Matching your Amazon Seller Payouts to Amazon Reporting
Understanding how Bookkeep posts Amazon Seller deposits is critical to align with the reporting from Amazon Seller. Below we show the side-by-side alignment between the Amazon Seller reporting and our journal entry for Amazon Seller deposits.
Accessing Amazon Seller Reports
Step 1: Navigate to Reports
First, log into your Amazon Seller dashboard and locate "Reports" in the top navigation, as shown below:
Step 2: Access Payments
When you hover on "Reports", you will see "Payments" as the first option. Click on "Payments." This will take you to the Payments Dashboard, as shown below:
Step 3: Access Disbursements
Click on "Disbursements," which is third from the right on the bottom (see image above).
Once on the "Disbursements" view, you will see an option to filter based on date if you are looking for a specific payout:
Viewing and Comparing Payouts
Step 4: View Payout Summary
You will see a list of payouts in this view with an example shown below. The example shows the payout amount and the dates for when the payout occurred. You can also click "View Summary" in the top right to see more about a specific payout.
Below is an example screenshot of the summary for a specific payout after clicking "View Summary":
Step 5: Review Bookkeep Posting
Below is the posting completed by Bookkeep. One thing to note is the Amazon Reserve Balance of 66.82 in the entry below posted by Bookkeep represents the change to the reserve balance and not the current reserve balance. In the image above, the current reserve is -116.32 while the posting below represents the change to the reserve balance:
Reconciliation Reports Attached to Every Deposit
Each Amazon Deposit entry carries two reconciliation reports as attachments, next to the settlement report and the per-date rollup. They are generated when the deposit is posted and answer the two questions a reconciler asks at payout time: were all the daily entries posted, and do the balance accounts in my books agree with Amazon?
deposit_reconciliation.csv — did every daily entry post?
One row per calendar day in the settlement period, comparing what this deposit released for that day against what the daily sales entry for that day posted to Amazon Balance.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
date | Local business day |
role | start, middle or close. On the first and last day of the period only part of the day belongs to this payout, so those rows compare against the daily entry's Post-deposit (start day) or Pre-deposit (close day) child lines. |
this_deposit | Released activity this deposit paid out for the day |
other_deposits | Released activity another settlement paid out for the same day. Amazon runs separate settlement series (for example Standard Orders and Invoiced Orders), and the daily entry books all of them together. |
expected | this_deposit + other_deposits, which is what the daily entry should show |
posted | What the daily entry actually posted to Amazon Balance for that portion of the day |
diff / status | OK when they agree to the cent, MISSING when no daily entry is posted for that day, MISMATCH otherwise |
A totals row closes the report. Every day OK means the payout is fully explained by posted daily entries and the Amazon Balance clearing account will return to zero for this period. A MISSING day means a daily entry needs to be posted; a MISMATCH shows the amount to investigate.
Reserve movements and payout transfers are not released activity and are excluded from both sides. If a day's Amazon data was not yet cached when the deposit ran, the detail column says so and the row compares this deposit alone.
balance_reconciliation.csv — do the books agree with Amazon?
For the three Amazon balance-sheet accounts, the QuickBooks balance as of the end of the day before the deposit, side by side with what Amazon's own data says each account should hold:
| Account | Expected balance derived from Amazon |
|---|---|
| Amazon Balance | Released activity in every settlement not yet paid out as of that date |
| Amazon Deferred Balance | Sales deferred on or before that date and not yet released |
| Amazon Reserve Balance | Amazon's current reserve hold (zero once Amazon retires the reserve) |
A difference of zero on all three lines means your books track Amazon exactly. A non-zero difference points to the account to look at; the detail sections below the summary list every unpaid settlement and the outstanding deferred amount by origin date so the figure can be traced.
The comparison uses the day before the deposit so that neither the deposit itself nor the current day's activity, which may not be posted yet, distorts the picture. When an organization has no QuickBooks connection, the report still shows the expected balances and leaves the QuickBooks columns blank.
Both reports are informational: if either cannot be produced, the deposit entry still posts and a note is written to the run log.
Tying a payout to Amazon's All Statements view
Amazon's All Statements page shows one row per settlement with Beginning Balance, Sales, Refunds, Expenses, Others and Payout Amount. Those columns follow one identity: Beginning Balance + Sales + Refunds + Expenses + Others = Payout Amount. Beginning Balance and Others are reserve movements. Sales + Refunds + Expenses is the period's released activity, which is what the this_deposit column of the deposit reconciliation sums to across the period, and Payout Amount is the deposit entry's Bank Deposit line.
Please write to support@bookkeep.com if you have any questions.