Illustrative example · E-commerce
From unmatched payouts to a four-day close
An illustrative multi-channel seller on Amazon, Shopify and Walmart. Payouts never matched orders, fees sat in one lump account and refunds quietly disappeared. This is what we find, what we fix and how the numbers change.
The situation
Sales were strong. The books could not prove it.
The seller sold on three channels and had never matched a single deposit to the orders inside it. Amazon paid out net of fees in batches, Walmart paid on a different schedule and Shopify payments arrived through a processor. Each deposit was booked as revenue, so refunds, fees and chargebacks never showed up where they belonged.
Month-end took more than three weeks, and nobody could say which channel actually made money.
What the first review found
One payout, before and after
Before
After
Errors found at first review, month by month
38
31
19
11
6
3
2
Month 1
Month 2
Month 3
Month 4
Month 5
Month 6
Month 7
What we did
Four steps from messy to monthly
Month 1
Review and map
We reviewed every account and mapped each channel’s reports to the chart of accounts.
Month 2
Rebuild payouts
We rebuilt past payouts from platform reports and matched them to bank deposits.
Month 3
Separate fees and tax
Fees, refunds, chargebacks and collected sales tax moved to their own accounts.
Month 4 on
Close with checks
Each month closes with the same review checks, so errors are caught early.
Controls running every month
- Every payout matched to orders and the bank deposit
- Fees tracked by type and by channel
- Refunds and returns netted against the original sale
- Chargebacks tracked until won or lost
- Marketplace-collected tax kept out of revenue
- Pre-close sweep for duplicates, uncategorized items and unusual swings
How we counted. An error is any item found at the first month-end review that would have changed a reported figure, before correction. This page is an illustrative example, not a real client.
See what is hiding in your payouts
Book a free consultation and we will tell you what we would check first.