The Amazon disbursement lands, your bookkeeper asks you to match it to sales, and the numbers do not line up. You sold $18,000 over the last two weeks and $11,400 arrived. Where did the rest go? The answer is almost always in the Amazon settlement report, the file Amazon generates for every settlement period. It is not a friendly document, but once you understand its structure, reconciling a payout becomes a repeatable procedure. This article explains how the report is built, a five-step method, and the most common reasons for a mismatch.
The problem: the payout does not match your sales
The revenue you see on the Seller Central dashboard and the amount that hits your bank account measure two different things. The first is ordered product sales. The second is the net balance of a settlement period: sales collected, minus referral fees, minus FBA fees, minus customer refunds, minus service fees, plus or minus the reserve. Without separating those lines, the gap looks like a hole. With them separated, it is nearly always explainable.
How a settlement period works
Amazon groups transactions into settlement periods, typically about every 14 days. When a period closes, Amazon calculates the balance and initiates the transfer. Each period has a settlement ID, a start date, an end date and a deposit date.
Three details explain most differences:
- timing: an order shipped at the end of a period may settle in the next one. On some marketplaces, including amazon.com, funds only become available a number of days after delivery;
- reserve: Amazon may hold part of the balance as an account-level reserve and release it the following period. The report shows both the previous reserve (released) and the current reserve (held);
- currency: if you sell across marketplaces, each currency has its own settlement, for example USD on amazon.com and GBP on amazon.co.uk.
Where to find the Amazon settlement report and how to read it
In Seller Central, under Payments, open the Reports Repository. For reconciliation, download the settlement report as a flat file V2, one row per line item, or the date range transaction report if you want a full calendar month.
The columns that matter:
- transaction type: order, refund, service fee, other transaction;
- amount type and description: principal (item price), shipping, referral commission, FBA per-unit fulfillment fee, promotions, withheld tax (marketplace facilitator tax), FBA reimbursements for lost or damaged units;
- amount: signed. Sales are positive, fees and refunds are negative;
- SKU and order ID: blank for account-level lines such as subscription, storage or transfers.
The 5-step method
1. Check the total
The sum of every amount in the period must equal the amount transferred. If it does not, you are looking at an incomplete file or the wrong period.
2. Group by line type
Build a table with gross sales (item price + shipping), referral fees, FBA fees, promotions, customer refunds, Amazon reimbursements to you, account-level service fees and the reserve. Each row gets its own total.
3. Check refunds
Separate customer refunds (returns, negative) from FBA reimbursements Amazon pays you for units lost or damaged in its warehouses (positive). If returns are growing, find which SKUs are driving them.
4. Check account-level fees
Monthly subscription, FBA storage, aged inventory surcharges, removals, advertising charged to your seller balance: these are the lines that explain "mysterious" gaps, because they are not tied to any order.
5. Compare with your own sales records
Put settled sales side by side with the same period in your own system. Missing orders are usually sitting in the next settlement.
Common mistakes
- Comparing the payout to ordered product sales from the dashboard.
- Forgetting the reserve, which makes one period look thin and the next look rich.
- Adding up different currencies.
- Treating FBA reimbursements as sales, or ignoring them altogether.
- Reconciling only the total. A payout can match to the cent while one SKU's fees have quietly doubled; the line-type table is what reveals it.
This is an operating method, not tax advice: follow your accountant on how to book sales tax, VAT and withheld tax.
With your AI connected: 3 prompts to copy
If your seller account is connected to ChatGPT or Claude through an MCP connector with access to settlement data, reconciliation becomes a question:
With Vendooly, the data-hub stores transactions from Amazon's settlement report (closed periods) alongside sales and orders, so the AI does the join for you. The most recent days, not yet settled, remain visible as sales. Vendooly is the action layer that gives your AI access to Amazon through official APIs; it is not accounting software and does not replace your accountant. For the next step, true margin per product, see calculating real profit by ASIN; to estimate fees before you sell, estimating fees and margin.
What to do this week
- Download your latest settlement report and check the sum of amounts matches the transfer.
- Build the line-type table once; after that it is a comparison, not a hunt.
- Note the reserve for each period so it never surprises you.
The 14-day free trial includes the full Seller + Ads plan, and Vendooly stays free under €2,000 of Amazon revenue per 30 days. Sign up at vendooly.com/signup.html. All guides are in the wiki.