Useful Links

Fean · 01-19-2016, 04:42 PM

I just did a major face-palm this afternoon when I realized Amazon offers downloadable spreadsheets (CSV format) for all of your transactions.

I track all of our expenses throughout the year and categorize them (groceries, home repair, etc.) so that I can more easily track our budget and prepare for future budgets. I was able to get all of this data for our conventional financial institutions without any trouble. However, we use Amazon gift cards a lot because the 10% bonus for sending tax returns to Amazon is too hard to pass up. I've even been known to *ahem* overpay our estimated taxes so that we get the 10% bonus on our tax return. I don't know anywhere else you can get guaranteed 10% returns in a few months.

The problem is that I ended up needing to manually enter several hundred (don't ask) Amazon transactions at the end of the year and going through each item in my order history on Amazon's web site was a major pain. It just occurred to me today to check if Amazon offers a way to download a detailed order history.

Here is a link to Amazon's instructions on downloading order reports:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/custo...deId=200131240

Hopefully this link will save someone else the pain I went through.

Now I just need to order an icepack from Amazon to take down the swelling on my forehead from my face palm...

-Fean

harley · 01-19-2016, 05:27 PM

Cool, and thanks! That could be quite useful. I have a small business that buys a lot of ~~crap~~ important stuff from Amazon. The majority of the time if there's a problem I can just look back at the order. But if you return an order it disappears as if it never existed, and sometimes I've needed to look back for some of the information. Now I can just download as I go, and keep it in a spreadsheet.

Edit: Even better! One of the options on the report is Returns, so (assuming it works) I won't even have to download as I go. I just started a report of all the items that I ordered last year, but it's taking a very long time. Once it's finished I'll try one for the returns and see how that goes. Once again, thanks!

spncity · 01-19-2016, 05:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fean

Hopefully this link will save someone else the pain I went through.

Thank you! I love this forum.

ERD50 · 01-19-2016, 09:56 PM

Thanks - will try it later.

I recently was looking for something like this. Their normal listing is a few per page, and then you need to click 'details' to see... the details.

I wanted to check if they collected sales tax on all our 2015 orders. We are supposed to report sales tax due on items purchased outside of IL, and they have tightened up the entries on this (many people, myself included, ignored it in the past - it was just too much work to calculate, and I blew it off for the few bucks it would amount to).

But if I have documentation to back me, I'll proudly enter ZERO on that line, rather than their default % of income.

-ERD50

grasshopper · 01-20-2016, 05:10 AM

Kool indeed, thanks

ERD50 · 01-21-2016, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50

Thanks - will try it later. ...

It is 'later'. And it worked for me, thanks!

I chose the "Items" drop down (there are other choices, have not tried yet, as this gave me what I was looking for), took maybe a minute to run. LibreOffice imported it just fine, and it gave me everything I was looking for. I have not verified any of the data, I'm assuming it is correct for now. Some items listed with tax, some with $0.00 tax

The headings of interest to me, way out to the right (AB AC ) are:

Item Subtotal Item Subtotal Tax

I/we spent less at Amazon than I expected! A little sorting, summing, and I got:

78 << # of entries
50 << # entries with zero tax listed
28 << # entries with some tax listed

$50.09 << SUM of tax paid

$674.15 << SUM of purchases with ZERO TAX listed
$805.38 << SUM of purchases with TAX listed
$1,479.53

And while I'm at it (geek!): Average, median item $: $18.97, $9.99

Of course these are the individual items, my purchases are usually lumped (I don't buy 'Prime', so typically go for > $35 for 'free' shipping when it applies).

I'll look at my IL tax forms later, to see if this helps at all.

PS: A few more numbers:

6.22% << % of tax paid on the items that had tax collected.

5.63% << MIN % of tax paid on the items that had tax collected.
6.37% << MAX % of tax paid on the items that had tax collected.

We have a few sales tax entities, State, some regional transportation district (IIRC, this is on different borders than just county, or maybe includes several counties?), maybe something else? So who knows?

-ERD50