Settlement Report
A settlement report is the statement a marketplace issues with each payout, breaking the deposit into gross sales, refunds, fees, reserves and adjustments. Amazon issues one every two weeks; Shopify Payments produces payout reports daily. It's the source document for ecommerce bookkeeping, because the bank deposit alone tells you almost nothing: a single Amazon deposit can bundle two weeks of sales, thirty fee types, refunds and a reserve hold into one number.
Most generalist bookkeepers record the deposit as revenue and move on. That's the single most common error we find in seller books. Say your Amazon settlement shows $100,000 in gross sales, $8,000 in refunds, $15,000 in fees and a $2,000 reserve hold. The deposit is $75,000. Book that as revenue and you've understated sales by 25%, hidden $15,000 of fees you should be managing, and your books no longer tie to the 1099-K Amazon files with the IRS, which reports the gross.
Settlement-level bookkeeping means every payout is broken back into its components and reconciled to the penny. It's tedious, which is why so few firms do it, and it's the foundation of everything else: accurate margins, clean sales tax numbers and books a buyer can trust. It's the core of our monthly ecommerce bookkeeping service, and the reason Amazon bookkeeping is its own discipline.
Where this shows up in our work
This isn’t textbook material for us; it’s the day-to-day of keeping seller books right. See how we handle it in practice:
Monthly Ecommerce Bookkeeping→