eBay QuickBooks Integration: Making the Most of Connecting eBay to QuickBooks Online

Many eBay sellers face challenges when recording their sales transactions in QuickBooks. Various types of transactions come out as a result of selling on eBay, and all of them need to be accurately accounted for. 

As eBay sales increase, sellers receive more transactions to report. The only problem is – bookkeeping can still be the most confusing and time-consuming part of doing business on eBay, and one of the most significant ones. 

At this point, an eBay seller can save substantial time and effort taking action by integrating QuickBooks Online (an accounting solution by Intuit) with eBay.

In this article, we’ll look at how to make such integration work its best for your business.

Here’s what you can learn about eBay QuickBooks integration:

1. Why consider eBay and QuickBooks integration?

2. Recording eBay Sales in QuickBooks

3. Sync eBay orders into Quickbooks via Synder

4. What objects are created in QuickBooks Online after the sync?

5. Easy reconciliation of eBay transactions

6. Categorizing eBay sales in Quickbooks

7. Categorizing eBay shipping in Quickbooks

8. Connecting alternative payment gateways to Quickbooks

9. eBay QuickBooks integration for sellers: Conclusion

Why consider eBay and QuickBooks integration?

There’s a popular misconception that an Excel spreadsheet is the only thing you need to know how your business is going. But if manually recording eBay sales works for you now, it most likely will be a nightmare in the future when your business has grown to hundreds of daily transactions. Therefore, optimization of the e-commerce accounting process is relevant for every eBay seller with more than one transaction per day.

Many eBay sellers start to do the accounting in QuickBooks Online, hoping to press one button and forget forever about the horrors of the bookkeeping process. But miracles happen to those who know how to use eBay and QuickBooks integration to the fullest. 

Such integration could become a game changer for busy eBay sellers. Just imagine the scheduled action where QuickBooks gets eBay transactions recorded automatically  with high accuracy and every detail. For example, you won’t ever be frustrated by finding a product SKU field empty and searching through your products and items for it to add to QuickBooks looming in front of you.

Moreover, the integration of eBay with QuickBooks Online might have additional virtues for sellers. As you know, QuickBooks online creates financial statements for accountants to analyze and give recommendations to business owners. With eBay and QBO integrated, reports will be based on the most accurate financial information, making the job more efficient for accountants and giving sellers a more comprehensive overview of their financial health.

This way, as a business thinks to integrate eBay and QuickBooks Online to manage their financial records, they might receive tools for better management of their accounting. It will enable them to get accurate reports on eBay sales, set up convenient categorization processes, and trigger QuickBooks Online’s easy reconciliation with the business bank account.

Let’s look at how to leverage eBay integration with QuickBooks.

Recording eBay Sales in QuickBooks

Each sale made on eBay should be recorded accurately in your accounting platform. Recording eBay sales, you should sync all data related to this transaction (shipping, fees, sales tax, etc.) Each of these components has its own specificities. For example, as eBay is famous for the ability to access customers from all over the world, sellers face the challenge of sales tax compliance. Let’s talk more about this issue.

Understand eBay tax obligations which need to be recorded

If you sell on eBay, you should pay attention to the responsibility you have for paying taxes. Every eBay seller should comply with all applicable tax laws and, ideally, should inform overseas buyers about import charges they pay when receiving the item. Depending on where your customer came from, your tax-related responsibilities may include paying applicable sales taxes, Goods and Services Tax, Value Added Tax, etc.

Since April 1, 2020, about forty jurisdictions require that Internet sales tax is collected. In such cases, the Internet Sales Tax is collected and remitted on eBay sellers’ behalf. It’s very important to keep a thorough record of the tax part of the sale in your reports. 

Enter an eBay refund in QuickBooks

If the buyer requires a refund and the sales tax was collected on the original eBay Managed Payments transaction, eBay will refund the sales tax to the buyer. However,  if you process refunds through the PayPal platform, the seller is responsible to refund the full amount paid by the buyer at checkout, including any paid Internet Sales Tax. After refunding the buyer, eBay will credit the seller with the amounts of any taxes refunded. These financial operations, including the customer refund data, should be recorded in QuickBooks Online.

