eBay Seller Struggles to Find Payments Account Balance

by: CanBrit

It completely befuddles me because it changes based on circumstances. If you are expecting a deposit and a return occurs, everything goes back into processing again. They can put a hold on your money pretty darn quick, but why not subtract that and still continue to process the deposit less the return.

Seems pretty easy but Old Greedy Guts eBay doesn't think so. It's a smoke and mirrors with them anyway.

The same occurs when you receive payments. New sales can put your future deposit way off schedule

by: Bill

Another reason why I will end my 20+ years on eBay when they force me into managed payments.

by: Marie

Yes, this issue was noticed and reported to Ebay the day they rolled this new look out.  To my knowledge they will be correcting that omission but who knows when that will be.

BTW there is a "comment" feature on the upper right side of that screen.  I encourage everyone to use that and send in this complaint as the more of us that complain about it may help move the fix up to a higher priority.

The omission of this in the revised Summary screen shouldn't have cause anyone to stop selling on Ebay.  Such a small issue in the scheme of things really.  It was there, they so call improved the screen and now it isn't there.  We have to add the numbers to get the balance.  Annoying at best but not a reason to leave Ebay over.

by: CanBrit

@Marie

I don't think it's this small issue that has people leaving eBay. It's the culmination of massive and small issues that have occurred for decades.

I believe it's called the icing on the cake or the final straw. Maybe the one that broke the camel's back? 🐪🐪🐪

by: Bill

CanBrit:

Absolutely!!!

by: Marie

@canbrit & @ bill

There are things I absolutely dislike about MP and I certainly think their Customer Service on this subject is far beyond horrible and inexcusable.  To proceed with MP or not is a decision for each seller to make on their own.  

What I have found is that in any job I've ever had there are aspects of that job I don't like and others that I do.  As long as the benefits outweigh the negatives most times I stayed with it.  For me Ebay is profitable, so I've decided to stay.  

I've been in MP for awhile now and it hasn't been problematic for me at all with the exception that I absolutely HATE how they do holds on Claims.  I do weekly deposits.  I think those that want daily deposits outside of the way that MP actually functions are the ones that have the biggest or most frequent issues with MP.

They really need to rethink what they named that as it is misleading to be sure.  Transfers only happen on Business days and that isn't what the average person would define "Daily" to mean.  So that is yet another self inflicted issue with this program.

People will stay and people will go.  Just depends on the needs of the seller.

by: terry55

Whats crazy is with all the glitches, instead of changing programs they'd fixed them. The Worse part of MP, which I'm surprised no one has mentioned is the horrible accounting ebay has set up. For 2020 I ran a sales report, financial report and compared to my 1099, none matched, all 3 were off by $200 to $300, on top of that the shipping labels purchased thru ebay are off that much per month. I don't even know where to get the correct numbers, you can't get ahold of a rep in MP, one couldn't even look in my sell hub. I don't see sellers leaving because of the account balance but because of the mess trying to keep track of the sales.Some are gonna get an even bigger smack in the face if they get audited and try to explain to the IRS the numbers.

by: Marie

@terry55

MP recently updated the downloadable detailed transaction report, that will certainly help.

The discrepancy you feel you are seeing is likely due to the 1099K is reporting transactions by SETTLEMENT date, NOT transaction date.  That is wrong and confusing, but it is what they have done.

by: terry55

@marie
Like I said that's not a correct way to report, don't want to go thru reports to see which was and wasn't reported on the last couple days of each month, and top off having to report quarterly which luckily only an estimate.  I ran a sales report on Feb 1st for January and again the 5th, off by a $100, its a mess.  

by: Bill

eBay sucks and THAT is the bottom line!

by: I Must be Crazy

I am with Bill....

I have been happily and successfully using GoDaddy Bookkeeping for years. Very simple with Paypal. Numbers were accurate and timely.

Now, with Managed Payments, the transactions are pulling in a day after they happen, the collected taxes are not being accounted for at all, shipments through GSP are pulling funds paid to Pitney Bowes for International Shipping which never happened previously. Meaning they are in my 1099. It is just a mess.

Oh, and those international transactions are charging international fees....I have never noticed those with Paypal. In fact, I had a sale going to a US address, somehow purchased by a foreign buyer, and was charged an international exchange fee. Has this been happening all along and I never noticed??

My 1099 for the year is overstated by over $6,000. So I now must delay filing while I try to find the differences.

At this stage, I probably can't use GoDaddy. I will need to set up and maintain my own books because I need to review transaction level detail to be certain everything is posting correctly on the correct date.

