How to Use Bookkeeping Services for Your Business

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If you ask any small business owner or self-employed person what their least favorite task is, what would they say? Unless you have an accounting background, bookkeeping is probably on the top of the list. Well, I have good news! There are some awesome online tools and services available to automate bookkeeping for your business.

QuickBooks Self-Employed Online

My most used bookkeeping service is QuickBooks online. QuickBooks Self-Employed has tools like transaction tracking, invoicing, mileage tracking, reporting, and tax help (for an extra fee).

  1. Profit & Loss: Connect the bank accounts you use for your business to track every transaction. You can manually sort each transaction or create rules to automate it! Don’t worry if you made a personal transaction, you can categorize as personal or business.
  2. Invoicing: For reselling, you might not need this tool, but don’t overlook it! If you have a second business or provide a service you can easily create an invoice and get paid through QuickBooks.
  3. Mileage tracking: This one is major! You might not realize it, but you drive around a lot for sourcing or even post office runs. All you have to do is download the QuickBooks Self-Employed app on your phone and it will automatically start tracking your miles when you get in your car (you do need to have a Bluetooth connection, however). You can deduct $0.575 per mile on your taxes.
  4. Reporting: This is key for your yearly taxes! If you have everything up to date, come tax time all you’ll have to do is run a few reports. Reporting available: mileage, profit & loss, receipts, tax summary, tax details.

QuickBooks is also beta testing a time clock so you can track your daily tasks or client work!

How I use QuickBooks for Reselling

A snapshot of my transactions and how it lets you sort them!
See where the “rules” are automatically applied.
  1. Profit & Loss: I connect the bank account that I use for expenses and my PayPal account for eBay income. My Poshmark income is reported when I deposit anything into my bank account (along with Mercari). I create rules so that frequent transactions get automatically sorted into categories. My sourcing transactions are auto sorted as “materials & supplies” in business expenses.
  2. Invoicing: I have a graphic design business that I use invoicing for! You probably won’t use this as a reseller, but it’s nice to have.
  3. Mileage tracking: Make sure you are logged into your app or the tracking won’t start! You can also add mileage manually if you missed a trip. Last year I was able to deduct $2,950.
  4. Reporting: For taxes, I just downloaded the documents I needed and filed online!

Click here to sign up for QuickBooks Self-employed for only $7/month!

Airtable

The second most hated task for a reseller? Inventory! Airtable is a website and app that lets you create “bases” for anything you need. It is basically a better version of a spreadsheet that won’t make you cry 🙂

I have one base for all of my inventory. You do have to set it up yourself, but just think through what your needs are! For me, I have the following in my inventory base for each listing: title (that I use in my listing), category (shoes, tops, bottoms, etc), inventory number, measurements, status (photograph, listed, sold), sold date, COGS, net earnings (income after fee), net profit (this is a formula).

I also have a base for my monthly stats! I record the following each month: Poshmark, eBay & Mercari sales ($$ and quantity), social media stats, active listings, and total listings created each day.

You can sign up for Airtable for FREE!

Let me know if you have any questions or if there’s something I didn’t cover in the comments!

**I am not an accountant and I always will suggest meeting with or hiring one just to check that you are doing everything right.

Check out my other blog posts about reselling and Poshmark!

Reselling Mistakes I’ve Made That You Can Avoid

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When I started reselling on Poshmark in 2018, I had a few mentors giving me tips here and there. I had Instagram showing me brands and beautiful package pictures, but this led to various reselling mistakes! What I’d like to go back and tell myself is not to consume all of this information and believe I needed to follow the same path.

I am beyond thankful for everyone who has taught me something, even if it didn’t work out in my favor. Why? Because I have learned from those mistakes! So, what are my biggest past mistakes I would tell any new reseller to avoid?

Brands

My brand knowledge is 100% from Instagram and what other resellers are buying. While I have learned everything from this, it has also burned me many times. Brands almost always sell differently for everyone. Don’t go crazy trying to find a BOLO brand (been on the lookout) and ALWAYS check your comparable (comps) items.

Extras

Things you don’t NEED: fancy lighting, photography backdrop, thermal label printer, poly mailers, stickers, custom thank you cards, or a new camera. Do I have all of these things? Besides a camera, yes girl. I don’t use anything for my listing pictures anymore. No backdrop, no lighting. I found a bright corner in my apartment with natural light and put up a hanging bar on the wall! My pictures look 10x better than they did with a light kit and a faux wall backdrop.

Corner hanging bar for photographing clothing.

So why do we all have these fancy gadgets and extras? Because they DO help your productivity, reviews, and branding. I suggest starting out with the bare minimum and save for those big-ticket items like a label printer.

Editing

  1. Use square mode on your camera while taking pictures.
  2. Only edit your cover photo.
  3. Use an easy app like PicTapGo.
    • I use the “lights on” filter and adjust as needed.
    • Snapseed can help with additional brightening and use the “heeling” tool to remove things like light switches.
  4. Use an app like InstaSize to fit pictures into a square, like maxi dresses.

Cost of Goods Sold

My biggest reselling mistakes were made here! I started off by going to a Goodwill and thinking $5 for a top was a steal. Which it is if you are buying it for yourself. The general rule of thumb is to triple your money on a sale. So if that shirt is $5 you need to sell it for around $20 (Poshmark takes 20%).

Average selling price (ASP) is a goal to keep in mind in the long run. Starting out your ASP may be ~$15. Your ASP should start to increase if you put in a conscious effort while sourcing and pricing. Depending on what sourcing in your area looks like, you might stay at $15 if you are unable to find higher-end brands. Which is totally fine! Small sales add up.

Extra tip: check if you have a Goodwill Outlet/Clearance Center in your area! They put everything in huge bins that you dig through and you pay by the pound. A game-changer for your COGS.

Can you relate to these mistakes? Tell me in the comments!