Read our article and learn What is a Credit Memo in QuickBooks.

Include eBay fees when tracking expenses 

Any eBay fees associated with the sale of the item also should be recorded. There are several types of eBay fees: the fee eBay automatically takes from each sales transaction, Insertion Fees, Final Value Fees, Listing Upgrades, Fees in Select Categories, and others. All these fees should be synced with QuickBooks, which gives the opportunity to correctly reflect the gross and the net amount of the sale. 

It can be extremely time-consuming to put all the sales data into QuickBooks manually. Luckily, QuickBooks marketplace features a solution, which allows you to put “fully packaged” e-commerce data from eBay into QuickBooks. In this article we’ll be talking about Synder. Besides automatically recording eBay transactions, it flawlessly accounts for refunds, taxes, discounts, transaction fees, and, as a result, you can perform an easy account reconciliation. All this will work automatically after a few clicks to connect eBay to QuickBooks via Synder. Let’s see how this magic works.

Sync eBay orders into Quickbooks via Synder

With Synder, you can synchronize e-commerce data from multiple systems in your accounting platform and perform a one-click reconciliation. It takes all the transaction info from your eBay or other payment platform and transfers it to QuickBooks Online. As a result, you can expect an easy account reconciliation without a need for manual entries. Let’s learn more about how it works.

The app creates a Sales Receipt+Expense(s) for a sales transaction from an eBay listing. It also creates expenses/deposits/refunds/transfers – for any other type of transaction (adjustment, payout, dispute, etc.).

All you need to connect eBay to Quickbooks via Synder is just to follow several simple steps and enjoy seamless synchronization afterwards.

Step 1: Creating your account with Synder

Provided you’re creating your integration from scratch, you’ll need to sign up for a Synder account by clicking the Sign up free button in the upper-right coner at the Synder homepage.

First, select the product or products you’re going to use:

• Synder Sync;
• Sales Analytics;
• Or both of them for perfect control of your business.

Synder Sync consolidates transaction data from multiple sales channels into QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Desktop, Xero, or Synder Books.

Sales Analytics aggregates data from all sales channels and payment gateways, providing instant insights into product performance, customer behavior, and financial health indicators, such as total sales, average order value, and more. Updates are provided hourly for real-time decision-making.

To get youself more familiar with the products, feel free to explore the dedicated pages on Synder Sync and Synder Insights on our website.

Now, create your first Organization with Synder.

At this point, you need to provide your business details in the form that opens, such as your business name, the country you’re operating in, and some other bits of information that’ll help set up your account correcty.

Hit the Next step button when you’done.

Read this explainer of Organizations in Synder for more details on what they are and how they work.

Step 2: Select eBay as a sales platform

At this step, you’re selecting the platforms to integrate with Synder. 

Select eBay by clicking on the corresponding logo. 

If you’re accepting payments through more processors, you might also want to connect them to Synder.

Basically, here you can connect any sales platforms or/and payment processors you use if you want to (click View all processors to see the list of all available platforms) or add them any time later (as well as undo any previous integrations).

Step 3: Select QuickBooks Online as your accounting platform

Proceed with selecting QuickBooks Online as your accounting platform by picking it out of the list of accounting solutions available for integration.

Click the Next button to get to the next step where you’ll need to connect the platform and grant Synder the permissions to record data in your QuickBooks.

Step 4: Finalize the integration

Now, you need to finalize your integration by connecting eBay and any other selected platforms to synder and granting the necessary permissions.

To do it, choose eBay from the list of the selected platforms, and click Connect.

To complete the setup for the eBay integration choose an account for payouts (usually, your Checking account) that will allow smooth reconciliation of your eBay transactions in one click.

Hit Continue to complete the setup.

Basically, that’s it.

