A necessary but important part of trading on eBay is keeping records of your sales, both for yourself and for tax purposes. Good records allow you to know the progress regarding each sale, which is essential if you are to collect everything you are owed.

Perhaps the easiest way to accomplish this is to set up a spreadsheet to log your sales and the various stages in the sales process. As an alternative to a spreadsheet, you could probably use a large notebook/ledger if you prefer. Any spreadsheet should be up to the job. I use the one that comes with Microsoft Works, which is fine. You are best to head up the columns horizontally, across the spreadsheet from left to right, using the following headings:-

Start of with:

Auction Ref no
Auction Date

Item Description

Fill this in for every item you sell. Then record, for each item:

Selling Price
Postage requested from customer
Total expected from customer
Deadline given for payment

Date of reminder letter

On receipt of payment, record:

Payment received ('X')
Payment method (PayPal, Cheque, cash etc)
Checked amount paid is correct (Y/N)
Cust ID

Customer name and address

and

Item despatched (Y/N)
Date despatched
Transaction concluded (Y/N)

Feedback left (Y/N)

It is a labourious job at times, but it is something that will pay off in the future. You could even expand this spreadsheet to include the costs related to each sale to calculate the profit/ loss made for each item.

Good luck and happy trading!