The Amazon module connects your Amazon Seller Central account to SeroBooks and keeps your books right without typing a single Amazon figure. Each Amazon payout (a settlement) is imported line by line exactly as Amazon sent it and posted to your ledger as one balanced journal that ties to the cent to the deposit in your bank. Around that, the module gives you a seller's view of the business: profit per period and per product, the tax you file and the tax Amazon files for you, every fee Amazon charged, returns and reimbursements, stock on its way into Amazon, storage costs, the Buy Box and traffic.
This article explains how the module fits together and then walks through the Overview screen, the profit dashboard you land on.
Who sees the Amazon module
The Amazon menu (and the Amazon tabs in the ribbon) appear only for a company that has Amazon in its plan or has already connected an Amazon seller account.
- Plan includes Amazon, not connected yet. Only Amazon ▸ Settings is shown, and it leads with a Connect your Amazon account card. Every other Amazon screen appears as soon as the connection is confirmed, without restarting SeroBooks. See Connect Amazon and Amazon settings.
- Connected. All fifteen Amazon screens are available.
- Neither. The menu is hidden entirely.
The Amazon screens work for companies whose country is Canada or the United States. For a company in any other country the module shows a notice that the marketplace tax position is not available there; Amazon orders, settlements and fees are still imported and still post to the ledger.
How to open it
- Amazon ▸ Overview, or any other item on the Amazon menu.
- The Amazon tabs in the ribbon: Overview, Insights, Settlements, Orders, Taxes, Fees, Products, Issues, Returns, Inbound, Storage, Recovery, Buy Box, Traffic and Settings.
How Amazon money reaches your books
SeroBooks follows one rule for Amazon: the settlement is the source of truth, and only the settlement journal writes the money. Every other Amazon screen reads and explains; none of them posts.
- Amazon pays you roughly every two weeks. Each payout comes with a settlement report listing every order, refund, fee, reserve movement and tax line behind the deposit.
- SeroBooks pulls new settlements once a day (and whenever you press Pull under Amazon ▸ Settings). Pulling is safe to repeat; a settlement is never imported twice.
- The lines are grouped by Amazon's own description (Principal, Commission, FBAPerUnitFulfillmentFee, Tax and so on), and each description is given a posting role, such as sales revenue, Amazon commission or FBA fees.
- A journal is built on the deposit date: money Amazon paid you is credited (sales, shipping income, tax collected, reimbursements), money Amazon took is debited (fees, refunds, advertising, tax Amazon remits itself), and the deposit itself is debited to Amazon Clearing. If the lines do not add up to the deposit exactly, the journal is refused rather than forced.
- The journal is posted when you press Post to ledger on the settlement, or automatically if Auto-post settlements is on. See Settlements for the journal in detail.
When the money lands in your bank, Amazon Clearing holds the deposit until you move it to the bank account. Amazon Clearing therefore always shows what Amazon has paid out that you have not yet recorded as received.
Accounts the module uses
When you connect Amazon, SeroBooks sets up the accounts a settlement needs and maps each posting role, creating only what is missing and never changing a mapping you have already chosen. You can run the same set-up again at any time with Create & map standard accounts on the Settings screen.
| Account | Type | What lands in it |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Clearing | Asset | The deposit, and money Amazon is holding for you |
| Amazon Reserve | Asset | Reserve Amazon holds back and later releases, micro deposits, failed transfers |
| Amazon Commission | Expense | Referral fees (commission) |
| Amazon FBA Fees | Expense | Fulfilment, weight-based, inbound transportation, removal and label fees |
| Amazon FBA Storage | Expense | Monthly and long-term storage fees |
| Advertising Expense | Expense | Advertising and deal fees that come through a settlement |
| Amazon Service Fees | Expense | Subscription, closing fees, tax calculation service fee, adjustments |
| Promotions Given | Expense | Promotions, coupons, goodwill |
| Amazon Unmapped (Holding) | Expense | Any charge SeroBooks does not recognise yet (see Fees) |
| Foreign Exchange Gain/Loss | Expense | Cents of rounding when a foreign-currency settlement is converted |
| Accounts Receivable | Asset | Used when Amazon orders become posting invoices |
| Sales Revenue | Income | Product charges (principal) and gift wrap |
| Sales Returns | Income | Refunded principal and restocking fees |
| Shipping and Delivery Income | Income | Shipping the customer paid |
| GST/HST Payable | Liability | Tax collected on your sales, and the tax Amazon remits for you |
| GST/HST Receivable (ITC) | Asset | GST/HST Amazon charged on its own fees, which you can claim back |
| Inventory Adjustment (Shrinkage) | Expense | FBA reimbursements for lost or damaged stock, and clawbacks |
The set-up also creates QST Payable, BC PST Payable, SK PST Payable and MB RST Payable so that a combined provincial rate posts each part to the government that levies it.
