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Looking for your Paypal fees history or sales tax you collected through Paypal? It’s all in the history download from Paypal!

To download your history:

1. Log in to your Paypal account & hover over the History link, click the Download History link from the pop up menu.

2. On the right there’s a box with links, click Customize Download Fields.

That allows you to control the information you get & how you get it. Be sure to select shipping amount, insurance amount, sales tax and any other information you need. Click save at the bottom of that page.

3. Select Custom Date Range and put in the dates you need records from.

4. From the drop down File Types for Download menu select Tab Delimited.

5. At the bottom click the “Download History” button.

6. When download box pops up click to save the file to your computer.

7. Once you’ve saved the file, go to the folder on your computer where you saved it and change the file extension from .txt to .xls so that Excel can open it and will automatically put all the data in separate columns for you.

To change the extension right click on the file name and select rename, edit it then hit enter (on a Mac, use ctrl + click for the right click):

8. Double-click the file name to open it. All your transaction data should be there now, separated into individual columns.

To add up a column, for example, your sales tax:

9. Click once on the first sales tax collected entry–that selects that box (I’m not sure what the column header is as we can’t use Paypal to accurately collect NY sales tax so our file doesn’t have that column).

10. Hold down the shift key and then hold down the down-arrow key to highlight the cells until you reach the end of the numbers you want to add, then click the down arrow one more time, highlighting one empty box at the end of the column. It should look like this:

11. At the top of the page click the big funny looking E in the menu bar–that will “auto-sum” the column. It will put the total in the empty box you highlighted at the bottom of the column. It should look like this:

12. All added up! In this example the total was $3.75.

This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.

Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo

Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo

This time of year many folks seem to have questions about where different business expenses go in your annual income taxes.

Generally, you should get your answers from people in the know–that means directly from the IRS or from an accountant or tax preparer that has experience with small business taxes.

Non-official websites and forums are not a good place to get answers. You’ll never know if the person supplying the info actually has a good understanding of the laws or if they just talk a good game if you don’t go to the source.

In that vein, I offer a few official IRS website links that I have found very helpful. (Links open in a new window or tab depending on your browser settings.)

This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.

Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo

Visit our Etsy shop: GoTo

This isn’t the only SEO resource out there–if you search the web for info on SEO I am sure you’ll find tons of material. As with anything on the internet, some of the info will be accurate and some will just be someone’s opinion, so always consider the source of what you are reading.

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Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2008

If you haven’t tried Google Checkout for accepting on-line payments, we highly recommend it even if you currently accept Paypal–it’s a great back up service for when Paypal is down or for folks who prefer not to use Paypal: Go to Google Checkout

We’ve been very happy with their service, and really like how our money is automatically transferred to our bank account. For more details about fees and countries it is accepted in, please see this post: Accepting Credit Cards Online

2. Click the Tools tab.

3. On the left, click the Send an invoice link.

4. Fill out all the fields–I recommend checking the Send me a copy of this email box, otherwise you’ll have no record of the bill sent. Google Checkout doesn’t keep a copy in your account.

5. Click the Send invoice email button.

A yellow message will flash telling you the invoice has been sent.

I have found that I cannot use the Opera browser to send the invoices, but it works fine with Internet Explorer and Firefox.

To send a Paypal Invoice:

1. Log in to Paypal.
2. Click the Request Money tab.
3. Click the Create an Invoice link.
4. Follow the directions to send an invoice to your buyer by email.

The buyer will receive an email invoice and be able to click a link in the email to pay you.

If they prefer not to click that link, they can sign in to Paypal directly and the invoice will be waiting there for them to pay it.

Look for answers to the questions below on your state’s website, the paperwork they sent you when you registered or give them a call and ask one of your state’s employees. That’s how to best get facts about your state’s laws, not someone else’s interpretation or opinion. There are links to all the USA official state websites on the IRS website, there’s a link in our IRS blog post The IRS Website–Links for Businesses to that page–see “State Links from the IRS” near the end of the post.

Sales tax laws are different from state to state and the answers to the questions below vary widely. The issues below have sent me back to New York State’s website for more info, and occasionally led me to call the NYS Dept. of Revenue for answers. Sometimes I call twice, just to be sure the first person was clear on my question and that I got the answer right.

• Must I register to collect sales tax in my state?

You may think your business is too small or that you are just a hobby seller therefore you don’t need to register to collect sales tax for your state. From what I’ve seen, that’s probably not true. Many states require you register before you start selling, regardless as to whether or not you ever make a sale to someone in your state, make a sale at all or turn a profit.

• Is there an amount of sales I can make before I am required to register?

Most states with sales tax require you to register straight away–there’s usually no “You can sell $XXX worth of goods before registering to collect sales tax” rule. Usually it’s “Intend to make a sale? Register before you start selling”.

• Can I just include sales tax in my price?

Some states allow it, some don’t, and some allow it so long as you mention tax is included. There may be other stipulations, but none I have heard of off-hand.

• Can I just pay the sales tax for my customers?

