What is Settlement?
The statement behind each marketplace payout, listing every transaction that produced the deposit.
An Amazon settlement is the statement behind each payout Amazon deposits to your bank: a line-by-line report of every transaction that produced that deposit. When sellers talk about "Amazon settlement" in an accounting context, they mean the settlement report (also called the payment settlement report or statement view) inside Seller Central — not a legal claim. Each settlement covers a defined period, nets your sales against fees, refunds, reserves, and adjustments, and arrives as a single lump-sum bank transfer that almost never matches your actual revenue.
That gap between what you sold and what hit the bank is the whole reason settlements matter to your books. A $50,000 settlement period might contain $78,000 in gross sales, minus referral and FBA fees, minus refunds, minus promotional rebates, minus a held reserve, plus prior reimbursements. If you record the deposit as $50,000 of "income," your revenue, COGS, fees, and margins are all wrong. Reading the settlement correctly — and splitting it into the right accounts — is the foundation of accurate Amazon bookkeeping.
What the Amazon settlement report actually contains
Every settlement is built from transaction events grouped by type. Amazon assigns each settlement a settlement ID and a date range, then rolls up the activity into a deposit. The report breaks down into recognizable buckets, and each bucket maps to a different account in your books — which is exactly why you can't book the net deposit as one number.
At minimum, expect to see these components in a typical settlement. The exact labels vary slightly between the flat-file report and the Seller Central statement view, but the categories are consistent across accounts.
- •Product sales (and the sales tax Amazon collected as marketplace facilitator)
- •Referral fees and FBA fulfillment fees deducted per order
- •Refunds and the partial fee credits that come back with them
- •Storage fees, advertising charges, and subscription fees
- •Reserve amounts withheld this period — or released from a prior one
- •Reimbursements and other adjustments Amazon credits to your account
Why the settlement deposit never equals your revenue
The settlement deposit is a net figure: gross sales minus every deduction Amazon applies before paying you. Two distortions trip up most sellers. First, marketplace facilitator sales tax flows in and back out — Amazon collects it from the buyer and remits it, so it should never sit in your revenue. Second, the Amazon reserve can shift a chunk of earned sales into a later payout, making one period look light and the next look heavy.
For accrual-basis books, you also can't just record cash when it lands. Sales are earned when the order ships; fees are incurred when charged; refunds reduce revenue in the period the return occurs. A settlement that spans a month-end has to be split across periods, which is why a clean settlement-to-books workflow uses a clearing account: you post every line of the settlement against it, and the deposit zeroes it out. Tools like BeanHawk automate that split so each settlement reconciles to the penny against the bank feed instead of being dumped in as a single income line.
How to book an Amazon settlement in QuickBooks or Xero
The reliable pattern is the clearing-account method. Create an Amazon clearing account, then post a journal entry (or summarized invoice) for each settlement that records sales as income, fees and ads as expenses, refunds as contra-revenue, sales tax as a liability pass-through, and reserves as a separate holding balance. The net of those lines equals the deposit. When the bank feed shows the actual transfer, you match it to the clearing account, which nets to zero.
Done this way, your profit and loss statement reflects true gross sales and true fees instead of a mystery deposit, and your gross margin is calculable because revenue and COGS are both clean. Reserves and in-transit refunds stay visible on the balance sheet rather than silently inflating or deflating a month's income.
Frequently asked questions
- What is an Amazon settlement report?
- It's the itemized statement behind each Amazon payout, listing every sale, fee, refund, reserve, and adjustment that produced the deposit to your bank. You find it in Seller Central under Payments, either as the statement view or as a downloadable flat-file settlement report. It is the source document for booking your Amazon revenue and fees accurately.
- Why doesn't my Amazon settlement match my bank deposit total in my books?
- Because the deposit is a net figure. Amazon subtracts referral fees, FBA fees, refunds, ads, and any reserve before paying you, and it routes marketplace facilitator sales tax through the report. If you book the deposit as plain income, your revenue and fees are both wrong. Splitting the settlement into its component accounts is what makes it reconcile.
- How often does Amazon send a settlement?
- Most sellers settle on a roughly biweekly cycle, but the period length and exact dates vary by account, and a single calendar month can contain a partial settlement on either end. That's why settlements crossing a month boundary need to be split between periods for accrual accounting.
- Can I just record the net Amazon deposit as income?
- You can, but you shouldn't if you want usable numbers. Recording only the net hides your true gross sales, understates both revenue and fees, buries refunds, and mixes in pass-through sales tax. Your margins, tax figures, and reimbursement audits all depend on the itemized settlement, not the lump sum.
- How do I import Amazon settlements into QuickBooks or Xero automatically?
- An ecommerce accounting tool like BeanHawk pulls each settlement, maps every line to the correct account, and posts a summarized entry to a clearing account that reconciles against your bank feed. That removes the manual journal entry and keeps every settlement matched to the penny.
Related terms
Go deeper
See what Amazon owes you — free
Connect your seller account and get a free reimbursement audit. No credit card, keep 100% of what you recover.