Any affiliates using quickbooks? + paypal users..

I've just upgraded from 'Receipts in a Shoebox v2.1' to Quickbooks Regular 2006 I have an accountant but just want to keep better track of my money. Then I realised how different affiliate marketing works to a "normal" business. I mean, I don't create invoices and send them to companies.. I'm an affiliate, they just mail me a cheque when it's due.

Also, paypal. I do loads of crap with paypal - little payments in and out to random people and companies. Don't really track it very well and just record the "withdrawn amount" I put into my bank.

So two questions, do you make invoices and then close them as paid when you receive your cheques (even though you never mail the company an invoice)?

And, do you track individual payments in and out using paypal or just put the amount you withdrawn into quickbooks, again, as a paid invoice?

Agghhh now I know why I have an accountant, and I'd call him except he's on holiday!

 

I just started using QuickBooks a few weeks ago - and i dont really know what i'm doing, so take my answers with a bag of salt:

• 
  I don't make invoices for my payments - i just enter them into income accounts

• I put every individual transaction from paypal in as a sales receipt (very tedious!), then at the end of the month I reconcile the account and add in the PP fees .

not sure if this answers your questions - if your accountant has already answered for you, let me know if i'm right.. or if i'm even close to doing it right.

 

overall i just the plain Excel to sort it all out

 

Agreed. I tried Quickbooks and Quicken and they are basically a pretty looking version of Excel. Since this is for business I do not care about the fancy colors that waste space on my monitor. Another problem is that QB and Quicken didn't display a separate field for PayPal fees and other information that was necessary. With Excel I can import every single bit of data and remove the unncessary stuff.