How to record your reselling finances in 2022
I’m no accountant and I don’t play one on TV, but all of us resellers need to crunch our numbers somehow. I’ve made a simple spreadsheet using Google Sheets and improved it slowly over the years. Now, I want to share it with you - just in time for 2022!
A few quick notes before we begin:
Customize: We all run our businesses differently so feel free to customize this spreadsheet however it would work best for you. (I offer some suggestions at the end of this article too.)
All in one: I record both expenditures and sales in the same spreadsheet. It makes it easier for me to see everything in one place. But this spreadsheet can still work for you if you only want to total one or the other.
No taxes: I don’t include taxes in this spreadsheet. It’s far too complicated to cover here.
Monthly: I tend to crunch my numbers monthly, which means I don’t record how much I paid for each individual item. My thought process is I want to make more money than I spend each month, so if my profits are larger than my expenditures after 30 or so days, we’re good.
Let’s get this party started!
Whenever you’re ready, you can download the FREE Flipshark financial spreadsheet
template here and follow along with the guidelines below:
How to use this spreadsheet
If you’re unfamiliar with Google Sheets, just download the file from the button above, open a new spreadsheet in Google Sheets, click File > Import, choose the Upload tab, and upload the file.
DATE
Now that we have the document up and running, let’s begin.
Whether you’re recording a purchase or you’ve made a sale, fill out the Date column.
PURCHASES
Let’s start by making a record for something you bought. Whether you buy from a thrift store, garage sale, car boot, or anywhere else, you can be as detailed as you want in the Item(s) column.
Write down where you bought your items in the Vendor column. Recording where you buy your items will help you find out, after some time, which honey hole is the most lucrative or where you might be wasting your money.
(I recommend also recording here when you spend money on any business needs, such as shipping products, thermal printers, software subscriptions, etc.)
In the Purchase Price column, record the total you spent at each Vendor. You may also notice the Purchase Price is totaled for the year at the top of this spreadsheet - Spend (YTD).
SALES
Now, let’s record what you sold - woohoo!
Each time I make a successful sale, I fill out a new row. Again, make sure you write down the date of the sale in the Date column and be as detailed as you want in the Item(s) column.
When recording a sale, ignore the Vendor and Purchase Price columns and fill out the others:
Platform - choose the platform where you made your sale. This dropdown is populated with eBay, Facebook, Mercari, DePop, Instagram, offline, and other. (If you’d like to add or remove options here, see the customization section at the bottom of this article.)
Category - you can write here whatever category you chose on the corresponding platform. Recording the category in this column can help you review and reflect on what sells best for you.
Date Listed - Didn’t write this down somewhere when you originally listed the item? There are probably plenty of ways to find this out. I’m familiar with eBay and Facebook Marketplace:
eBay:
If you have an eBay Store subscription, you can find the Listed date (or Start Date, as eBay calls it) in the Seller Hub under Listings > Ended and filter for Sold. (If you don’t see the Start Date there, click the Customize table link to turn it on.)
If you don’t have an eBay Store subscription, you can look through your email inbox for the automated eBay email for when you listed the item. It usually has a subject line like “Item title is live”.
Facebook Marketplace changes often, but, as of writing this, you can find your Listed Date for each item under Marketplace > Your listings, and then scrolling down on the left side to the Sort by section to choose Sold & out of stock. The Listed date should be there for each item you’ve sold.
Days btw. - automatically calculates (from the Date and Date Listed columns) how long it took for the item to sell
Sale total - the good stuff: the dollar total you see when you make a sale
Shipping - you’ll need to record this depending on if you charged shipping or offered it up for free
Fees - if you sold an item on a platform, you’re going to pay some fees. And since each platform and category can be different, I haven’t added much here. You’ll need to calculate these on your own.
Profit - automatically calculated by subtracting your Shipping and Fees from the Sale total
You can also see your total profit for the year at the top of the spreadsheet - Profit (YTD).
Customizing your sheet
This spreadsheet is prepared for you for 2,500 rows. If you buy and sell more than that (and I hope you do), but you’re unsure how to keep the spreadsheet going, send me a message.
Add/remove columns
If you’d like to add or remove columns to better fit your business, you’re more than welcome to do so. Adding is simple enough. When hovering over a column letter (like Column B below), click the downward arrow in the right side of the cell and choose Insert 1 column left or Insert 1 column right from the options:
You can find the option to delete columns in the same way. Keep in mind, though, removing some columns could break some of the automated formulas in others.
Add more platforms
If you sell on a platform that’s not offered in the Platform drop-down, you can add it yourself. Click inside the E3 cell and then go to the top toolbar and click Data > Data Validation. In the pop-up (pictured below), under Criteria, add a comma and then type your platform of choice.
Also, make sure to change the Cell range from '2022'!E3 to '2022'!E3:E2500 (or replace 2500 with however many rows you want in your spreadsheet).
How to learn from your spreadsheet
Now that we have all this data, let’s do something with it!
How to calculate monthly totals
I like to calculate how much I spend and earn each month (excluding taxes).
To do this, let’s learn the SUM formula (if you don’t already know it). You can see a monthly breakdown already started to the immediate right of the first few rows of the spreadsheet.
As an example, let’s imagine January 2022 is over and you’ve recorded all your purchases and sales. You can automatically calculate what you spent in January by adjusting the SUM formula in cell O3. Currently, it is set to =SUM(D3:D50) which adds all the values in the D column (Purchase Price) from cell D3 to D50. If you filled in more or less than 50 rows in January, replace “50” with that number in the SUM formula.
You can do the same for your monthly profit by using the SUM formula in the Profit cell P3, which is currently using =SUM(L3:L50). All you need to do is replace the numbers for the rows you used in January.
Keep in mind, when calculating for future months, you’ll want to change D3 or M3 to whatever number your February rows begin on. For example, February’s Spend and Profit might look like =SUM(D51:D100) and =SUM(L51:L100)
How to sort
The Sort function in Google Sheets can help you reflect on a number of things:
which items took the longest to sell
which required the most fees
which sold for the most profit
To sort your data, you can click the downward arrow in the right side of a column cell and choose Sort sheet A to Z or Sort sheet Z to A, depending on what you’re looking to learn.
For example, if you choose Sort sheet Z to A for the Days btw. column, you can easily see what item you sold took the longest because it will be at the top of the column.
To bring your spreadsheet back to the default state, sort the Date column using Sort sheet A to Z.
And that’s all, folks! I hope this spreadsheet helps you clarify and simplify your reselling journey.
If you have any questions or suggestions at all, send me a message. I’m always looking for ways to help and to improve.
