eBay transactions and PayPal shipping transactions for the eBay User ID's you've added to your AA program. Because this is a web based program, once the transactions are imported they are stored and instantly backed-up for you.

You will need to have your AA account, QuickBooks account and Web Connector program open to process transactions. To start you select transactions from 'Needs Processing' under
Sold, Bought, eBay Invoices and PayPal Shipping. When selected, these transactions move to the Exported section where they will sit until you process them using the Web Connector link. You can select only one type of transaction to process or you can select all types of transactions to be processed at one time.

Most of the column headings are self explanatory but let's look at some that perform multiple functions.

Title

• Title - Combined Order – click on the 'plus' sign and the transaction will expand to show all items sold in the Combined Order


• Title – individual transactions show the title of the item sold.

Status Flag

• The Status flag is colored to indicate the status of the transaction. Green indicates the transaction is in balance and ready for processing. Red indicates the amounts do not calculate correctly and you will need to modify the amounts (see next bullet point). Blue indicates that you have modified the transaction.


Amount

• Amount – click on the 'amount' to see a break out of the transaction – Sales Amount, Shipping, Insurance, Sales Tax, Discounts, and, when applicable, PayPal fees. You can modify any of the amounts listed here. If you modify a transaction, the Status Flag changes to 'Blue'.





Inventory

• If you have elected to track Inventory in your mapping session, you will need to select the Inventory Item before you can process a transaction. If the item is in a 'Combined Order' you will need to expand (click on the 'plus' sign) the transaction and identify the Inventory Item for each item in the transaction.


Action

• A click on the 'green' check mark will move the transaction to the 'Exported' and is 'Queued' for processing. A click on the 'red' button will move the transaction to 'Ignored' to be ignored or handled later.

New to AA is the addition of importing for processing the Shipping Cost paid through your PayPal account. You simply pick the transactions you wish to process into your QuickBooks account or select to ignore the transactions.

Now it is time to process your 'Queued' transactions into your QuickBooks account. This is the easy step. With your QuickBooks account open and the Web Connector window open, you simply click on 'Update Selected' in the Web Connector window and wait while the 'Queued' transactions are processed into your QuickBooks account. Once processed, the 'Queued' items are moved to 'Processed' where they are stored, backed up safe and secure.