Amazon US settlement report analyzer
Your settlement report is the only document that explains the deposit in your bank account. Open it here and it is broken back into what you sold, what Amazon charged, what came back as refunds and reimbursements, what advertising took and what is sitting in the reserve — with every heading adding back up to the payout. The file is read on this device and never leaves it.
By Vedant Agarwal, who builds WidenMargin's toolsUpdated
Selling on Amazon.in instead? Use the India version, which handles Indian withholding taxes.
Not tax or financial advice — every result is an estimate from the numbers you enter. Confirm your bookkeeping and taxes with a CPA or tax professional.
Choose your settlement report
In Seller Central go to Reports → Payments → All Statements and use Download Flat File V2 for the settlement period you want. Pick that file here. A .txt or .csv export of the same report works too.
Your file never leaves this browser.It is read and added up on this device. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored on a server, and we never see it — close the tab and it is gone. The only thing kept is any per-unit cost you type, in this browser's own storage.
How it reads your file
A Flat File V2 settlement report puts every figure into one column. Instead of a column per kind of charge, each line carries an amount-type, an amount-description and an amount, and the whole settlement is those lines added together. That is exactly what this tool does — see Amazon Seller Central: How do I read my Payments report? and Amazon Seller Central: Payments Summary for Amazon's own description of the file (you may need to be signed in to Seller Central to open them).
- It works out the delimiter and the marketplace itself. Tab-separated, comma-separated and semicolon-separated files all work, and the marketplace is read from the currency and the marketplace name in your own file rather than assumed.
- It copes with the files people actually have. A byte-order mark, a preamble above the header row, quoted fields, blank lines, accounting brackets for negatives, thousands separators, and several settlement periods in one file.
- Every line is counted once.Each line goes under exactly one heading, so the headings always add back up to the payout. The full list of your file's own descriptions is shown underneath, so you can check where anything landed.
- It never assumes a rate. No selling fee percentage and no FBA rate card is written into this tool. If a figure is on the screen, it was added up out of your file.
- If the file is not a settlement report it says which columns it needed — at minimum settlement-id, amount-type, amount-description and amount — instead of failing silently. An older Flat File V1 report is recognized and named as such.
Sales tax, reimbursements and the reserve
Three kinds of line are routinely mistaken for something they are not. Tax that Amazon collects from the buyer and remits in marketplace-facilitator states passes straight through your settlement, so it gets its own heading rather than being counted as revenue or as a cost (Amazon: Marketplace Tax Collection). The reserve is balance held back rather than money lost, and is shown as timing: what is taken in one period usually returns as a release in a later one. Reimbursements go the other way — they are credits Amazon has already given you, and they add to the payout.
You may still have registration or filing obligations of your own depending on where and how you sell. Nothing here tells you what those are — that is for your CPA or tax professional.
A worked example: how the lines add up to your payout
Here is a single ASIN's week, grouped exactly the way this tool groups a real file. Every heading is a sum of your own report's rows, and the headings add back up to the deposit that reaches your bank.
| Product sales (Principal) | +$1,000.00 |
| Referral fees (Commission) | −$150.00 |
| FBA fulfillment fees | −$120.00 |
| Refunds (Principal returned) | −$40.00 |
| Refund commission returned | +$6.00 |
| Advertising (Cost of Advertising) | −$60.00 |
| FBA storage fee | −$12.00 |
| Reimbursement (Adjustment) | +$15.00 |
| Sales tax collected (Marketplace Facilitator) | +$85.00 |
| Sales tax remitted (Marketplace Facilitator) | −$85.00 |
| Reserve held to the next period | −$50.00 |
| Payout to your bank | $589.00 |
Two things this makes obvious. The pass-through sales tax nets to zero (+$85 in, −$85 out), so counting it as revenue would overstate the business by $85. And the reserve is not a cost — the $50 held here typically returns as a release in a later settlement. The figures are illustrative; your own file decides the real ones.
Settlement report terms, defined
These are the line descriptions you will see in a Flat File V2 settlement report. This tool never defines or assumes a rate — it only adds up what your file already contains — but here is what each label means.
- Principal
- The item's selling price on an order line, before any fees — usually the largest positive figure. On a refund it appears as a negative.
- Commission
- Amazon's referral fee: a category-based percentage of the sale. Part of it is returned when you refund an order (see RefundCommission).
- FBAPerUnitFulfillmentFee
- The per-unit FBA fee to pick, pack and ship the item, set by its size and weight tier.
- Tax
- Sales tax charged on an order line. In marketplace-facilitator states it is paired with a Marketplace Facilitator line that removes it again.
- MarketplaceFacilitatorTax
- Sales tax Amazon collects from the buyer and remits to the state for you. It comes in and goes straight back out, netting to zero for your payout.
- RefundCommission
- The portion of the referral fee Amazon returns to you when you refund a buyer. A refund administration fee may also apply.
- Cost of Advertising
- Sponsored Products and Sponsored Brands ad spend charged through the settlement.
