Mapping Amazon Payment Types to GL Accounts

🔹 Overview

Amazon payouts are made up of many different components: sales, refunds, fees, taxes, loans, reserves, and adjustments. These amounts hit your account as a single deposit—but under the hood, they need to be split and classified properly.

Mapping each payment type correctly is essential for:

• Clean revenue and COGS reporting

• Accurate fee categorization

• Proper tax handling

• Reconciling to your bank and subledger

🔸 Adjustments

These are rare, ad hoc corrections Amazon makes. They could include manual tweaks, retroactive changes, or credits unrelated to regular activity.

Typically mapped to:

• Miscellaneous Adjustments → Use this for catch-all or one-time issues.

• Merchant Fees → Some users prefer to blend minor adjustments into an existing expense category.

✅ Why: Adjustments don’t fall into standard categories and aren’t usually material. Mapping them to a low-visibility or monitored account lets you review monthly for anomalies without cluttering core financials.

🔸 Chargebacks & Reversals

These are deductions due to customer disputes or refunds forced by Amazon (e.g., credit card disputes).

Typically mapped to:

• COGS or Expense Account → These are losses, not revenue. They should reduce your profit, not your sales.

• Merchant Fees → Some teams include these in their overall fee structure.

⚠️ Important: These will post as negative values. Never map them to a revenue account—doing so could result in inflated revenue and reconciliation errors in NetSuite.

🔸 Sales & Refunds (Clearing)

These lines represent actual customer payments and refunds. They need to go to the account where you track Amazon cash receipts before they hit your bank.

Typically mapped to:

• Undeposited Funds → If you use NetSuite’s native customer payment flow.

• Amazon Clearing Account (Bank Type) → If you’ve set up a clearing account workflow for Amazon or all payment processors.

💡 Why: These amounts represent cash activity from the customer’s perspective. If you’ve already recorded customer transactions, this mapping helps reconcile payouts against those without duplicating revenue.

🧾 Journal Entry Reminder: If you use a clearing account (which acts like a bank account in NetSuite), you’ll need to use journal entries—not deposits—when syncing transactions.

🔸 Fees

Amazon deducts a range of fees before issuing payouts. These reduce your net revenue and should be tracked separately to understand unit economics and channel profitability.

📘 Pro Tip: These should never be lumped into “Other Expenses.” Clear categorization helps with margin analysis and audit traceability.

🔸 Holds, Balances & Reserves

Amazon may hold back part of your payout for a reserve or loan repayment. These aren’t income or expense—they impact your balance sheet.

📊 Why: These entries change your cash position but don’t reflect sales or fees. Mapping them to assets or liabilities ensures you can reconcile your true receivable position and obligations.

🔸 Taxes

Amazon may collect and/or remit taxes for you, depending on your nexus and jurisdiction.

🧮 Accounting Logic: If tax is handled on your invoice or cash sale, we’ll reconcile it automatically. But if it’s not, you’ll need to reflect this manually using liability accounts so it doesn’t inflate revenue or expenses.

🧠 NetSuite Best Practices

• Undeposited Funds: Use this if customer payments are recorded before cash hits your bank.

• Clearing Accounts: These require journal entries only, since they behave like bank accounts in NetSuite.

• Revenue Mapping: Never map negative values (like chargebacks or fees) to revenue—it will cause GL misalignment.

💬 Need Help?

Our ASE team is here to help you configure your mapping rules and answer any edge-case questions. Start a chat or contact your onboarding specialist.