I have a client who books I do. He trades on all the Amazon platforms and also Ebay.
Ebay I don't have an issue with but the Amazon Sales I am having murders with.
The software I am using is quickfile and I upload the bank statements in to this every 2 weeks. I match off the Amazon Sales to the amounts in the bank.
My client runs a report from Amazon and he says he cannot understand the sales as they don't match with what he thinks they should be.
The way I post the sales is to break it down in to sales, postage received, Amazon fees etc and it balances with what Amazon have credited to the bank.
I also want to be able to reconcile the payments to the sales if possible. These are made fortnightly.
He has now given me access to his Amazon account to fully reconcile the sales.
I am running reports for the months but don't seem to be able to get back to what Amazon are getting as the Gross sales figure. I can work it out net to what they pay in the bank but that is not what the client wants.
Help as I am tearing my hair out. Client wants answers and quick. He is a new business and growing at a very good rate so needs his figures to see what the sales are each month so he can plan ahead.
Elaine
-- Edited by Elaine R on Monday 4th of January 2016 05:46:05 PM
Still looking for any help/advice although I think i may have found what I need. I just cannot tally with what my client has provided me with so I have asked him to explain where he has got his figures from.
I'd be happy to have a look at reconciling this for you and try to automate the process if possible. I appreciate some of the data might be sensitive, but you could maybe edit the files to remove anything I don't need to see.
I have a couple of clients using Amazon and I log in to their seller account and view reports and then the fortnightly statements relating to the transfers made to their bank account. On each section (sales, charges etc) the amounts are clickable and take you to a breakdown of how they have been made up which is how I then tie it back up to the main sales transaction reports.
Don't know if that helps at all but hope you're closer to resolving it now!
Hi Elaine
I certainly wouldn't describe myself as an expert, only had one client on there who used to do lots but has changed the focus of his business so doesn't use it at all now. I always found it a problem getting reports out of him, I asked for admin only access but he always thought he was giving me what I needed, despite me asking several times, every time, to get the right info. I like you used to ensure it balanced back to the transfers, but this isn't ideal for a growing business.
Given Amazon only provide reports for two years you certainly need to be able to drag out of it enough info to support any processing now and any possible inspections, so I hope this might help..... www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html
__________________
Joanne
Winner of Bookkeeper of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
Thoughts are my own/not to be regarded as official advice,which should be sought from a suitably qualified Accountant.
You should check out answers with reference to the legal position
Thanks for all your input. I have downloaded all the reports year to date both Summary and Transaction. I can tie these in to the payments made and also see the sales that are still to be paid. I have reconcile it all. I am speaking to my client tonight to find out where he got his figures from as they differ to the figures I extracted from Amazon.
The last bit I need to get my head around is the inventory at period end so I can put it in the accounts.
He has given me his log in now so I can go in and do the reports monthly and reconcile to the payments etc.
Amazon Seller Central has a reporting page for payments, which we have discussed before and you seem to have found. You use these for your postings. If you try to run daily transaction reports, you will struggle, because the payment reports aren't set to midnight.. so some transactions on the first and last day will fall into different payment reports.
If you want to get into reconciling, you have to run a transaction history (excel download) for the period of your report, then pick out the cut off. Not really worth doing that unless its the year end. For VAT I just run up to the nearest report date to the quarter end... so sometimes its a few days before, and other days its a few days after.
I have managed to fully reconcile the sales and the payments so I am straight now.
My client had been running a different report but he says he is happy with my reconciliation.
My next task is to sort the inventory. My client wants to monitor his sales and P & L on a monthly basis as he is a new company and growing at a good pace.
Thanks for your help and guidance. It's very much appreciated.
How will that work with fulfilled by Amazon Sales as some of it is done this way? I don't think my client is going to be good at giving me stock figures. I have mentioned it twice and got nowhere.
If I can get my head around it i would rather do it myself and charge the client for this.
One more thing. When posting the amount received on the payment advice do you just post it all to Sales or do you split it down between sales and fees etc?