However, if you already have Synder account an want to add eBay (or any other e-commerce platform or payment processor) integration, the process will differ:

• Log into your account, go to Settings on the left menu (there’s a gear icon), and click Add payment platform on the settings page;
  
• Choose eBay from the drop-down menu and click Connect;

• Finalize the setup by choosing an account for payouts and clicking Continue.

It’s worth adding that any time you feel unsure about whether you’re doing it right or experience any troubles creating the integration, feel free to contact our team for help. You might also want to go throught the help materials for more detailed guides.

What objects are created in QuickBooks Online after the sync?

Let’s take a look at the objects which are created in QuickBooks Online after the sync of eBay managed payments transactions. It depends on the type of transaction being synced, as Synder creates:

Easy reconciliation of eBay transactions

As an eBay business owner, you should keep close control over the reporting of transaction activity to ensure profitability, prevent any mess-ups in your books, and identify areas for improvement. Reconciliation is a major accounting process that helps you in this regard, and ensures that financial records and the actual bank balance match. Therefore, account reconciliation is an important part of your accounting, designed to keep your business taken care of and in good shape. 

However, there are many challenges in eBay transaction reconciliation, such as matching the platform fees, including all transaction data, accounting for refunds, etc. One of the most widespread problems in manual reconciliation is endless double checks.

Luckily, today you can reconcile in a few clicks with minimum manual input and no duplicates. A few-click reconciliation is available thanks to individual payouts being synchronized automatically in the background.

Make sure to enable the Payouts feature in the Synder settings to sync them along with regular transactions. Don’t worry, payouts won’t duplicate your bank feed records.

Learn more about reconciling transactions in QuickBooks Online:

Categorizing eBay sales in Quickbooks

Good organization and order are important not only on supermarket shelves but also in business on eBay. While a little mess in the supermarket only brings headaches to a supermarket manager, a mess in your books can ruin your online business. Luckily, Synder allows you to automate the income categorization for eBay. 

For more details, see a video tutorial made by Synder help center.

If a Product name from your transaction matches the product name in your QuickBooks – the transaction will be applied to this product and its income account, and all data will be categorized automatically. If product names don’t match, you can create a new product name or set up the categorization based on certain traits using the Synder Product Mapping feature.

The categorization feature also guarantees that you’ll always have up-to-date reports (including the Profit and Loss report) and facilitate account reconciliation.

Learn more about the Product Mapping Feature with Synder Tutorials:

Categorizing eBay shipping in QuickBooks

To categorize eBay shipping in Quickbooks, we advise you to create a separate account for all your shipping expenses, if you don’t already have one. 

When the transaction is synced, Synder will put the shipping amount into the right field in the QuickBooks transaction, and that amount will go to the account configured for shipping. It will assist in ensuring easy reconciliation and accurate reports.

Connecting alternative payment gateways to Quickbooks

We’ve already found out how to sync all eBay Managed Payments transactions with QuickBooks. You can go the same way if you use other payment gateways to charge your clients, such as Paypal or Stripe. With Synder, you can easily connect them — there are 25+ integrations available, including Amazon, Etsy, Shopify, Square, Ecwid by Lightspeed, and other platforms, in a few clicks. 

Here you can check how to connect a payment platform to Synder. Watch the video below to see how easy it is!

eBay QuickBooks integration for sellers: conclusion

Synder is an e-commerce accounting automation solution. It allows you to synchronize payment systems or e-commerce platforms with accounting software and automatically manage your finances. As a result, you’ll have accurate data in the accounting system, correct tax and product reports, and easy account reconciliation. 

Synder users can leverage the functionality of QuickBooks to the full extent and enhance their reconciliation by preventing mismatches and eliminating the need to recheck the data. Online business owners appreciate the simplicity of setting up and using an app that doesn’t require having special technical skills to work with it. Once set up, Synder works automatically in the background. 

Feel free to schedule a free Synder demo to see how it works and discuss your questions with the Synder support team.

Disclaimer: The article is not a legal guideline. For professional expertise in taxes or other legal issues, we recommend consulting a CPA or a certified tax practitioner.