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01/27/2020 at 2:30 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 447: 2 Month Free Shipping Experiment #73363
We have hit on this topic in the past. The same confusion seems to still exist between and Bookkeeping system like Go Daddy and QUICKEN vs. QuickBOOKS!!!
Hope some of the more astute accounting members will jump in and do a good explanation between the two and also give some advice on why and when one would be preferred over the other. Mark Tews and Julie B or Sharyn [I believe] maybe could help clarify.QuickBooks is a double entry bookkeeping system that uses a General Ledger and Journal entries to support the GL. It allows the user to create invoices for customers, receive partial payments against those invoices, submit monthly statements showing amounts paid and remaining balances. This is what is called an “accrual” system of bookkeeping and is very, very robust, has tons of things to set up and will run about $350 or more per year depending on the version you get.
Quicken on the other hand is a CASH based system, very similar to Go Daddy but more robust than Go Daddy. It was bought from Intuit who invented it and had it for years but was abandoning it for it’s mother and much more profitable system QuickBooks.
Quicken has a business version which we switched to after we decided to no longer persue the printing, construction-remodeling and spray foam businesses and only start doing reselling online.
QuickBooks is overkill for the smaller business that does not invoice clients, create and issue statements and those that don’t want to carry a large inventory system within the structure of their bookkeeping system.
Quicken serves the smaller business with a CASH bases structure, stands on the journal entry system but does not include the General Ledger portion of accounting, which most accountants will tell the nocie to stay out of and let only your CPA make Gen. Ledger adjustments.
Quicken does interface with most banks [unsure about very small banks] but you can call and find out] and also downloads from PayPal.
Just like Go Daddy one has to set up the categories that you want things to be associated with, but that is a one time up front task except when you want to add new categories of expenses or income.
We run all of our online businesses with Quicken for Business as well as several contract jobs. We also can and do use the basic invoice system, but don’t carry outstanding balances over year to year. That is more for the “accrual system”.
As always, we always say check with your accountant or CPA but make sure to address the way of doing business based on Accrual vs. Cash basis.
BTW Quicken is only $69 per year, will reconcile all accounts, it also downloads all credit card accounts, has many reports, a balance sheet, and a profit & loss statement that can be viewed.
So hopefully, this will share some light on the subject.
mike at mdc galleries
01/27/2020 at 12:25 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 447: 2 Month Free Shipping Experiment #73349Right there with you TTT. When we did the Free shipping change over on Etsy we just went ahead and did some custom work in SixBit and then did some sorting and filtering and added the cost to zone 6 for all weights to zone six.
Doing some more changes today to all items but in a couple of days everything will be free shipping. Even over size DIM weight items. We built a Flipper tool like calculator into our SixBit program and any time an item is over 1,728 cubic inches the Flipper Tools DIMension weight calculator shows us what level of weight the surcharge is and we use that weight cost to build in. Again all to a Zone 6 away from us. If an Hawaii or Alaska pops up will just eat that difference as a cost of doing business. Only had a couple of those since 2002 anyway.
mike at MDC Galleries
01/21/2020 at 9:59 am in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 446: Interview with Dan The Diner, Fellow Scavenger! #73133We too are still working through the Item Specifics change. We dropped all SixBit wrappers like you did and I dropped in code so the item specifics would also automatically show in our description area and in turn that whole description area we just copy and paste into the Etsy description and everything we need then shows there. All working fine.
Our time consuming part is going back on what we still have left from the old WonderLister listings and pre-Ebay IS Bomb and getting them changed to the new format we like. So, yes some work.
Thanks for the thoughts and prayers. Susan is very fatigued and wobbly on her feet. Doctors all say she will be feeling better within a few months after the last chemo and radiation treatments are all done. Takes a few months for all the side effects to clear the system.
Let’s all just … “Keep on Truckin!” 🙂
mike
01/20/2020 at 4:25 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 446: Interview with Dan The Diner, Fellow Scavenger! #73116Hey Troy… Welcome Back. Missed you but I knew you had a lot going on but the college bit is new. I figured something was up.
