Year-end checklist for resellers, with a worked tax year

A year-end checklist for resellers is the list you work through before 31 December, so the tax year closes on real numbers rather than a shoebox of receipts. Most of it is already in your records. The job is to close it off while the details are fresh.

Start with the question people actually search: what do resellers need for taxes? Records that show the money in and out, grouped by the year each sale happened. The sample year below was built with Hustl’s own fee engine and year report, so each figure can be checked against the calculator. The rules come from the IRS.

When does a sale count for tax?

A sale counts in the year it sold. Hustl’s year report works that way: it groups each sale by its sold date and counts the item’s cost in the same year, so cost follows the sale rather than the purchase. Sales tax you collected is not income either. It belongs to the state, and the report leaves it out of profit.

The tax rule is a little wider. Many small sellers report on the cash method, and under it income is counted when it is received:

The IRS treats an amount as constructively received when it is credited to your account or made available to you without restriction. So a sale on 29 December whose payout lands in January can be a January receipt. Hustl groups by sold date, so that sale stays in December’s report. If your preparer reports on receipts, one sale moves a year. Ask which date they want, and note the payout date on every late-December sale so either answer can be reproduced.

What belongs on a year-end checklist for resellers?

Work through these in order. Each step takes minutes when the records are current, and an afternoon when they are not. Our record keeping guide covers the five numbers every item needs.

1. Every sale that sold this year. The sale price, the date it sold, any shipping you were paid and the fee the marketplace took. Take fees from each marketplace’s own report, not from a formula.
2. Every cost of goods. What you paid for each item, dated, with the shop or source. This is the number that turns a sale into a profit.
3. Stock on the shelf on 31 December. Every item bought and not yet sold, with its cost. That is closing inventory, covered below.
4. Packaging and postage. Labels you paid for, mailers and tape. Small, but they are yours to claim.
5. Trip spend. Parking, tolls and entry fees from sourcing trips. Not the items, which are already in cost.
6. Mileage. Business miles for each dated trip, each valued at the rate for its date.
7. Payout dates for late-December sales. The check described above, settled before anyone files.
8. A backup. Export the year to CSV, and keep the marketplace reports beside it.

A sample tax year, worked through

Here the year-end checklist for resellers runs on one sample year: six sales in 2026, three items still on the shelf at the end of it (two unsold and one sold in January), and three sourcing trips. It is an illustration, not a real seller’s year. It uses the same rules as the calculator, so the figures are the ones the product would show for these rows.

Read down the table and net profit is the figure to check against your bank. Profit from sales is the sales less fees and the cost of what sold. The trip spend and the mileage come off after that, which is how the report builds it. The sample’s net profit comes to $31.12.

Trip spend and mileage took about 78% of profit from sales in this sample. That is worth seeing in one place before you decide how far to drive for stock, because a trip costs money whether or not its items sell.

The late-year sales show the rules at work. The Y2K tee sold on 29 December and counts in 2026. The Pyrex bowl sold on 6 January 2027, so it is left out of this year’s sales, even though it was bought in November. Its cost stays in closing stock until the sale.

What counts as closing inventory for a reseller?

Closing inventory is what you bought in the year and had not sold by 31 December. It is not a deduction yet. Its cost moves into cost of goods sold in the year the item sells, which is why the report shows it on its own line.

In the sample, that is 3 items costing $43.00 in total: the Lego parts lot, the sunglasses, and the Pyrex bowl that sold in January. The bowl’s cost sits in 2026’s closing stock and returns as cost of goods sold in 2027. Unsold stock is easy to forget, because nothing about it looks like a cost until it sells.

Our cost of goods sold guide sets out what counts and what does not, so your closing count follows the same rule as the report.

What the miles are worth at year-end

Business mileage is valued at the IRS rate for the date of each drive, not the date you file. For 2026 that means two rates in one year. A mileage log kept at the time is what makes either rate usable. The sample trips show both:

The rate changed on 1 July, so a drive in July is worth more per mile than one in March. Rebuilding a log at year-end with one rate for everything gets part of it wrong. Our mileage deduction guide works through a full year of Saturdays, and the IRS standard mileage rates page carries the figures.

Parking, tolls and entry fees are a separate line. They go in trip spend, not in the mileage deduction, and not in the cost of the items.

Closing the books in one sitting

Once the year-end checklist for resellers is done, the close takes about an hour. Four things remain:

• Export the year. Save the CSV of sales and costs next to the marketplace reports, so the figures can be reproduced later.
• Keep the records. The IRS’s general rule is to keep records until the period of limitations for the return runs out, which is usually three years from when you file it. Some property records must be kept longer. How long to keep records sets it out.
• Check any 1099-K against your sales rows. The figure on a 1099-K is gross, before fees and before what the items cost you, so it should be explained by your sales records rather than matched to your profit. The record keeping guide explains the form and its threshold.
• Hand over the year. Give whoever files your return the sales export, the payout dates for late-December sales, the closing stock count and the trip log.

If the books still live in a spreadsheet, the reselling spreadsheet template has the columns. Ledger produces the same year report from its own rows.

Sources checked on 2 November 2026: the IRS pages linked above. This post shows how the product works on an illustrative year. It is not tax advice.