Hardly worth the 1/10 of one percent savings on my fees.  

by: Marie

@terry55

I get it and I respect your position.  But you have to balance the 1099K you received on your schedule C of your tax return.  So I offered the information so to help you do that.  I absolutely understand your issues.

@I Must be Crazy

Whether you noticed them or not, you were charged an international fee in PP.  It was 1.50%  for a total of 4.4%.

MP charges 1.65%, so slightly higher.

FYI that is NOT an "exchange" fee.  That would have been yet another 4%.  But US sellers selling on the US site do not have to be concerned about exchange fees as buyers are required to pay you in US funds.

But if you were a US seller selling on like the UK site, then if you wanted payments in US $$ you would have an exchange rate.

Keep in mind that the Ebay 1099K is based on Settlement dates NOT the transaction date.  That will help you reconcile.

by: Bidonmine

My problem with managed payments is that you cannot go back 12 to 18 months as you can with every credit card account and other financial accounts. Even my bank allows for access of up to 18 months data (through a special request). If Ebay wants to manage my payments, they need to make up to 18 months of data easily available to facilitate accounting.

by: cfrphoto

It is now possible to download a Managed Payments transaction report for the entire year 2020. The report now includes the country, state or province, and eBay collected sales tax. Downloads for 2019 have stopped working. Excel skills are required to extract data from eBay downloads.

To track daily or weekly cash flow, it is possible to collect data from the link in the Payout email to a link in the Payout summary window to a Payout detail window. Amounts buyers paid and fees deducted must be added manually. Totals are not supplied by eBay, a major deficiency affecting sellers with multiple transactions. Holds are listed above the payout detail. I track holds as an expense item that should net out to zero (or the current held amount) at the end of the year. Are the benefits, if any, of eBay labels worth additional accounting complexity if postage costs are comingled with payments?

by: Duper2019

What is even more confusing, is it you have a return, it immediately gets held. OK. That means future sales, if you don't have enough processing are held until the amount is met. Fine. But then, the item is received, the refund is released and you get a message that you should refund them from your PP account? There is no clear picture to look at your information that makes any sense.  

by: Marie

@ Bidonmine

The updated Detailed Transaction report that is only downloadable has the ability to go backwards further than 90 days now.  I personally haven't tested it for further than a year back, but you might check that out to see if that will get you the info you need.

by: isa

I was looking at the number of transactions on my 1099 and it was not matching the number of transactions that I had on my accounting spreadsheet... Then I found it while running a report.  I had to go through each item and finally found the missing one.   It was actually an item that was sold to a buyer that never paid for the item!! Even though Ebay refunded the fee, it still shows on my 1099??? why, I never got the funds for this!!  so now it is all very confusing to what was added to that 1099...

by: QueenMab

I opened a separate checking account for Mangled Payments. I received my statement from the bank today and it didn't show my payout from FleeceBay. it did show a deposit of ONE PENNY from FleeceBay! Are they kidding! A penny deposit!! I checked my bank statement online and discovered GreedBay did take out my fees for January and i did receive a deposit for January sales. Another thing that's very annoying is, if one purchases shipping labels from GreedBay, they will take it out of one's PayPal account but no thanks to Mangled Payments, no one is able to use PayPal to pay GreedBay Fees. This system is beyond broken!

by: CanBrit

@Marie.

I think you are really good at trying to offsetting all the mess that eBay creates but in the end of it all, even you can't turn a pig's ear into a silk purse. Sorry.

Boy, am I full of them these day's or what. Lol.

🐷🐷🐷

by: Marie

@canbrit

MP has so much room for improvement, I get that.  And it isn't for everyone, I get that too.  But some are deciding not to even try it when it is clear from what they write in their posts they don't understand how MP actually works.  

Some sellers make a good enough profit on Ebay to stick around and learn to deal with MP with the hopes that MP will continue to improve.  There is nothing wrong with that.  

Some sellers will figure out that MP just isn't for them and they will leave Ebay.  There is nothing wrong with that either.  We each need to do what is best for ourselves.  But we are ALL better making this decision with the facts.  Informed decisions are typically far better than one based of fears, gossip and assumptions.

MP for most is not as bad as some want to make it out to be.  But there are problems and getting those problems resolved is made extremely difficult because of the shameless state of the MP customer service.  Some of these sellers with problems are urgently important yet they have to wait and wait and wait some more to get any real assistance.  That just should not be happening.