Same, same here. Things are very slow overall. Seems like since the Oct Ebay change on all the item specifics things are just not the same. We are about the same as last year. Working on final data this week.
Don’t be a stranger to the forum if you can spare a little posting time.
I am also spending some time doing some online marketing for the fellow that took over my old spray foam company. So been doing social media stuff and web site design work for him to fill in the income gaps.
Susan is about 80% through with her treatments. About 7 weeks more. Just me and the one part time [2 half day a week helper and me on Ebay and Etsy.
Keep us posted on how things are going periodically.
Mike at MDCGFA
Howdy: That specific one that’s linked is as follows:
Sold for $64.95
Sold Date May 19, 2014
Source eBay
Original Category Collectibles : Decorative Collectibles : Tea Pots, SetsI’ll check for any others.
mike at MDCGFA
Yep.. I too think they are “awls” [punch tool]. Tools used for hole punching such as leather crafts. Used for starter / pilot holes and also for texturing such as making small “dots” in tin, thin metal and leather items and small textured dot back grounds. Also can be used for making small dots in artists wood cuts and lino cuts.
They can also be used for scribing lines either free hand or pulling along a straight edge.
Hope this helps
Mike at MDC Galleries
Any idea on when the rates will be posted or are they already out.
Guess that means we will have to reevaluate our shipping data in our SixBit software. Currently the cut off we use is at the 7 lb. mark. Less than that USPS is cheaper. At 7 pounds FedEx is $3.39 less costly and at 6 pounds FedEx is only $1.16 less costly, and not worth the drive to drop off if only one package going.
But now if they drop there rates we will adjust the break off point accordingly. FedEx is a couple of miles up the road from us.
If the rate cut is high enough, maybe the cut-off point will a few pounds less, around the 5 or 4 lb. mark. But it sure is handy to have the USPS driver just pick up our pile everyday without us having to leave the house.
Anxious to see the discount rate.
mike at MDCGFA in Atl.
P.S. Simply put we don’t stock any FedEx bags, mailers or boxes. We use our Ebay or USPS boxes for all FedEx shipments. 🙂
We use FedEx a lot for both Ebay and Etsy. We use any type of box we can that fits and works.
We know the owner of our FedEx store and has said to us and we have done so many times, that FedEx will take any box we want to use.
We use Ebay boxes, we use USPS Boxes, both priority and flat rate, we use poly mailers, both plain, Ebay and USPS marked and we use Ebay tape. Anything seems to be fine with them. They don’t seem to care, as long as the FedEx label is clean and clear.
They used to use a section that asked if you were going to use there packaging or your own, but we haven’t seen that in a while.
Ebay has had for a long time, the FedEx Tab right beside the USPS tab when we go to purchase labels. Many times we put in the shipping weight and box size then toggle back and forth between the two tabs to see which is the cheaper rates and select the one that is cheaper.
We do have a FedEx account but you don’t need one. You can ship with FedEx right through Ebay.
I think what you are seeing is that FedEx is going to make purchasing the FedEx label chaeper than in the past.
Other than lower rates, I don’t think anything is going to change from what it is now.
mike at mdc galleries.
01/14/2020 at 12:14 pm in reply to: Etsy Seems to be trying It’s Own Version of the Global Shipping Program #72928Hey Sharyn:
Your post made me re-read the article and I guess it depends on how I interpret the wording.” … Available shipping services
Global Postal Shipping includes an international shipping service through Etsy’s partnership with an Asendia affiliated company. It includes an affordable international shipping option that uses First Class International Parcel services. This option will appear for packages that meet the requirements for package size and country destination.I took it that they will offer a “regular” shipping service to foreign buyers for all packages and that they ALSO WILL HAVE a pop up additional OPTION for smaller packages that qualify for the First Class prices.
