Your Amazon Deposit Is Not Your Revenue
Every two weeks, Amazon deposits a number. The single most common bookkeeping mistake among sellers is recording that number as revenue — a shortcut that quietly corrupts margins, tax filings and every decision built on either.
What the deposit actually is
Gross sales, minus refunds, minus referral fees, minus FBA fulfillment, minus storage, minus advertising, plus or minus reserve movements. Ten different economic events, netted. Booking the net as 'sales' understates revenue AND hides every fee — your P&L shows neither what you sold nor what Amazon costs you.
The tax angle makes it worse
Sales tax obligations key off gross sales, not net deposits. A seller reporting nets can misstate GST/HST filings without ever intending to — and unwinding that during a review is nobody's favourite quarter.
Post the components
Settlement reports itemize everything; the work is mapping each fee family to an account and posting the pieces, with the net tying to the bank deposit as the built-in check. That is exactly the job SeroBooks automates — settlements pulled from Amazon, split, posted, penny-verified against a real seller's books — but even done by hand, it is the only honest structure.
See it in your own numbers.
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