Review marketplace and payment fees

Direct answer

Reconcile each marketplace or processor payout to its settlement transactions, not just to orders placed in the same calendar period. Separate sales, refunds, taxes, fees, reserves, and adjustments. Then compare direct fees by channel; include fulfillment and advertising as separate channel costs where the records support them.

Why this question comes up

A bank deposit is a net cash movement. It may combine orders from earlier dates and deductions unrelated to a specific SKU, so it is not a reliable sales or fee figure by itself.

Records to gather

• Settlement transactions and payout IDs
• Orders, refunds, taxes, discounts, and shipping charges
• Bank deposits and any reserve or adjustment activity
• Fee schedules effective during the settlement period
• Fulfillment, storage, advertising, and dispute statements if used

Review workflow

1. Tie each deposit to a payout. Match payout ID, currency, and bank date. Use the settlement period for the bridge; list unsettled sales or held funds separately.
2. Explain the bridge. Start with captured payments, then show refunds, taxes, shipping, marketplace or processor fees, reserves, releases, and other adjustments as separate lines. Do not call taxes collected on behalf of an authority sales revenue.
3. Check fee types. Separate referral or commission from payment processing, fulfillment, storage, advertising, and dispute charges. A charge may appear outside the payout, so check the related statements before calling a fee missing.
4. Compare with the applicable schedule. Check the product category, service, region, and effective date before disputing a rate. Report unresolved differences with transaction IDs.
5. Measure channel cost. Divide direct fees by a stated sales denominator that excludes taxes. Show advertising and shared storage separately; allocate them to SKUs only when there is a defensible method and label the result an estimate.

What a useful answer should include

• A payout-to-bank bridge with settlement dates and IDs
• Sales, refunds, taxes, fees, reserves, and timing differences separated
• Direct fee rates with their denominators and schedule dates
• Other channel costs and any SKU allocation method
• Exceptions that need the marketplace or processor to investigate

Common failure modes

• Using the deposit as sales. Net settlement hides refunds, fees, and amounts held or released.
• Comparing orders and payouts by calendar date. Settlement timing can produce a false discrepancy.
• Treating tax as revenue or every cost as a transaction fee. Define each line before calculating a rate.
• Assigning shared charges to a SKU without a method. Storage or advertising may not be traceable to an individual order.