If it is what you are stating, only for First Class International, I think they could have said that in a better manner. Something like this service is for First Class packages only, instead of using the word “as an Option” so much. Option to me seems to imply “an additonal services for the small stuff” in addition to the regular service.
Hhhmmm… guess we will have to wait and see.
mike at mdc galleries
01/12/2020 at 6:18 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 444: Is Cross Posting The New Reality? #72831You bet Sonia. No harm, no foul. I too didn’t mean for anything to be negative. Actually I started out with the link that referenced the clothing industry in general and the impact of China and the diminishing market. Hope you read the article the link went too.
It made us well aware that we were glad to have given up on the used clothing market years ago, other than a few shoes, hats and couple of coats.
Check that article out. I just wanted clothing people to think about that market a little more broadly and longer range, than buying an item from a BOLO list or from what a YouTuber Hauler may post.
Then as far as BOLO’s go sure doesn’t hurt to have a reference list, but in my art and art print market and Asian Home Decor we seem to well guided from our own Master of Fine Art Degree, 35 years in the printing and art publishing industry and years of reading Kovel’s Antique Pricing Guide and studying their web site. Then we throw in enough general stuff as we see fit. Like my wife used to say at our Antique Booths, we need to have something for the kid’s too! 🙂
mc @ mdcgfa
01/12/2020 at 4:37 pm in reply to: Scavenger Life Episode 444: Is Cross Posting The New Reality? #72826Sonia.. I didn’t comment on BOLO lists.
My reference to the clueless and blind, was a personal experience sharing what I heard and observed at a family gathering of people talking about doing online selling and yes, they were clueless to the process, sharing tons of mis-information and guidance suggestions.
I apologize if the wording of how I shared that experience here on SL bothered you, but it doesn’t change the fact of what I saw, heard and my opinion of it. That group was the epitome of running off about things they were clueless about and yes, they were all blind to the facts of how to do it, about Ebay and Etsy polocies and had no idea on how any type of business runs.
The overall point then, is still, know what you are doing, do your research on how to run a business, how the platforms work before quitting your day job thinking you will replace a full time job in a short amount of time. I know you know how much work is involved in doing what we all do.
But again, didn’t mean to be ugly about it. Out of my almost 800 posts here on SL, almost always, I have shared tons of positive information on how to do things. Enough that I could probably write a small book on how to accomplish buying, sourcing, art recognition, seeing color, packing, handling bad customers, etc., etc.
So, think I may have a little leway on expressing my opinion, and that is just what it is, on what I saw and heard from a group that had no idea or factual information about the subject of online selling. Wish you could have been there. I just went outside to get away from it.Oh, and I said I too do follow a couple of YouTubers that do provide good information. AND, do you know what I think is one of the best BOLO Lists anybody could ever have… Just listen to over 10 years of JamdR and enter into a spread sheet every what sold item and the top dollar they got for it. I did that for 1 complete year about 5 or 6 years ago. Then sorted the list by category. Used that list for years. Had thousands of BOLO . What better list than items that sold for top dollar from all the SL members.
But, tis what it is.
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
You bet! Anytime.
One of the SL Members has a very useful web site with great shipping tools but he also has a section of various Ebay tools and a link.
click this link to go to his site, then click his link to go to the Ebay site, etc., etc.
and here is even a 3rd way to get to your store discount coupon
https://www.flippertools.com/tools/wheres-my-ebay-coupon/mike at MDCGFA
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
MDC Galleries & Fine Art.
Here you go. Click on this link to go to Ebay site,
https://www.sd.ebay.com/?afsrc=1&rmvSB=true
then click on the upper left discount coupon and you will see your discount number pop up. Highlight and copy this number [it will stay on your clipboard].
Then go do your shopping and remember before you check out to make sure that you paste your coupon code into the discount field for it to apply. Then when you check out you will see your total less the discount amount and the balance you will owe.
Check out and pay..
Mike at MDC galleries and Fine Art
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This reply was modified 1 year, 8 months ago by
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