Some states allow it, some don’t. Some allow it so long as you don’t advertise it.

• Can I advertise that I pay sales tax for my customers?

Some states have specific laws about publicizing that you will pay sales tax for your customers.

• Must my receipts to customers specify the amount of sales tax the customer paid and/or state that sales tax is included in the purchase price?

Some states require that you show how much tax the customer has paid/you paid for the customer. If the customer doesn’t know how much tax they paid, they won’t know if “use tax” is due on their purchase. (Use tax is due on purchases that should have had tax collected by the seller but didn’t. Many (most/all?) states with sales tax also have use tax which applies to internet and mail order purchases where the seller didn’t collect sales tax, though many people think that purchases from the internet are tax-free.)

• Are there different rates depending on the items or services I provide?

Some states have different rates for food, clothing, shoes, services… be sure to understand how they apply to your business.

More to come….

I’m sure this isn’t the be-all end-all of important questions for merchant service providers, so if you think I’ve left out anything important I’d love to hear from you!

A merchant account is used by businesses to process credit card transactions. As I called individual providers I found out more and more about what the important questions to ask were, which got me off the phone in minutes with companies whose services didn’t meet our needs. To find merchant service companies you can search the web or check with other small businesses/crafters/artists to find out who they use.

Most merchant accounts will charge you a transaction fee plus percentage fee for each transaction your customer charges, all the other fees below change with each company.

By the time I had gotten through a half dozen or so calls, I created this list of important topics to ask about upfront:

1. Sign Up/Start Up Fees–Fees to start up your account with their service.
2. Annual/Monthly Fees–Fees for maintaining your account on an annual or monthly basis regardless of whether you process any transactions or not.
3. Contract–Is there one? How long is it?
4. Cancellation Fee–Fees to close your account, or for canceling a contract early.
5. Monthly Statement Fees–Fees for receiving paper or electronic monthly statements of your transactions.
6. Monthly Minimums–If you don’t have enough transactions to generate a certain amount in fees, they charge you that amount. (For example: some places will charge you $25 a month regardless of having no transactions that month, or if your fees to them from transactions with your customers only reach $10.00 or any other amount below their monthly minimum.)
7. Credit Cards that You Will be Able To Accept–Discover, Master Card, Visa, Am Ex, debit cards with credit card logos, etc.
8. Fees to Accept Other Cards–Often they quote MC/Visa rates, Am Ex, Discover or other cards are extra–like $50 to start accepting each other type of card.
9. Per transaction Fee–Every transaction starts with a basic fee, like 35 cents per transaction.
10. Percentage Fee–In addition to the transaction fee, they also charge you a percentage of the total the customer is charging to their credit card.
11. Receiving Your Money Fee–Is there a fee?
12. How You Get Your Money–Is it automatically sent to your bank account? If so, after how long? Do you need to ask to have your money sent to your bank account? Is there a limit as to how often you can request your funds be transferred?
13. Chargeback/Disputed Charges Fee–If a customer disputes a charge, there are usually fees involved on the seller’s end.
14. Charge to Call in Credit Cards for Approval–If you are at a show and call in the card for approval, will there be a charge?
15. Credit Card Terminal Leases/Fees–Often the fees are more than $50.00 a month and there are fees for canceling the terminal lease in addition to canceling your merchant account.

I hope these topics will help you get on the right track to finding a merchant account provider that suits your business. Good luck!

We’ve been accepting credit card payments for sales through Paypal for years, but last year we decided to try Google Checkout:

Google Checkout

We’ve been very happy with their service, and really like how our money is automatically transferred to our bank account.

We don’t have to log in and tell them to send us our money, and instead of taking three to four days for it to show up in our account, it takes only two days.

The fees are lower than Paypal: 2% + $0.20 per transaction.
Update as of May 2009–the fees are now the same as Paypal:
2.9% + $0.30 per transaction.

Currently it’s only available to sellers in the US and UK, they are working on expanding, but it’s available to buyers in over 140 countries.

As of January 2008, these countries are able to pay using Google Checkout:

The first thing about taxes and your small business is that sales tax is completely unrelated to your annual state and federal income tax.

Sales tax:

Collected and regulated on a state level, so every state has its own laws that govern the collection and payment of sales tax by sellers to the state. The laws vary widely, please always contact your state directly if you have any questions or get the info directly from your state’s official website.

If your state has sales tax, you need to register with the state to be authorized to collect it from your customers, then you pay the state the money you collected according to the schedule the state provides you, on special forms that are only for sales tax remittance.

Some states require sales tax be remitted monthly, some quarterly, some once a year. In some states the schedule changes depending on your sales. Your state will tell you how often you should remit it.

Income tax:

Paid by US citizens/residents and those employed in/selling from the USA at the federal level and at the state level (if the state has income tax). Due April 15.

I’ll be adding posts about sales tax in different states as we come across it, primarily I’ll be covering New York since that’s where we are located/most knowledgable, but please still double check the information–even if I’m posting it.

I’ll be adding information about small businesses and income tax soon too.