Invoices for Amazon orders
Depending on how your company is set up, each Amazon order can also become a SeroBooks invoice. The customer on those invoices is not the shopper (Amazon does not share the buyer) but a customer named for the ship-to province, such as Amazon ON or Amazon QC, plus Amazon US, Amazon Intl and Amazon Marketplace when no province is known. The Amazon order number is kept on the invoice so it stays searchable. See Orders.
The Overview screen
The Overview is your Amazon profit and loss: how much you sold, what Amazon kept, what the goods cost you and what was left, for several periods side by side, with every product's own profit underneath.
The connection strip
Across the top:
| Item | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Seller id or No Amazon seller connected | Which Amazon seller account this company is linked to. |
| n awaiting posting | Settlements imported but not yet posted (amber when above zero). |
| n posted | Settlements already in the ledger. |
| n open issues | Open critical and warning items on Issues (red when above zero). |
| Refresh | Reloads the whole Overview. |
The coverage notes
Beside the period control, a short panel tells you how far the figures below can be trusted:
- Amazon has settled up to date. Days after that date are not zero sales; they are days Amazon has not reported yet.
- Live to date and settled to date. Shown when your company receives Amazon's live order feed: sales after the settled date come straight from Amazon and are exact, but the fees on them are estimated from each product's own history until the settlement replaces them.
- n product(s) have no cost price. Profit and margin cannot be worked out for those products until you set a purchase price on each one.
- A reminder that advertising spend, sessions and BSR are not part of the tiles.
Choosing periods
The PERIOD control sets which periods the tiles show. Choose one of:
| Choice | Tiles |
|---|---|
| Today / Yesterday / Month to date / Last month | The default |
| Today / Yesterday / 7 days / 14 days / 30 days | Rolling windows |
| This week / Last week / 2 weeks ago / 3 weeks ago | Weeks |
| Month to date / Last month / 2 months ago / 3 months ago | Months |
| Today / Yesterday / 2 days ago / 3 days ago | Days |
| Today / Yesterday / 7 days ago / 8 days ago | Same weekday last week |
| This quarter / Last quarter / 2 quarters ago / 3 quarters ago | Quarters |
| Custom range… | One tile for any dates you pick |
With a custom range, press the × beside it (Back to the period tiles) to return to the preset tiles.
Reading a period tile
Each tile has a coloured header with the period name and its dates, then:
| Line | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Sales (excl. tax) | The headline: product charges plus shipping and gift wrap, before tax. A LIVE badge means some orders have not settled yet; hover it for how many. The small percentage chip compares with the period before (hidden when the earlier period was zero). |
| plus tax collected | Sales tax the customers paid. Shows not reported yet when the only sales are orders Amazon has not settled. |
| Customers paid | Sales plus tax: what came in. |
| Orders / Units | Orders placed and units sold. |
| Refunds | Number of refunds in the period and the money that went back, whenever the original sale was. |
| +n pending | Orders placed but not yet paid for. Amazon does not disclose their value until payment clears, so only a count is shown. |
| Net sales | Sales less the refunds paid in the period. Can be negative on a quiet day with a large return. |
| Amazon fees | Everything Amazon charged per order: commission, fulfilment and similar. |
| Net profit | What was left after fees, refunds and cost of goods, with the margin beside it. |
If any product sold in the period has no cost price, the profit line is renamed Profit before cost of goods (in amber) and a ? replaces the margin. A tile for days Amazon has not reported shows Waiting on Amazon instead of zeros. Part of this period has not settled yet appears under a period that is only partly covered.
Click a tile to make the products table below follow that period. Full breakdown at the foot of a tile opens the period in full.
