Expense tracking

I have been mystery shopping for nearly 30 years and have never had an issue with filing my taxes and my 1099 forms in the past. Now the IRS is pulling reports from paypal and declaring that I made more in income than was reported in my filed taxes. The issue is as I tried to explain to them is the paypal amount versus the 1099 amounts will not match up because the paypal payments sent includes reimbursement along with the payment of the shop. Does anyone know of a useful method to track expenses or a program that would be helpful for separating the expenses from the payment?

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Excel or free equivalent. Track fees and reimbursements separately.
I track every job in Google Sheets (their Excel). I report pay+reimbursement as earnings, then deduct costs, milage, supplies, etc. I sum payments by each MSC from my bank statements and PayPal to make sure it matches the spreadsheet. Have they given you the opportunity to share your documentation yet?
I met with them on Friday and was told that I need to somehow print off the jobs in my shop logs for completed shops and then highlight the expenses for the shops to show that the remainder is what I actually earned on the job. By the way....they are talking about my 2022 taxes filed which is very irritating since I have never had an issue with my taxes all these years.
sabrinaw214, I sure hope it all works out for you!

Shopping Arkansas, Louisiana, & Mississippi.
yes I am using Google Sheets (excel like app) and running separate tab for that with mileage.

Shopping Eastern Pennsylvania since 2009
I have a spreadsheet with columns for:
Mileage
Date
Store/Location
Company
Fee
Reimbursement Amt
Bonus

I used to track pay dates as well but got lazy, now I just highlight the rows of the shops I have gotten paid for.
I kept the records in the Numbers app that was pre-installed on my iPhone. I kept track of all expenses including for the reimbursement only companies. Those expenses offset the small profits from others. I only do restaurant and convenience store shops so most are reimbursement only or max $15 profit.

Fortunately, PayPal reporting is changing for 2025 to the old 1099 reporting rule of 200 transactions and over $20k. I certainly won’t exceed that unless they count using my PayPal debit card as a transaction. I’ll have to verify that those don’t count. Still can’t imagine I’ll be near $20k unless I start ebay selling again.
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