Settlements

A settlement is the payout statement of a marketplace: which sales, fees, refunds and reserves it has offset, and which amount it finally transfers. merchantCENTRAL keeps the settlements of all marketplaces on one page. The connector of a marketplace only delivers the raw data. Classifying the lines, matching them to your posted documents, the account mapping and the posting are done by the hub – the same way for every marketplace.

At present, the Amazon connector delivers settlements.

Amazon: add-on module AMAZON-SETTLE

For Amazon, settlements are an add-on module of the connector: AMAZON-SETTLE, €105 net per 4 weeks per channel, licensed next to the AMAZON module. Without this license the connector reads no settlements, and its job neither matches nor posts any. Import Settlements on the Amazon Dashboard checks the license and offers the demo registration as long as the module is not registered.

Opening the Page

Via search: Settlements
On the Amazon Dashboard → Settlements, filtered to Amazon
Via the line Amazon payouts not posted of the Waiting for you card on the merchantCENTRAL Dashboard (only with AMAZON-SETTLE, see Amazon)

You open the card of a settlement from the list. You reach the Settlement Account Mapping with the Account Mapping action of the list or via search.

How It Works

Import – The connector fetches the payout reports of the marketplace and creates one settlement with its lines per report. Every line gets a category.
Match – Match Lines looks for the posted sales invoice or sales credit memo of the marketplace order behind every revenue line.
Post – Post posts the payout: payments on the matched documents, fees per G/L account, an unexplained remainder to the clearing account and the transfer to the bank account.

For Amazon, the job can do steps 2 and 3 on its own (see Amazon).

Status

Status	Meaning
New	Imported. The settlement stays New until all its revenue lines are matched to a document. If a settlement that is not posted is imported again, the import replaces its lines and sets it back to New.
Reviewed	The value exists; in this version no function sets it.
Matched	The settlement has revenue lines, and each of them is matched to a posted document.
Posted	The payout is posted. After that, neither a new import nor Match Lines changes the settlement, and it cannot be posted a second time.

Settlements (List)

The list shows the settlements of all marketplaces, the latest payout first. It is read-only.

Field	Description
Marketplace Code	Marketplace of the settlement, e.g. AMAZON.
Settlement ID	Identifier the marketplace gave the settlement.
Sub-Account Code	Sub-account the payout belongs to – for Amazon, the country marketplace (DE, FR …).
Start Date / End Date	Period the settlement covers.
Deposit Date	Day the marketplace transferred the payout.
Deposit Amount	Amount transferred.
Line Total	Sum of all imported lines. If it equals the deposit amount, the payout is fully explained.
Open Lines	Lines that should be matched to a posted document and are not yet. Red as long as there are any.
Status	See Status.
Currency Code	Currency of the settlement.
Posted Document No.	Document number of the posting.

Action	Description
Match Lines	Looks for the posted document behind every revenue line of the selected settlement (see Matching).
Post	Posts the payout (see Posting). Not available for posted settlements.
Account Mapping	Opens the Settlement Account Mapping.

Settlement (Card)

The card shows one settlement with its lines and whether the payout adds up. It is read-only and has the same actions Match Lines and Post as the list.

FastTab	Fields
General	Marketplace Code, Settlement ID, Sub-Account Code, Status
Period and Payout	Start Date, End Date, Deposit Date, Deposit Amount, Currency Code
Reconciliation	see below
Lines	see Lines
Posting	Posted Document No., Posting Date, Posted At, Imported At, Matched At (time of the last matching)

FastTab Reconciliation:

Field	Description
Line Total	Sum of all lines.
Reported Total	Total the marketplace itself reports for the settlement. If the line total differs from it, the import is incomplete; the import records this as an error in the Activity Log.
Unexplained Remainder	Line total minus deposit amount: the part of the payout the lines do not explain. Green at 0, highlighted otherwise. When posting, it goes to the clearing account, provided it does not exceed the settlement tolerance.
Total Lines	Number of lines.
Open Lines	As in the list.

