Marketplace reconciliation: how to find underpayments in reports

The marketplace counts your money on its own — whether to double-check is up to you. Regular reconciliation consistently uncovers discrepancies: duplicated deductions, uncompensated losses, refunds with no product returned. Individually they are pennies; over a year they add up to a percentage of revenue. Here is a reconciliation method that takes a couple of hours a month.

Three sources that must match:

1. 1The platform's sales reports — sales, returns, commission, logistics, other deductions.
2. 2Money in the account — actual payouts for the period.
3. 3Your own inventory records — how many units were shipped, sold, returned, and remain in stock.

Reconciliation is three equalities: sales − deductions = payouts; shipped = sold + returned + remaining stock + acknowledged losses; every deduction has a documented basis.

1. 1Download the reports for the period and total them up: sales, returns, each deduction category as a separate line.
2. 2Reconcile against payouts. The "to be transferred" total in the reports = money received in the account. A discrepancy → look for offsets, penalties outside the report, period shifts: how WB payouts work and Ozon.
3. 3Reconcile goods movement. Shipped to the warehouse minus sold minus returned = remaining stock per the platform's data. A shortage without compensation is grounds for a claim: shortages and losses.
4. 4Go through the deductions. Every line needs a basis: what service, what penalty, whether the rate is correct. A classifier of typical charges is in the guide on hidden deductions. An unfamiliar charge category is a reason to open the tariff and recalculate.
5. 5Check the returns. A refund to the buyer must be matched by the product returning to stock or by compensation. "The money was refunded, the product vanished" is a classic claim case: returns.

• Goods lost or damaged at the warehouse — compensation does not always arrive automatically.
• Returns without the product — the buyer got the refund, but the unit never came back to stock.
• Incorrect dimensions — the warehouse's measurement inflated the volumetric weight, so logistics is billed higher on every order: how dimensions affect the rate.
• Duplicated services and penalties — especially during tariff changes.
• Storage billed under the wrong category.

1. 1Specifics: report number, line, SKU code, amount, your calculation.
2. 2Evidence: acceptance certificates, waybills, report screenshots.
3. 3The official support channel, one issue per ticket — a bundle of mixed claims will be closed with a boilerplate reply.
4. 4A refusal citing "the regulations" — escalate with a quote from the offer agreement: how to dispute.

Related deep dives: The Wildberries sales report, Inventory accounting on a marketplace.

"Why reconcile if the platform calculates everything automatically?" The automation makes mistakes in both directions but only corrects them on a seller's claim. Regular reconciliation finds discrepancies worth a percentage of annual revenue: lost goods, duplicated deductions, returns without the product.

"How often should I reconcile?" Monthly: claims have deadlines, and a discrepancy found six months later is often unrecoverable. A couple of hours a month is a fair price for the process.

"What if payouts do not match the reports?" Work through the layers: period shifts, penalty offsets, deductions outside the sales report. Still off after the review — file a claim with report numbers and your calculation.

"Which discrepancies are disputed most successfully?" Documented ones: lost goods backed by acceptance certificates, incorrect measurements backed by photos and dimensions, duplicated charges visible in two reports. The less interpretation and the more numbers — the higher the chance.

"Can reconciliation be automated?" Partially: report exports can be consolidated into a spreadsheet template, and goods movement can be computed with formulas. But reading odd deduction lines and deciding on claims remain manual.