Marketplace payouts are the most misreported income in small business. A single deposit can hide a dozen different things.
What is in a payout
- Gross product sales
- Shipping charged to customers
- Sales tax collected (and usually remitted by the marketplace)
- Referral, listing, transaction and payment fees
- FBA or fulfillment fees
- Advertising charged against the balance
- Refunds and reimbursements
- Reserves held and released
Why it matters
Revenue on your return should be gross sales. Fees, advertising and shipping costs are deductions. Sales tax the marketplace remitted is neither. Record the deposit as revenue and you understate sales and lose every deduction in the list.
The reports to upload
- Amazon: Payments, Statement view, download the settlement report for each period (every two weeks).
- Etsy: Finances, Payment account, download the monthly CSV.
- Shopify: Finances, Payouts, export; plus Shopify Payments transactions.
- eBay: Payments, Reports, transaction report.
In ProfitBooks
Upload the report with your bank statement. Each settlement is split into its components and the net is matched to the deposit. Cost of goods comes from supplier invoices you upload.