Lines

Field	Description
Line No.	Sequence in the settlement.
Posted Date	Day the marketplace booked the transaction.
Category	Classification of the line, see Categories.
Transaction Type	Transaction type as reported by the marketplace, e.g. Order or Refund. Hidden by default.
Amount Type	Amount type as reported by the marketplace, e.g. ItemPrice or ItemFees.
Amount Description	Description as reported by the marketplace, e.g. Principal or Commission. Hidden by default.
External Order No.	Order number of the marketplace; matching uses it to find the posted document.
External Item No.	SKU as reported by the marketplace. Hidden by default.
Quantity	Quantity as reported by the marketplace. Hidden by default.
Amount	Amount of the line: sales positive, fees and refunds negative.
Match Status	Matched, Unmatched or Not Applicable – the status of lines without a document reference, such as fees and reserves. Matching does not set the value Ambiguous in this version.
Matched Invoice No. / Matched Cr. Memo No.	Posted sales invoice or sales credit memo of the line; clicking it opens the document.
Matched Customer No.	Bill-to customer of the matched document; the payment is posted to this customer. Hidden by default.

Matching

Match Lines checks every revenue line of the settlement again:

A line of the category Refund first looks for a posted sales credit memo for its order. If there is none, it is matched to the posted sales invoice like all other revenue lines.
The hub finds the invoice via the marketplace order and its sales order, for older documents via the marketplace order number on the posted document or via the External Document No. If there are several, matching takes the one with the highest document number.
A line without an order number or without a posted document stays Unmatched and counts toward the Open Lines.

If all revenue lines are matched afterwards, the settlement gets the status Matched. A message states the matched lines, the lines without a document and the lines without a document reference (fees, reserves); the result is also recorded in the Activity Log. Posted settlements stay unchanged.

Posting

Post asks for confirmation ("Post settlement … with a payout of …?") and checks, before anything is posted:

whether the setup is complete – otherwise the message names the missing field;
whether the Unexplained Remainder stays within the Settlement Tolerance. If it exceeds it, posting stops with Payout does not add up; the message states line total, deposit amount, remainder and tolerance and, if there are any, the number of open lines.

Only then does the hub post. The balancing account of every entry is the Settlement Transit Account of the marketplace:

What	Where to
Matched lines, summed per document	One payment to the customer of the document, applied to the invoice – for a credit memo, a refund applied to the credit memo.
All other lines: fees, reserves, adjustments, reimbursements and revenue lines without a document	One entry per G/L account of the account mapping; lines without a matching mapping go to the clearing account.
Unexplained remainder	Clearing account.
Deposit amount	Settlement bank account of the marketplace.

If the payout is fully explained, the transit account is at zero for this settlement afterwards.

Post does not require complete matching: revenue lines without a document are not posted as a payment on an invoice, but like fees via the account mapping or to the clearing account. So check the Open Lines before posting if every payment is to be applied to its invoice.

Posting details:

Document number: marketplace code and settlement ID, e.g. AMAZON-12345678901, cut to 20 characters. The External Document No. is the settlement ID.
Posting date: the deposit date – so the bank entry can be reconciled against the bank statement. If it is missing, the end date, otherwise the work date.
Currency: that of the settlement, if it is not the local currency.
Descriptions: Payout <ID> - invoice <No.>, … - credit memo <No.>, … - <G/L account no.>, … - unexplained remainder, … - bank transfer.
The entries are posted directly; no lines are created in the settlement journal.
Afterwards the settlement is Posted with Posted Document No., Posting Date and Posted At; the Activity Log gets an entry, and a message states the number of posted lines.

Settlement Account Mapping

Here you define per marketplace which G/L account a category is posted to – so commission, fulfillment, storage and advertising costs can be analyzed separately. Anything without a mapping goes to the clearing account.

Field	Description
Marketplace Code	Marketplace the line applies to.
Category	Category that is posted to the G/L account.
Amount Type Filter	Empty: the line applies to the whole category. Filled with an amount type – spelled exactly as in the Amount Type column of the settlement lines –, it applies only to lines of this amount type and takes precedence over the line without a filter. This way you split a category further.
G/L Account No.	G/L account the amounts are posted to. Only posting accounts that are not blocked.
Description	Free text for the line. Posting does not use it in this version; the entry description names the G/L account number.

Mappings for the revenue categories (Item Price, Shipping, Tax, Refund) only affect lines that were not matched to a document.

