eBay Integrates Outright Bookkeeping Solution

One of the most difficult challenges most individual and small sellers on eBay face is managing the bookkeeping tasks that go with managing an online selling business—and many hobby sellers may not even consider eBay selling as a business at all.

The integrated Outright app gives eBay sellers immediate access to profit/loss statements. (Click for larger image).

Still, even if you sell as a hobby or earn only the equivalent of a part-time job, if you sell on eBay you need to remember that you are considered self-employed or an individual business owner, and your end-of-year taxes need to include any eBay income.

Unfortunately, many small sellers just want to sell, and their eBay business bookkeeping is often a hurried and jumbled mess when tax time comes—if it is done at all.

Outright Makes Bookkeeping Easy for Sellers

EBay has integrated a new application—called Outright—in its suite of Selling Manager Applications.  Outright is a completely free and simple online bookkeeping solution designed to help small- and self-employed business owners.

While Outright offers free accounting services to individuals who manage small and home-based businesses, the eBay integration of the suite allows sellers  who subscribe to eBay’s Selling Manager or Selling Manager Pro to access Outright bookkeeping directly from their "My eBay” Selling manager dashboard.

Kevin Reeth, Outright CEO, believes that when it comes to accounting and booking, most people who work for themselves find it burdensome.  “It isn’t so much a case of sellers not wanting to do their taxes right, “he said, “But rather they just don’t understand how it works and what they need to do.”

Outright offers a way for these small individual business owners, and now eBay sellers, to get organized and to get their taxes done right and on time.

Once you connect to the Outright application, the app will automatically grab the last 30-days of your sales history and then maintain all data going forward. Taking in to account expenses like shipping costs and any eBay or PayPal fees, Outright conveniently organizes and categorizes the data so that sellers can see their actual profit and loss statement.

The Outright app also makes it easy to incorporate data that isn’t obtained automatically via its eBay history. For example, you can include expenses, such as the cost of the items you sell and your other home-office business expenses.  The application provides an estimate of the taxes you need to pay and also reminders for when you need to pay it.

You can use the integrated Outright app to see estimated taxes owing for the current year based on your eBay activity. (Click for larger image).

Outright Security and Privacy

When it comes to hosted apps, especially applications that monitor and track your personal data, security is a big issue.

According to Reeth, the company has invested heavily in security. Not only do you need to log in to eBay to access the application, but Outright secures all of the data that you provide when using the application using SSL encryption.

Outright stores the last 30-days of your eBay history and builds an ongoing history with no limits or cut-offs. For as long as you keep your account open, your business information will be available to you. Best of all, it’s free to use with no limitations. The company backs up all data every hour, so even in the worst-case scenario your eBay business information would only ever be one hour behind.

Currently, Outright is designed for the U.S. tax system; however people in other countries can still use of some of the tool’s features, such as profit/loss statements.

Small businesses and individual that do not use eBay as a main source of income can access Outright’s free bookkeeping service by visiting Outright.com and registering for an account.

Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.