Firstly, matching the Amazon sales between the two types of reports from Amazon (Settlements and Business Reports) is never an exact match. Timing discrepancies often arise due to Amazon's settlement system, where B2B orders have a 30-day credit period and B2C orders follow a "Delivery Date + 7 Days" rule.
The reason for this is that the Amazon settlement reports are in UTC time zone and the business reports are in the timezone of the marketplace which they are generated for. This can give anything from a 1-10 hour window at the start and end of a month where the two reports don't line up. Additionally, VAT differences and Amazon's reconciliation restrictions contribute to discrepancies, as VAT is included in Seller App sales figures but excluded in Link My Books reports, and Amazon's system lacks specific data on deferred sales.
💡Good to know
If you connected your Amazon account to Link My Books after 1st June 2023 then we now automatically account for this by adjusting our settlement summaries to match the business report timezones.
Comparing the three figures: Sales Analytics vs Amazon Settlement Reports vs Xero/QuickBooks
A very common source of confusion is when bookkeepers or accountants line up three figures for the same month and find they don't match. For example, for April 2026 you might see:
LMB Sales Analytics: $117k
Amazon Settlement Reports (Reports Repository): $181k
QuickBooks / Xero P&L: $181k
This is not a sign that data is missing. The three figures are measuring three different things:
LMB Sales Analytics shows the gross sales value of the settlements released during that month. Because Amazon defers a portion of each month's sales (DD+7, B2B 30-day credit, and unspecified holds), some April orders won't appear here until they're released in a May or June settlement.
Amazon Settlement Reports (Reports Repository) shows the net payout total Amazon released that month, which includes some carryover from the previous month plus the deferred-but-released portion of the current month.
QuickBooks / Xero P&L matches the settlement payouts because LMB posts settlement summaries on cash terms — so the accounting figure will tie back to what Amazon actually paid you, not when the underlying sales took place.
In the example above, the $64k gap between Sales Analytics ($117k) and the settlements ($181k) is almost entirely Amazon's deferral logic. April sales that Amazon held back get released into May payouts, while March activity that Amazon held back is what's inflating the April payout above the true April-sales total.
⚠️ How to tell normal variance from a real issue: A gap of around 5–15% between Sales Analytics and the settlement total is normal Amazon deferral. A gap larger than 20% on a high-volume account is worth investigating — usually by running the Amazon Date Range Transaction Report through the Amazon Reconciliation Tool to confirm the deferred orders are accounted for.
If the gap is real and you want your P&L to reflect sales by order date
For accounts where the deferred portion is large enough to matter for monthly reporting (especially high-volume Amazon sellers and clients with VAT-significant sales), our Deferred Transaction Adjustments add-on automatically:
Generates a Deferred recognition settlement each month, posting Sales, Refunds, Fees and Taxes for the orders Amazon deferred into the month they actually occurred.
Generates a Released recognition settlement each month, reversing the prior month's recognition so the same activity isn't double-counted when Amazon eventually pays it.
Nets the movement to an Amazon Deferred Balances account on the balance sheet, giving you a running total of what Amazon is currently holding.
With this turned on, your Sales Analytics for the month will include the activity Amazon deferred, your P&L will reflect what was actually sold that month, and the cash payouts to Xero/QuickBooks will still tie back to the bank. Full details, including pricing and how to set an opening balance: Amazon Deferred Transaction – Now available as a self-service add-on and Amazon Deferred Transactions & Revenue Recognition.
Comparing Amazon settlement data to Amazon business reports
Link My Books uses the Amazon settlement reports to accurately break down each payout you receive from Amazon.
Whilst it is possible to compare the figures contained in the settlement reports to those in the business reports it can be tricky.
Actions to Resolve Discrepancies
Navigate to Payments > Reports Repository in Amazon Seller Central
Select Transaction as the Report Type
Choose Month as the Reporting Date Range
Select the desired month and click Request Report
You can then navigate to Analytics > Amazon Reconciliation on Link My Books where you can use this file to reconcile your Amazon figures with Link My Books summaries.
If you need any assistance with this, then please get in touch with our customer support team who will be happy to help.
Rest assured that since we are using Amazon's own settlement reports and those are a full breakdown of all the transactions that make up each payout you receive from Amazon - you can trust that the data is 100% accurate.
The invoices we post to Xero and the sales journals we post to QuickBooks are simply a summarised aggregated version of the settlement reports from Amazon which will always match exactly the payout you received from Amazon.
We also attach a file in Xero and QuickBooks to each entry we post, with a full audit trail showing all the transaction level data and how we categorised it.
Why does the Link My Books Sales Dashboard show different figures to my settlement data?
If you notice that your Sales Dashboard in Link My Books shows a higher figure than what appears in your settlements or in Xero/QuickBooks, this is usually explained by Amazon V2 settlement files and deferred revenue.
Amazon's V2 settlement format includes transactions that are deferred (e.g. DD+7 and B2B orders held back from the current payout). The Sales Dashboard may reflect gross sales including deferred amounts, while the settlement summaries only reflect what Amazon has actually released for payment in that period. This means a gap of around 5% or more between the two views is not unusual and does not indicate an error.
For more detail on how deferred transactions work and how to account for them correctly, see our Amazon Deferred Transactions & Revenue Recognition article.
The gap has persisted for many months — what should I do?
If you have been seeing a consistent discrepancy between your Link My Books data and Amazon's Sales Dashboard or Business Reports for an extended period (e.g. 12 months or more), and you have ruled out deferred revenue as the cause, the most likely explanation is an issue with Amazon Seller Central's own reporting rather than with Link My Books.
In these cases we recommend:
Downloading the Amazon Date Range Transaction Report and using the Amazon Reconciliation Tool in Link My Books to compare figures line by line.
If a gap remains after using the reconciliation tool, contact Amazon Seller Support directly to investigate the discrepancy in their Business Reports. Link My Books can only reconcile against the data Amazon provides in settlement files — if Amazon's own reports don't align, Amazon will need to investigate at their end.
If you have any questions about this article or feedback on how we could make it better please reach out to the support team via the blue chat icon on the bottom right of the page or via email to [email protected].