Setup

Import and matching need no setup in the hub. For posting, the hub needs these fields:

Field	Where	Purpose
Settlement Journal Template, Settlement Journal Batch	merchantCENTRAL Setup	General journal used for posting.
Settlement Clearing Account	merchantCENTRAL Setup	G/L account for amounts without a document and without an account mapping, such as reserves and rounding differences, and for the unexplained remainder.
Settlement Tolerance	merchantCENTRAL Setup	How large the unexplained remainder of a payout may be at most, as an amount. If it is larger, the payout is not posted at all. Default: 0.
Settlement Bank Account	per marketplace	G/L account the payout is posted to.
Settlement Transit Account	per marketplace	G/L account that holds the money between the sale and the payout; balancing account of every entry.

No page for these fields

In this version, no page shows these fields – neither the merchantCENTRAL Setup nor the marketplace card. As long as one is missing, Post stops with a message that names the field and opens the merchantCENTRAL Setup or the marketplaces; the field is not there, though. For now, the fields can only be filled outside the pages, e.g. with a configuration package for the tables 73334576 merchantCENTRAL Setup and 73334575 Marketplace.

The Settlement Tolerance has no page either and therefore stays at 0: only payouts whose lines add up exactly to the deposit amount are posted. The hint in the error message to raise the tolerance in the merchantCENTRAL Setup cannot be followed there.

Amazon

Import. The Amazon connector reads the settlement reports Amazon creates on its own (GET_V2_SETTLEMENT_REPORT_DATA_FLAT_FILE, about every 14 days) for every marketplace the account takes part in. Every report becomes a settlement; the Sub-Account Code is the country marketplace, Deposit Amount and Reported Total are the total of the report, the Deposit Date is its deposit date. The first import reads back as far as Settlement Lookback (Days) (default 90) in the Amazon Settings defines; later imports read only reports created since the last run. The import skips a report of a settlement that is already posted.

By hand. Import Settlements on the Amazon Dashboard imports after a confirmation and reports how many settlements were imported, already known or unreadable. You then match and post them on this page.

By job. The job SETTLEMENTS (settlement import, daily) is created by Set Up Automation on the Amazon Administration page when AMAZON-SETTLE is licensed. After every import, it matches all Amazon settlements with the status New again. If Post Settlements Automatically is turned on in the Amazon Settings, it then posts every Amazon settlement not posted yet whose deposit date has been reached – each on its own, so one that cannot be posted does not hold up the others. It stays open, and the reason is in the Amazon Activity Log (Settlement … was not posted automatically: …).

Automatic posting does not wait for complete matching

For Amazon, the deposit amount is the total the report itself states. If the report is imported completely, the unexplained remainder is therefore 0 – even if revenue lines are not matched to a document yet, for example because the invoice is not posted yet. The job posts such lines as described above via the account mapping or to the clearing account, not as a payment on the invoice.

Monitoring. With AMAZON-SETTLE, the Waiting for you card on the merchantCENTRAL Dashboard shows the line Amazon payouts not posted: Amazon settlements that are still not posted three days after the deposit date. Clicking it opens them in this list.

Category	Treatment
Item Price, Shipping, Tax, Refund	Revenue lines. They are matched to a posted document and applied to it.
Commission, Fulfillment Fee, Storage Fee, Advertising, Adjustment, Reserve, Other	Costs and corrections. They go to the G/L account of the account mapping.
Reimbursement	Money the marketplace pays for goods lost or damaged in its warehouse or on the way – for Amazon, the FBA reimbursements. Income, not a customer document: it goes to the G/L account of the account mapping like a fee.

Keyword	Category
REIMBURSE, WAREHOUSE_LOST, WAREHOUSE_DAMAGE, COMPENSATED	Reimbursement
ADVERTIS, SPONSORED	Advertising
STORAGE, LAGER	Storage Fee
FBA, FULFILL, SHIPPINGCHARGEBACK	Fulfillment Fee
COMMISSION, REFERRAL, FINALVALUE, CLOSINGFEE	Commission
RESERVE, CARRYOVER, UNAVAILABLE	Reserve
REFUND, RETURN, GUTSCHRIFT	Refund
TAX, VAT, MWST	Tax
SHIPPING, FREIGHT, VERSAND	Shipping
PRINCIPAL, ITEMPRICE	Item Price
ADJUST	Adjustment