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Accounting for PayPal transactions in bulk

  • Thread starter Thread starter HungryHorse
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HungryHorse

Hi,

We sell digital content online, primarily through Paypal. Most of our customers are unique, purchasing only once.

Do I need to create a customer, then an invoice and then mark the invoice as paid for each of these payments (in Solar Accounts)?

or am I able to process these transactions in bulk, entering the sales for each month as a whole figure (as well as the transaction fees)? Is this allowed? If so how would this be entered into the accounts without the transactions being binded to a particular invoice / customer?

I don't invoice or quote anybody (they pre-pay for the product which is then instantly delivered) so this customers, invoice and quoting stuff in accounting packages doesn't really mean much to me, unless this is information that I need to have legally or something :| I'd always have the transaction information kept in Paypal should there be some kind of investigation.. I just don't want to enter various transactions into the accounts every single day, or is this the norm?

PS - I do have an accountant but I want to also start keeping my own accounts & learning about how to do this stuff properly to take care of my business.

Cheers
 
HungryHorse said:
PS - I do have an accountant
Click to expand...
So make them earn their fees :)

If you're VAT registered and provided VAT Exempt items (ie. to EU business with a valid VAT number etc) then you'll need to put them into something individually so you can extract the data for the EC Sales Report, VAT 100 etc

As for the rest, there are lots of ways to handle it, for reconcillation purposes each transaction would be best as (a) PP history cannot be relied on (b) Refunds/chargebacks/etc affect tehe *original* transaction on their reports etc
- for specific advice, you really do need to discuss it with your accountant ...
 
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Thanks for the advise and information.

Ok, so if I enter these transactions one by one (which wouldn't be TOO bad), do I have to go through the process of creating a customer and invoice for each of these transactions in Solar Accounts or is there a different way to account for them (which would be easier for me, or am I supposed to retain information about which specific customer a transaction is from)?

I'm a bit worried what happens in my dreams at night when we're taking in hundreds or thousands of transactions per day and how to handle those in a hopeful future :eek:

Cheers :)
 
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Thanks, I have followed those steps but was wondering about the customers & invoices... if they're needed or not.

For example, it would appear I can simply record money coming in, choosing a customer, specifying the amount, specifying the "account paid into" as the PayPal (or other bank) account and then mark the from account as "Sales Income", for example.

This "Money Received" would be marked as type "General Payment" rather than an "Invoice Payment", skipping the need to create an invoice for each transaction in Solar Accounts. Is this "allowed"?
 
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Ok reading through the Solar Accounts help pages, I've just come across this page:

solaraccounts. co. uk/help/how-to-record-a-cash-sale.php

This page explains that I don't need to use the Invoices OR Customers features :)

"Note: A cash sale records a payment at the time you make a sale. If you allow a customer to delay payment, you should record this as an invoice."

I'd of course record the payment against the PayPal account.

and of course.. "Received From: Enter the customer name. (If you don't need to keep track of individual customers, enter 'Unknown Customer')." - which describes what to do if I don't wish to track customers :)

Thanks for your help guys, I'm just going to enter individual transactions to make things easier for referencing etc, I'll skip the invoices since we're receiving payment immediately on order and may still keep track of customers for other purposes (not sure yet).

Happy bunny :D
 
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