Reconciling Marketplace Payouts

A marketplace never pays you what you sold. Between the sale and your bank, the platform takes its commission, a payment fee, a shipping charge and its share of any voucher. It pays the rest on its own schedule, and takes back refunds from a later payout. This page is for the person who has to explain the difference. By the end of it, each marketplace has a balance in your books that equals exactly what the platform still owes you, and you can prove it at month end in about fifteen minutes.

BigLedger records part of this and leaves most of it to you. The page says which part is which.

Meet GadgetSphere Online

GadgetSphere Online Sdn Bhd (GSO) sells on four marketplaces as well as its own storefront. Take one Shopee order: a smartphone invoiced at RM 2,000.00. Nine days later the settlement report shows:

The RM 1,830.00 arrives in the primary bank as part of a weekly transfer covering 312 orders. The RM 170.00 is a cost of selling on Shopee. If nobody books it, it becomes an unexplained difference between your receivables and your bank.

Before you start

• You can download each platform’s settlement report from its seller centre.
• You can create GL codes in the Chart of Account applet and cashbooks in the Cashbook applet, or know who can.
• Marketplace orders are being invoiced. A settlement report can only clear an invoice that exists.

Three things to know first

Until it pays you, the platform is holding your money. Treat it as a bank account you cannot draw on. That one idea is the whole procedure below. Give each marketplace a cashbook of its own, and its balance is what that platform owes you.

Every one of these parties takes a cut before the money reaches your bank. Names differ by platform; the settlement report lists them.

BigLedger’s invoice holds the order price and nothing else. A marketplace order comes in at the item price the channel reports, with no separate discount amount. Shopee and Lazada orders are always in Malaysian ringgit; a TikTok Shop order takes the currency of its payment, ringgit when none is given. Commission, fees and shipping charges never reach the order or the invoice; they exist only in the platform’s settlement report. Whether a voucher is already inside the item price depends on how the platform reports it. Check one order when a shop opens: compare its invoice with the same order on the settlement report, and write down which vouchers the invoice already includes.

What BigLedger records when a payout arrives

This depends on the marketplace, and on whether the payout job is scheduled for your shop at all. Look for it in the Scheduler applet’s job picker, or ask support.

So wherever a job runs, it records that money arrived. It does not record what the money paid, or what was taken before it was paid. The reconciliation is a person’s job on every channel.

Step 1: Set up four accounts and a cashbook for each marketplace

Chart of Account applet, then Cashbook applet. About ten minutes per marketplace, once.

For Shopee, GadgetSphere creates:

Then create a cashbook called Shopee (held by platform), pointing at CLEAR-MKT-SHOPEE.

The expense codes have no marketplace suffix. Each shop is its own branch, and every journal line already carries its branch, so the Sales Report and the ledger can already split commission by channel. The clearing account does carry the suffix, because it is a balance you reconcile separately for each platform, just like CASH-PRI-KV01.

• Who: the finance administrator, when a new marketplace shop is opened, and before its first payout.
• How you know it is right: the cashbook is on the Cashbook listing under the right company, and Query Cashbook Transaction shows its opening-balance row at zero. Do not look for it on Cash Level yet: Cash Level lists only cashbooks with a transaction in its date range, so a new cashbook has no row there until its first payout (why).

Step 2: When a settlement report arrives, book three documents

Receipt Voucher, Purchase Invoice and Payment Voucher. Once per settlement report.

Download the settlement report from the seller centre. It lists the orders being paid and every deduction. For GadgetSphere’s example order:

1. Receipt Voucher, at the gross amount, into the Shopee cashbook, contra-linked to the invoices the report pays. This clears each invoice in full: RM 2,000.00 moves from receivable to CLEAR-MKT-SHOPEE. For a weekly report of 312 orders, this is one voucher contra-linked to all 312 invoices, not 312 vouchers. That only works if the shop bills one customer. On a Shopee or Lazada shop, that means ticking Default Entity on the marketplace branch (see Running an Online Channel, Step 7). A receipt voucher is made out to one customer, so with a customer per buyer you need one voucher per buyer. A TikTok Shop has no such choice: every TikTok order is billed to a customer record for its buyer, so the accounts clerk books one gross receipt per buyer on the report, into the TikTok cashbook. The check is the same: every invoice the report lists is closed, and the cashbook’s movement equals the report’s net payout.
2. Purchase Invoice from Shopee as supplier for the deductions: RM 162.00 to EXPENSE-MKT-COMMISSION (the commission of RM 120.00 plus the transaction fee of RM 42.00), and RM 8.00 to EXPENSE-MKT-SHIPPING.
3. Payment Voucher from the Shopee cashbook paying that purchase invoice: RM 170.00 leaves CLEAR-MKT-SHOPEE.