Full breakdown
The breakdown page shows the period as a statement on the left and its products on the right.
| Line | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Product charges | Item prices before tax. Opens into Organic and the sales Amazon attributes to each ad type when Amazon Ads is connected. |
| Shipping charged, Gift wrap | Paid by the customer; part of your sales. |
| Sales (excl. tax) | The three lines above added up. |
| Tax collected, Customers paid | Tax on the sales, and sales plus tax. |
| Orders, Units | Counts. Units opens into more detail when available. |
| Units refunded (of these orders), % refunded (of these orders) | Refunds against orders placed in this period. |
| Promotions | Promotional discounts you funded. |
| Refunds paid out | Money returned to customers in the period. |
| Refund cost | What the returns actually cost you, after the referral fee Amazon hands back and the tax that was never yours. |
| Amazon fees | Opens into each kind of fee. Each line says how firm it is: no suffix for settled figures, reported, not yet paid, estimated or part estimated. Not reported by Amazon yet covers any remainder. |
| Account charges | Charges to the account rather than to an order: storage, subscription, removals. Not included in the per-order fees or in Net profit. |
| Advertising cost | Ad spend from Amazon Ads (or, if not connected, from invoices booked to your advertising account). Opens by ad type with attributed sales. |
| Cost of goods | From each product's cost price. Reads Cost of goods (incomplete) when some products have none. |
| Net profit | Before account charges and advertising. |
| Net profit after advertising, TACOS (ad spend / sales) | Shown when there is ad spend. |
| Net profit after account charges | Shown when there are account charges. |
| Margin, ROI | Profit as a share of sales, and of cost. |
| Tax Amazon remits itself | Marketplace-facilitator tax Amazon kept and paid to the government. |
| Deposited in this period | What Amazon paid out. |
Under the statement you may see the cost of returned units (reported, never added back, because whether a return can be resold depends on its condition) and a panel titled WHY THIS DOES NOT MATCH YOUR PROFIT & LOSS. It compares Amazon charged you, for these orders with Already in your Profit & Loss and names the difference. Nothing is wrong: your books record Amazon's costs on the day Amazon pays you, and this page dates them to the day of the sale. Advertising Amazon charged to your card never passes through a settlement; enter Amazon's advertising invoice as a bill to put it in the Profit & Loss.
The products and order items tables
Under the tiles, the chosen period's detail appears in one of two tables. Switch with the Products and Order items chips.
Products can be grouped with Group by: Product, SKU, Marketplace, Channel (Fulfilled by Amazon or Fulfilled by us) or Status.
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| SKU / Product (or Group / Name) | What the row adds up. |
| Units, Refunded | Units sold and units refunded. |
| Sales | Product charges for the row. |
| Promo | Promotions. |
| Amazon fees | Per-order fees. |
| Cost of goods | From the product's cost price; not set when there is none. |
| Profit | Green when positive, red when negative. |
| Margin, ROI | Shown once at least one product in the period has a cost. |
| Avg price | Average selling price. |
The footer totals product charges, fees and units. Double-click a row (or select it and press Enter) to open the product's sales history.
Order items lists every order line in the period: Order, Date, Product, Channel, Status, Units, Refunded, Sales, Amazon fees, Cost, Profit and Margin. A fee followed by ~ is estimated because Amazon has not settled that order yet. Click an order number to copy it; double-click it to open the Amazon order. Double-click elsewhere on the row to open the product. The list shows up to 500 items; if a period has more, the footer says so and asks you to narrow the period.
Every table has a Search this list… box, sortable columns, column and filter options, and an Export button (CSV, Excel or PDF).
The period and marketplace bar
Insights, Settlements, Orders, Taxes and Fees share one filter bar, and whatever you choose applies to all five, so switching tabs never changes what "this quarter" means.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| All dates / from → to | Opens the period picker. |
| Any settlement / Settlement number | Lists every settlement, newest first, with its dates. Picking one sets the period to that payout's dates, which is how you reconcile to a deposit. |
| × (Clear period) | Back to all dates. |
| All marketplaces and one chip per marketplace | Shown only when you sell on more than one Amazon marketplace. |
The bar remembers your choice while you drill into a settlement or order and come back.
Permissions
A role needs the Amazon screens ticked under Company ▸ Set Up Users and Roles… to see them. Four Amazon actions are granted separately: Map a Fee, Map a Listing, Resolve an Issue and Edit Marketplace Settings. See Roles and permissions explained.
Common problems
The Amazon menu is missing. Your plan does not include Amazon and no seller account is connected. See Your subscription and plan.
Only Settings is shown. Amazon is in your plan but not connected yet. Connect it under Amazon ▸ Settings.
Today shows "Waiting on Amazon". Amazon has not reported those days. It is not zero sales.
Profit looks too good. Check the coverage notes for products without a cost price; set a purchase price on each item and the profit becomes true profit.
The Overview's fees are larger than the Profit & Loss. See the WHY THIS DOES NOT MATCH YOUR PROFIT & LOSS panel in the period's full breakdown: the dates differ, and advertising paid by card never reaches a settlement.