- Storage fee / long-term storage
- Monthly FBA storage charged on the space your units occupy; long-term storage applies to inventory held for a long time.
- FBA inbound / removal / disposal fees
- Charges for sending inventory to Amazon and for removing or disposing of it.
- Professional plan fee
- The monthly fee for Amazon's Professional selling plan, charged in the settlement like any other fee.
- Reimbursement (Adjustment)
- A credit Amazon issues for lost or damaged inventory, or to reverse an overcharge. It adds to your payout.
- Reserve (Current / Previous Reserve Amount)
- Part of your balance temporarily held back. It is timing, not a cost — usually released in a later settlement, so it can be negative in one period and positive in the next.
Why it runs in your browser
A settlement report is your whole business in one file: every order, every SKU, every charge. There is no good reason to send it to somebody else's server to add up a column, so this tool does not. Your browser reads the file, the arithmetic happens on your device, and the result is drawn on the screen. There is no upload, no request carrying your figures, and nothing for us to keep or lose.
The per-unit costs you type are the one thing that is remembered, and they are kept in this browser's own storage on this device — not in an account and not with us. The CSV you download is built on your device too. If you would rather check that than take our word for it, the parsing and the arithmetic live in two small files in the open-source repository and neither of them can make a network call.
Questions Amazon US sellers ask about settlement reports
How do I read my Amazon settlement report?
Every line in a settlement report carries three things — an amount-type, an amount-description and an amount — and the whole report is just those lines added up to the payout that reached your bank. To read it, group the lines: product sales (Principal), Amazon's fees (Commission and the FBA fees), refunds, advertising, reimbursements, pass-through sales tax, and the reserve. This tool does exactly that grouping for you and shows every heading adding back up to the payout, so you do not have to sort thousands of rows by hand.
Why is my payout smaller than my sales?
Because the deposit is your sales minus everything Amazon deducted along the way: the referral fee, the FBA fulfillment fee, any refunds you issued, advertising, storage and other service fees, and any amount moved into the reserve. Pass-through sales tax also comes in and goes straight back out. The tool puts each of those on its own line so you can see exactly where the gap between sales and payout went.
What is the difference between the settlement report and the payout?
The payout (Amazon calls it a disbursement) is the single figure that lands in your bank. The settlement report is the itemised statement that explains that figure — every sale, fee, refund and adjustment in the period. One number, versus the hundreds or thousands of lines that produce it. This tool turns the second back into a short summary of the first.
Can I reconcile several months or a whole year at once?
Yes. A file that holds several settlement periods is fine — each period is identified by its own settlement-id and totalled separately, and you can also open several downloaded files one after another. Nothing is sent anywhere, so the size of the file only depends on your own device.
Is my settlement report uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is read by your own browser and added up on your own device. There is no upload, no server call carrying your figures and no copy kept by us — close the tab and it is gone. The only thing that stays is any per-unit cost you type, which is saved in your browser's own storage so the table is still filled in next time.
Which file do I download from Seller Central?
In Seller Central go to Reports, then Payments, then All Statements, and use Download Flat File V2 for the settlement period you want. That is a tab-separated text file. A CSV saved from the same report also works, and a file holding several settlement periods is fine — each one is totalled separately.
Does the tool know Amazon's fee rates?
No, and that is deliberate. There is no fee table and no tax table anywhere in it. Every figure it shows is a sum, a difference or a share of numbers that were already in your file, so it cannot be out of date and it cannot be wrong about a rate it never claims to know.
Why does sales tax appear and then disappear again?
In marketplace-facilitator states Amazon collects the tax from the buyer and remits it, so the settlement shows it coming in and going out again. The tool gives those lines their own heading and calls them pass-through, because they net to nothing for you and counting them as sales would overstate your revenue.
What does the reserve line mean for my profit?
A reserve is part of your balance held back for a while rather than money you have lost, so the tool shows it as its own line and calls it timing rather than cost. A reserve taken in one settlement usually comes back as a release in a later one, which is why the reserve figure can be negative in one period and positive in the next.
What counts as something worth checking?
Only arithmetic on your own file: a settlement whose lines do not add up to the total it states, refunds that are a large share of sales, a fee heading that takes a much bigger share of sales in one settlement than in the rest of the file, and SKUs that came out negative before your product cost. None of that says Amazon has made a mistake; it points at lines that deserve a second look.
Related free tools
- Amazon US settlement profit calculator — model a payout from figures you type, when you do not have the file to hand.
- Reorder-point and safety-stock calculator for Amazon US — when to send your next FBA shipment and how much.
- Amazon.in settlement report analyzer — the India version of this tool.
Free for the first 50 sellers
Want this run for you every settlement? Free during early access
I'm building WidenMargin to do this on its own — read every settlement as it lands, tie it back to your orders and your costs, and tell you what changed. Join the early-access list and we'll email you when it is ready for Amazon US sellers. Your settlement file is never sent to us, here or there.