![]() ![]() Many of the options available are built for medium businesses that are incorporated and VAT registered and of course, these companies need a more in-depth solution than a sole trader buying and selling on eBay. There are of course countless options available nowadays and it’s impossible to say that there is one absolute best, as it depends entirely on your needs and specific circumstances.īut what I will say, and I touched on this briefly above, is that there is no need to pay for advanced and intricate software when you merely need to track your income and expenses. What is the Best Accounting Software for Sole Traders?īefore we go over some of the options available, I want to quickly clarify something: Generally speaking, the cloud options charge a monthly subscription fee whereas desktop software is usually a one-off or yearly usage fee. ![]() There isn’t a huge difference in the actual functionality or capability, but cloud-based systems are of course used online (you will need to log in to the site whenever you want to use it) whereas with desktop software, you download it to your computer or laptop and can access it without the need for an internet connection. (for whatever reason really),then you’re left with two major options for the software: cloud-based or desktop. If you decide that you’d rather use software, because your business is too big/complicated, or if you’re not very proficient with Excel etc. What If I Want to Go Down the Software Route? To put it simply, this method suffers as you grow your business and isn’t 100% scalable. And also, as you grow it can be quite time consuming (depending on the level of automation built in to the Excel spreadsheet you’re using). The downsides are that it isn’t an ideal system when you have multiple selling channels or your accounts start to get more complicated and varied. The benefit to doing it like this is of course the little to no cost and overall simplicity of the whole process, after all, the last thing you want is to have to learn how to use complicated software when it isn’t at all needed for your business and circumstances. There are a lot of Excel spreadsheets that you can find online for this or to keep things really easy – you can simply download transactions from PayPal and just manually add expenses. With very simple eBay businesses (where all your sales come from eBay/PayPal and your expenses are limited to eBay fees, PayPal fees, postage and of course buying stock) then the manual method is perfectly viable. To put it simply, your first real choice is whether you want to go down the manual route and record everything yourself (using Excel or simply good old pen and paper!) OR if you want to invest in accounting software, which will help you record and monitor your business’ cash flow, profit and loss, invoices, tax liability and even VAT (with some of the more advanced options). ![]() So I’ve finally decided to tackle this subject, as I get an insane amount of questions about it, and even if you just use this as a starting point in your own research, that’s still good enough. Why? Well the main reason is that I personally outsource ALL of my accounting to a professional accounting company.Īfter all, I always preach about outsourcing and hiring a professional who will do the job better than you, and this couldn’t be more true than with accounting, especially when you consider the number of different businesses that I own and operate.īut for small business owners and sole traders, who simply need to keep track of everything for their own sake and to help with filling in your basic end of year self assessment, this is not 100% necessary and you can definitely get by using some of the great online tools that are now available. Today’s topic, accounting software for eBay/eCommerce sellers, is something that I’ve put off writing about for a while.
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