eBay announced a new integration with QuickBooks, a service many small businesses use for bookkeeping and accounting purposes.
It appears that since eBay rolled out Managed Payments, sellers had to use OneSaas to integrate with QuickBooks. (Parent company Intuit acquired OneSaas a year ago in order to “accelerate the integration of third-party ecommerce solutions with the QuickBooks platform.”)
While many eBay sellers may benefit from the integration, today’s announcement had us wondering if there was a financial or advertising relationship between the two firms.
eBay announced: “Managing your eBay business just got easier. QuickBooks, the #1-rated accounting solution for small and medium-size businesses (PCMag, Nov. 2021), is now integrated with eBay payments.”
eBay is offering a discount for sellers who subscribe:
“If you are not already a Quickbooks subscriber, subscribe now and save 30% for 12 months. This exclusive offer from Quickbooks for eBay sellers is only available for a limited time. Please see QuickBooks promo offer terms and conditions.”
eBay pointed out that sellers can now access QuickBooks through a web browser – “no apps or special software required. Use QuickBooks to invoice buyers, pay bills, generate reports, and prepare taxes.”
In the announcement, eBay also pointed to resources the two companies are providing eBay sellers, writing, “Check out our library of articles, videos, and tips by our team of expert business advisers.”
Interestingly the URLs to the content hosted on eBay.com indicate the articles, which are branded Intuit QuickBooks, may be “sponsored content” – such as this article titled, “How to open a business bank account.”
Is there more detail available? Is the integration available with the desktop version or only the online version? What data does it provide? Can the integration be used to capture information needed to file a Schedule C on a US Federal income tax return? Will the same data be made available to third-party eBay applications? Finally, why not total and summarize sales, fees, postage, and other amounts that add up to the payout amount? If eBay can integrate with QuickBooks, a rather pricy application, why not provide the same information to sellers in a convenient form for input into less expensive applications like Quicken?
Etsy’s Quickbooks Simple Start monthly subscription is $7.50/month with a 30% increase after 3 months.
The same plan on eBay is $17.50 with a 30% increase after 12 months.
Wow.