The Shopee cashbook now holds RM 1,830.00, which is exactly what Shopee is about to transfer.

• Who: the accounts clerk. Within two working days of the report, so the month’s figure is never more than one cycle behind.
• How you know it is right: the cashbook’s movement for the report equals the report’s own net payout, to the sen.

Step 3: When the transfer reaches the bank, move it out of the marketplace cashbook

Cashbook applet, Cash Transfer. Once per transfer.

Record a Cash Transfer of RM 1,830.00 from Shopee (held by platform) to your primary bank cashbook, dated the day the money arrived. The Shopee cashbook goes back to what Shopee still owes, and the bank line is ready for Bank Reconciliation.

If the Shopee payout job is scheduled for your shop, stop it before you use this method. Its receipt cannot stand in for the Cash Transfer, and the two together count the money twice. The job books each payout as a receipt voucher with two sides:

• The money side goes to whichever cashbook the job’s own account setting points at. That setting is on the schedule’s Json tab in the Scheduler applet, not on the marketplace branch.
• The other side is a credit to receivables, on the receivable account your company’s defaults give the payout party’s customer type. For an ordinary trade customer that is the company’s default debtor account. The payout party is a record for the shop itself (or, when Shopee’s payout names a customer, a customer record for that id), not the buyers your invoices are made out to. No setting on the job changes this account. Changing the company default would move every customer of that type with it.

So on GadgetSphere’s RM 1,830.00 payout, with the job’s money side pointed at the primary bank, the bank is right, but CLEAR-MKT-SHOPEE still holds RM 1,830.00 and receivables carry a credit of RM 1,830.00 that matches no invoice. Pointing the job at the Shopee cashbook instead only puts the same money into the clearing account a second time.

• Who: whoever administers the Scheduler sets the shop’s Shopee payout schedule to INACTIVE (only ACTIVE schedules run), at the same time as Step 1 and before the first settlement you book this way. The accounts clerk then records every transfer by hand, as above.
• How you know it is right: the Scheduler shows no ACTIVE Shopee payout schedule for the shop, and after that date the shop’s branch has no receipt voucher made out to the shop’s own record. To see the credit side for yourself, open one of the job’s earlier receipt vouchers in Ledger and Journal: it credits a receivable account, not CLEAR-MKT-SHOPEE.
• If the job has already run for payouts you also booked through the clearing cashbook, each one has left both balances above. Do not key Cash Transfers for them. List the job’s receipt vouchers with their dates and amounts and give the list to your accountant, who decides how to correct them.

Two ways to book it, and what each costs

The procedure above is not the only defensible one, and your accountant may prefer the other.

Neither way uses the Shopee payout job’s receipt unchanged. The clearing cashbook works once the job is stopped (Step 3). The net-receipt way can take the job’s receipt as its receipt, but that receipt is made out to the shop’s own record and matched to no invoice, so the invoices it paid stay open and the fee journal alone does not close them. Which way GadgetSphere should take is a choice for your accountant. This page does not choose between them.

The comparison of channels on Running an Online Channel needs the fees by type. Only the first way gives you that without extra effort.

Step 4: Prove the balance at month end

Cashbook applet, Cash Level, and the seller centre. About fifteen minutes per marketplace.

On the last day of the month, compare two figures:

• Your side: the marketplace cashbook’s balance at month end, plus the invoices on that marketplace branch that are still open because no settlement report has covered them yet. On Cash Level, set From to a date before the cashbook’s first line and To to the last day of the month, and read Closing. The screen starts at today → today and lists only cashbooks with a line in the range, so a cashbook with no payout that day has no row (why). Or open the cashbook in Query Cashbook Transaction with To at month end and From on or before month end: the balance on its last row is the same figure. The screen also starts From at today, so read after the last day with only To changed, it lists no line and shows today’s opening balance.
• The platform’s side: the seller centre’s balance still to be paid to you, whatever it calls it, plus any amount it is holding.

