If you sell a lot of books online to buyback companies you find on Bookscouter, you’ll soon find more money every day in your PayPal account and get checks mailed to you on a constant basis. It’s great – kind of like standing under a money tree that keeps showering you with payment after payment.

That said, keeping track of which of your buyback orders have been paid and unpaid can be a hassle. While most buyback companies are reliable, they do make mistakes – and you wouldn’t want to miss out on several hundred dollars just because you couldn’t keep track of all the money coming in, would you?

Fortunately, the solution to making sure you get all the money from your buyback orders is simple – you just need to keep a record of all of your buyback orders and adopt an easy way of showing paid and unpaid orders.

Here’s how I keep my records:

Step 1: Open a Blank Document on Your Computer

You can use any word processing software you like – Microsoft Word, Open Office etc. – or even write your records by hand in a spiral notebook (although updating records this way is difficult).

Label the document “Buyback Orders [This Year]” and save it to your hard drive (make sure you also copy it regularly to a flash drive to be safe).

Step 2: Record Your Buyback Orders as You Make Them

Once you start selling books to buyback companies through Bookscouter, you’ll want to open your Buyback Orders file and record all the vital information.

First, type the month and date you placed your order (for instance, if you sold your books on April 25th, you’d just type “4/25”.

Below that, make a record of each buyback order you made that day – one per line. At the very least, you’d want to record:

• The buyback number assigned to your order (this is a line of numbers you’ll receive once you complete each order – you can copy and paste it from the website onto your Buyback Orders document). This is a very important number you’ll need if you have any issues with payment.
• The buyback company you sold your books to (Textbooks.com, Powells, Sell Back Your Book etc.)
• The number of books in your order.
• The total price quote for all of your books.
• The money you paid for the books you sold.
• Your net profit from each order (just subtract what you paid for your books from the total price quote).

Here’s an example of how one of these records can look:

4/25
108727 Valore (3) $150.39        $20.25           $130.14

As you can see, this lists the day I made this order (4/25), the buyback order number (108727), the company I sold my books to (Valore), the number of books in the order (3), the total price quote ($150.39), the money I paid for the books ($20.25), and my net profit ($130.14).

Step 3: Mark Paid Orders

Once your payments start coming in, you’ll want to match them with the records in your Buyback Orders document so you can mark which ones have been paid.

Most of your orders will be paid via PayPal and you’ll receive an email when they come in. Just match the buyback order number on the email to the number in your records, and you’ll find the order.

Other payments will come via check – and will have the order numbers printed on the pay stubs. Make sure you match these numbers with the ones in your records before cashing in the checks and/or throwing away the pay stubs.

To mark your buyback orders as paid, just put the paid orders in bold face like so:

108727 Valore (3) $150.39        $20.25           $130.14

This will distinguish your paid orders from unpaid orders and let you know at a glance which orders still need to be paid.

Use Your Records to Make Sure You Get Paid for ALL of Your Books

Most buyback companies on Bookscouter (and all the ones I recommend on my blog) are very good about sending prompt, regular payments for all of your buyback orders – often in less than two weeks if you get paid by PayPal (mailed checks can take a month or more to reach you).

Occasionally, however, you’ll experience an issue with an order. Maybe one of your packages got lost in the mail or was incorrectly filed when it reached the company. Or maybe some of the books you sent were damaged, causing the company to issue you only a partial payment for your order.

When this happens, you’ll want to make a note of all this in your records – especially if you run into a situation where you don’t get paid for one of your buyback orders.

In my next article, How To Make Sure You Get Paid for the Books You Sell Online, I’ll show you step-by-step what you should do if you ever run into a situation where a buyback company doesn’t pay you for your order.

In the meantime though, if you’d like to receive more tips and tricks for how to sell books online for extra money, feel free to subscribe to my blog!

Do you have a question or suggestion for a future blog article? Email me at sellbooksfastonline@gmail.com.

Michael J. Jung

Michael J. Jung is a professional freelance writer for hire. He loves learning about new side hustles and promoting nonprofit groups. When he's not writing or selling books, you can find him volunteering as Darth Vader or Spider-Man for children's events. Check out his Sell Books Fast eBook series on Amazon!