Hi everyone. This may seem like a weird question but I'm lost I think. I'm associating invoices with emails and then entering payments. When I click the $ I realize that not only does my Paypal email not include the fee they charge, but I cannot reference the email at all after the payment window pops up. Can anyone tell me how you simplify this process? Thanks for any info.

I'm not sure exactly what you are doing, but here's what works for me:

Open the Paypal email; open the Database Record Panel; use the auction ID number to find the auction and associate it with the Invoice (assuming you've already generated the Invoice); highlight the buyer's address and store it; click the link in the email to go to Paypal to view the details of the transaction (this is the part we'd all like to be able to skip somehow, but as of now, it's the only way to ascertain the fee); take note of the Paypal fee; go back to AW, log in the payment, and type in the fee.

If you are associating the paypal email with the Invoice, I don't know why you can't then reference that email. Are you sure you are associating it with a generated Invoice and not just an auction Lot? One thing I've learned is that it's important to store the buyer's address BEFORE you log in a payment.

Hope this helped a little. If not, please give more details about what steps you are taking.

tictictic

Oh thank you! Then I'm not crazy. That actually helped a lot. I am doing what you described but not clicking the Paypal link. It really isn't very practical to record the payment from the email. I've been printing out the Paypal page after creating a label and using the information off of the printout for the fees and shipping info. I'm going to try it your way. Thanks again for responding :)

Well, if you are someone who needs a hard copy of your transaction, here's another idea that might be helpful.

Before I send my email notification to a buyer, I copy/paste the part with all the dates, monetary figures, auction ID, invoice number, etc., to a Microsoft Word document I created that has a chart at the bottom with spaces to fill in (by hand) End Date, Due Date, Pmnt Rec'd, To-Ship Date, and Shipped Date. Then I hit a menu button which activates a macro to increase the font size and make bold these significant dates/figures/numbers and then sends the document to my printer (this all takes about 4 seconds). Then I hand-write the End and Due dates in the boxes and file the paper in my "waiting for payment" folder. The way this document is formatted makes it easy to see the pertinent data at a glance. When a payment arrives via Paypal, I pull out the paper (filed by invoice number), fill in the Pmnt Rec'd date and write Paypal underneath. Then I follow the link in the Paypal email, note the fee, and jot that down under where I've written Paypal (I do a similar thing when checks come in, but those papers get refiled in my waiting-for-clearance folder).

Then when I'm ready to ship things, these sheets, along with the actual invoice and the page of shipping labels, go with me when I locate the item and head off to my shipping area. I have also scribbled the buyer's last name, city, state and zip as a back-up when I'm packing stuff, so there's no chance I'll switch items and buyers. After something is shipped, I staple the insurance receipts, the Click'N'Ship printouts, or whatever, to the sheets before filing them. Whenever I've had to refer back to an old transaction, I reach for these sheets first. Yes, all the info is also in AW, but it's nice to have it all collected on one page.

There is an AW Report than can be printed out that will accomplish the same basic thing -- provide a hard copy with all the info -- but it's in small print and I just can't get cozy with it. I am definitely not a paperless office.

If this sounds like something that would make your auction-tracking easier, here's example of one of my sheets:

http://www101.pair.com/tic/HardCopy.jpg

tictictic

Wow. All I can say is WOW. Will you come and work for me? :P

Sure! When do I start?

No reason for the Wow, but I do appreciate it. This method of mine is appropriate for folks like me who are happy with a couple sales a day. Sellers who are much more prolific would never have the patience for these print-outs, nor the need for them.

tictictic

Well, as one who remembers manually penning figures into about 12 different ledgers with those heavy wooden covers, I have a real hard time giving up the paper.