If they differ, the cause is almost always one of four things, in this order:

1. A cycle boundary. Orders completed at month end that the platform settles next cycle. The difference clears itself in the next report. Note it, and carry on.
2. A held order. An order under dispute or review that the platform has not released. Check the seller centre’s list of held orders.
3. A refund clawed back from a report you have not booked yet (Step 5).
4. A fee charged late, such as a campaign or programme fee billed separately from the order settlements. Book it as in Step 2.

• Who: the accounts clerk prepares the comparison. The finance manager reviews it and signs it off, and should be someone who did not book the vouchers.
• How you know it is right: every difference is on a written list with one of those four reasons, and the list is shorter than last month’s. Do not close the month on an unexplained difference. Carry it on the list until it is found.

Which of the three numbers to trust. You hold three figures for the same money: the platform’s settlement report, the transfer on your bank statement, and your own invoices in BigLedger. Each is the one to trust for a different question.

• The bank transfer, for how much money you have. It is the only one of the three that neither side can revise afterwards. If the settlement report’s net payout and the bank line differ, the bank is right about the cash, and the report is what needs explaining: a transfer covering two reports, a bank charge, or a report you have not booked yet.
• The settlement report, for why the money is less than the sale. It is the only place the commission, fees and claw-backs exist. But it is the platform’s own account of what it owes you, so check its rates against your seller agreement once a quarter, and remember a later report can take money back (Step 5).
• Your invoices, for what you sold. They hold the order price the channel reported when the order arrived, and nothing about what was deducted. If the settlement report lists an order your invoices do not have, look for its sales order first. An order arrives in BigLedger as a sales order, and the invoice is a separate, later step. If the sales order is there, the order simply has not been invoiced yet. Only if there is no sales order is the order missing from BigLedger, and then the order feed is the place to look (Running an Online Channel, Step 8), not the payout.

So when two of them disagree, do not adjust the one you trust to match the other. Explain the other.

• Who: the accounts clerk, while preparing the month-end comparison. The finance manager decides when a difference is the platform’s error and has to be raised with it.
• How you know it is right: every difference on the written list names which number was wrong and why, and none was closed by changing the bank figure.

Step 5: Follow a refund into the next payout

A buyer returns a phone after Shopee has paid you for it. Shopee refunds the buyer and takes the money back from your next settlement, as a negative line.

1. When the goods have been inspected, raise the credit note against the original invoice (Running an Online Channel, Step 4).
2. When the settlement report shows the claw-back, record a Payment Voucher from the Shopee cashbook refunding the customer, contra-linked to that credit note. The cashbook falls by the refund, just as Shopee’s next transfer will.
3. If Shopee also refunds part of its commission, reduce the next purchase invoice from Shopee as a supplier by that amount.

• Who and when: the accounts clerk who books that platform’s settlement reports records the payment voucher while booking the report that carries the claw-back (Step 2), in the same sitting. The credit note in point 1 is raised by accounts once the stock keeper confirms the inspection. If the claw-back arrives before the credit note exists, the clerk notes the order against that report and books the voucher the day the credit note is raised.

• How you know it is right: every negative line on the month’s settlement reports has a payment voucher against a credit note. Any refund without one means your sales are overstated.

What BigLedger will not do, and who does it instead

Split the duties. The person who approves refunds in the seller centre should not book the credit notes. The person who books the vouchers should not sign off the month-end comparison. Then a refund nobody can explain shows up as a difference between two people’s records.

What success looks like

At month end, for each marketplace:

1. The marketplace cashbook’s balance, plus open invoices, equals the platform’s unpaid balance, or every difference has one of the four reasons in Step 4.
2. Every settlement report in the month has its receipt, purchase invoice and payment voucher.
3. Every transfer received has a Cash Transfer out of the marketplace cashbook, and no Shopee payout schedule is ACTIVE for a shop you reconcile this way.
4. Commission and shipping appear in the profit and loss by branch, so each channel’s margin can be read after its costs.

Common mistakes

Related documentation

• Running an Online Channel: the rest of the channel manager’s job, including returns and whether a channel pays
• Receipt Voucher (Internal) · Payment Voucher (Internal) · Purchase Invoice (Internal) · Cashbook Applet · Bank Reconciliation
• EcomSync related applets: which payout jobs exist for which marketplace
• Reports: what exists, and why payout reconciliation is not among it