Shipping is an interesting character in the bookkeeping world.
Yes it is income IF you charge the customer more for the service than what you pay out.
Use the income account on your invoices to show where you charged for the shipping. Then you use the expense accout to show where you paid Fedex, UPS, US Postal, etc. when coding the bill. Both these accounts show on your profit and loss statement reflecting any profit made from shipping. (Such as I billed 20.00 on the invoice and paid Fedex 10.00 - I made 10.00 profit) That profit is taxable and is included in the bottom line of the Profit and Loss. ALL CORRECT AND GOOD.
HOWEVER, what if I want to be able to see an actual amount each month of what my shipping sales were? The shipping expense (the amt I paid out) doesn't reflect under the shipping income leading me to think I had more income than I actually did. Remember, it shows correctly in the bottom line on the Profit and Loss, BUT...what if I pay someone a percentage of sales. (The true amount of the sale is shipping income less shipping expense) I can't make shipping expense a sub account of shipping income. Sub accounts have to be the same type account as the "Parent" account. I only want to pay the commission percentage on the profit (or loss) from the shipping. ANSWER: 1. Record shipping on the icustomer invoice with it linked to an income account. 2. When you pay the bill, code it to the same account, (This will reduce your shipping sales income by the shipping expense all in one account and show under your sales. The outcome on the bottom line of the profit and loss statement is the same and everything is still good for tax purposes.
