Online seller becoming self employed

sidindaclub

Hi there ! Hope everyone is well. Is there any beginner guides or information regarding someone who has started selling online, I.e on etsy, eBay and website and has now started to make enough money in sales to do this fulltime. Let’s say between 15k and 25k in revenue. My partner has registered for self assessment/self employed but wants to be able to electronically record sales using the monthly reports on these platforms, rather than individually type up or write down each sale which is up to 300 small sales per month. Would this be sufficient for recording income? Obviously receipts for purchase will all be kept and have to be typed up to excel. Many thanks ! 

Jeremy535897

At this level there is no need to register for VAT, so I would have thought that the monthly report figures would suffice.

sidindaclub

Thanks - that’s what we feel. But had one book keeper say you need to keep full addresses of each sale you make (typed up to excel) which would take forever and especially as some sales are only for £5. And another one say write up each full name, date, email address of each sale. We are just hoping to be able to use the fact that eBay, Etsy are already recorded online as registered sales and basically just show our revenue and declare the tax on profits made. Doing this for the first time so any help from anyone who has already done this is much appreciated. It is her sole income so we want to get it right and also helps
with future mortgage applications. Many thanks again 

[Deleted User]

I suppose it is entirely your choice. You could take the advice of the bookkeeper or the retired accountant with a high level of expertise in taxation that has just posted. I know what I would be doing as a former tax consultant myself. 

Jeremy535897

A shop doesn't record the full names and addresses of every customer. At present, there are no specific rules for non-VAT registered businesses about records to keep. Presumably Ebay etc reports will contain the data anyway. Here is a useful guide:
https://www.litrg.org.uk/tax-guides/self-employment/what-business-records-should-i-keep

MTD is likely to change this in the future.

sidindaclub

This guide is very helpful Thankyou for that link and your advice. Still quite a lot of work to do, they don’t make it easy. But we will get there, and will get assistance on submitting the tax return also.