To import Amazon sales into QuickBooks, work from each Amazon settlement rather than from single orders. Record the settlement's gross sales, Amazon's fees and the refunds as one entry through a clearing account, then match the payout that lands in your bank. Done this way, income shows at its full value and every deposit has a partner.
Amazon settlement reports as the source for QuickBooks entries
An Amazon settlement is the batch of activity behind one payout to your bank. Its summary groups everything Amazon did with your money in that period: product sales, shipping charged to buyers, refunds, selling fees, fulfillment fees, advertising and any amount held back. That grouping is what QuickBooks needs, because it already ties to a single deposit.
Seller Central offers several downloads, and their names and menus change from time to time. Look in the payments area for the statement or report that belongs to one payout and shows a total equal to what reached your bank. Order reports are useful for checking a single sale, but they do not show fees or reserves, so they cannot explain a deposit on their own.
What to copy out of each settlement
Before you open QuickBooks, write down five things for each settlement:
- The settlement start and end dates.
- The total of product sales and shipping charged to buyers.
- The total of refunds given back.
- The total of each fee group Amazon charged.
- The net amount transferred to your bank, and the date it was sent.
If those pieces add up to the net transfer, you have a settlement you can record. If they don't, the gap is usually an amount Amazon held back or released from an earlier period, which deserves its own line.
Why is an Amazon payout smaller than Amazon sales?
An Amazon payout is the money left after Amazon takes its fees, returns refunds to buyers and holds back anything it is keeping for later. Your sales were higher than the deposit, and the difference is real cost and timing, not missing income. Recording only the deposit as sales hides every one of those costs.
That is the core problem with treating the bank line as the whole story. Say a payout of 3,400 arrives and you post it to a sales account. Your income report now shows 3,400 of sales and no Amazon fees at all. Your margins look tidy and wrong. When tax time comes, the fees you paid are deductible costs that never made it into the books.
Timing makes it worse
Settlements rarely line up with calendar months. A payout sent on the 3rd can cover sales from the last two weeks of the previous month. If you post deposits as income, sales slide into whichever month the money happened to land. Recording each settlement with its own dates keeps sales in the period they were earned, and only the transfer itself lands on the payout date.
Accounts to create in QuickBooks before the first Amazon settlement
A handful of accounts let every settlement post the same way. You need an income account for Amazon sales, an expense account for each fee group you want to report, a contra-income or expense account for refunds, and a clearing account that holds the settlement total until the payout reaches the bank.
Here is an example chart for an Amazon seller. The names are suggestions; use whatever your accountant prefers.
| Account | Type | What posts to it |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Sales | Income | Product sales and shipping charged to buyers |
| Amazon Refunds | Income (contra) | Money returned to buyers |
| Amazon Selling Fees | Expense | Referral and per-item fees |
| Amazon Fulfillment Fees | Expense | Fees for storage, picking and shipping |
| Amazon Advertising | Expense | Sponsored ads charged against the payout |
| Amazon Clearing | Bank or other current asset | The settlement's net total until it is paid out |
Why a clearing account
The clearing account is the hinge. Every settlement entry ends with its net amount sitting in Amazon Clearing. When the payout arrives in the bank, the bank line moves that amount out of clearing and into checking. If the clearing balance returns to zero after each payout, every settlement was recorded and every payout was matched. A leftover balance points straight at the settlement that went wrong.
Some sellers set Amazon Clearing up as a bank-type account so it shows in the banking views. That is a reasonable choice, but it is not required.
One journal entry per Amazon settlement, worked through
A journal entry records a whole Amazon settlement in one transaction. Fees and refunds go on the debit side, sales go on the credit side, and the net payout is a debit to the clearing account. The entry balances by design, because the settlement itself balances. One entry per payout keeps the books readable and easy to audit.
Here is an example settlement and the entry it produces. The figures are made up for illustration.
| Settlement line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Product sales and buyer shipping | 4,820.00 |
| Refunds to buyers | -310.00 |
| Selling fees | -723.00 |
| Fulfillment fees | -296.40 |
| Advertising | -90.60 |
| Net transferred to bank | 3,400.00 |
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Clearing | 3,400.00 | |
| Amazon Refunds | 310.00 | |
| Amazon Selling Fees | 723.00 | |
| Amazon Fulfillment Fees | 296.40 | |
| Amazon Advertising | 90.60 | |
| Amazon Sales | 4,820.00 |
The debits add up to 4,820.00, which equals the credit. The income report now shows 4,820.00 of sales and 1,110.00 of costs, while the bank only ever sees 3,400.00.
Entering many settlements at once
A year of settlements is a lot of typing. QuickBooks Online can take journal entries from a CSV file: Intuit's guide to importing journal entries into QuickBooks Online lists the columns it needs, including a journal number, date, account name, description, debits and credits. Give every line of one settlement the same journal number and date. Intuit also warns that sub-accounts must be written with their parent account, or the line fails.
Sales receipts as the alternative
Some sellers prefer a sales receipt per settlement for the sales side, which keeps sales visible by product if you use items. The fees still need recording against the clearing account. The guide to uploading sales receipts to QuickBooks Online covers that route, including the deposit account to choose.
Tying the Amazon payout to the bank line in QuickBooks
The Amazon payout appears in your bank account as one deposit for the net settlement amount. In QuickBooks, that deposit should be categorized as a transfer from Amazon Clearing, or recorded against the clearing account, so the money moves from clearing into checking. It must not be categorized as sales, because the settlement entry already recorded the sales.
The steps for one payout are short:
- Find the deposit in bank review. Its amount should equal the net figure in a settlement you have recorded.
- Categorize it to Amazon Clearing, or record it as a transfer from Amazon Clearing.
- Open the clearing account and check that its balance dropped by the same amount.
Do this for every payout and the clearing account should sit at zero between settlements, give or take any that are recorded but not yet paid.
When the bank side isn't in QuickBooks yet
Matching needs the deposit to be in QuickBooks, by bank feed or by an uploaded file. Many banks offer a QuickBooks download; the guide to downloading a QBO file from Wells Fargo shows what that looks like at one large bank. Where a client only has statement PDFs, SimpleBankConvert is being built to produce the upload file from them.
Payouts that don't match any settlement
A deposit that matches no settlement usually means a settlement is missing from your records, or Amazon split one period into two transfers. Look for a settlement with dates near the deposit. Don't park the deposit in income while you look; leave it in bank review until you know where it belongs.
Should every Amazon order become its own QuickBooks sale?
For most sellers, no. Entering each Amazon order as a separate sale creates hundreds of transactions that still don't explain the payout, because the fees and holds are calculated across the whole settlement. A summary entry per settlement gives the same income figures with a fraction of the work and ties cleanly to the bank.
Per-order entry makes sense in a few cases. You may need sales tax reported by buyer location, inventory relieved item by item, or sales by product for a lender. Even then, the payout still has to be tied to a settlement total. The per-order records sit underneath the settlement, they don't replace it.
Orders that look like sales orders
If you are thinking of Amazon orders as open orders to be filled, that is a different record from a sale. A sales order records a promise to deliver before any invoice exists, so it carries no income. The guide to importing sales orders into QuickBooks explains when those records apply and why they are not the place to book marketplace income.
Signs that the summary approach is failing
Check two numbers each month. The clearing account balance should be zero or equal to settlements recorded but not yet paid. The total of Amazon Sales for the year should be close to the gross sales Amazon reports for the same dates. If either drifts, compare settlement by settlement until you find the one that was skipped or entered twice.