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Why are my Shopify discounts not reconciling with Shopify Finances summary?

Fully discounted orders and why they are ignored by Link My Books

Kaylie Worbey avatar
Written by Kaylie Worbey
Updated over 2 weeks ago

When a transaction has been 100% discounted, this takes the value down to zero, so in effect, no transaction happened.

When viewing the order in Shopify, you can see the order was created within the timeline, but because there is no payment required, there is no payment gateway associated. Therefore, Link My Books does not summarise this order because it's nil value;

A screenshot of an order details page, likely from an e-commerce platform. The top section, labeled "Fulfilled (2) #2362-F1", displays a blacked-out location, the fulfillment date of January 25, 2023, and a blacked-out USPS tracking number marked as "Delivered" with a "Show more" dropdown. It also lists two line items with blacked-out product names; the first is priced at $135.00 for one item, totaling $135.00, and the second is $134.00 for one item, totaling $134.00. The bottom section, labeled "Paid", provides a payment summary: the subtotal for 2 items is $269.00, a discount of -$269.00 (with the amount blacked out), resulting in a total of $0.00. The "Paid by customer" amount is also $0.00, prominently indicated by a red arrow pointing to it.

You can validate that by heading to the Finance Summary and drilling into each of the payment gateways, the order number does not appear in any of the lists.

This image presents a "Finances summary" page, presumably from an e-commerce platform, with a "Print" button located in the top right corner. Beneath the main title, date and channel filters show "Jan 24, 2023" and "All channels" selected. The page is structured into several distinct financial sections. The "Sales" section details Gross Sales at $2,793.00, Discounts at -$929.00, Returns at $0.00, Net Sales at $1,864.00, Shipping at $48.03, and Taxes at $0.00, culminating in Total Sales of $1,912.03. The "Payments" section breaks down PayPal Payments Standard at $416.11, Shopify Payments at $1,495.92 (which is highlighted by a hovering cursor, suggesting it's an interactive link), and a Total payments of $1,912.03. The "Gross profit" section shows Net sales at $1,864.00, Net sales without cost recorded also at $1,864.00, Net sales with cost recorded at $0.00, Cost of goods sold at $0.00, and a Gross profit of $0.00. Finally, the "Liabilities" section lists Gift card sales at $0.00, Gift cards outstanding balance (on Jan 24) at $0.00, and Tips at $0.00.

However, if you drill into 'Discounts' on the 'Finance Summary report', you can see the order is there but the gross sale amount matches the discounted amount:

This image displays a "Discounts" summary page from an e-commerce platform, featuring "Print" and "Export" options positioned at the top right. An informative blue banner at the top alerts the user to "Important changes to Gross Returns" and clarifies that "The definition of 'Gross returns' has been updated to no longer include refunded shipping costs." Below this banner, filters are set for "Jan 24, 2023" and "All channels." The core of the page is a table organized into columns: Date, Order, Product, Gross sales, Line item discounts, Order level discounts, Discounts, Returns, and Net sales. A "Totals" row leads the table, showing Gross sales of $978.00, Line item discounts of $0.00, Order level discounts of -$929.00, Discounts of -$929.00, Returns of $0.00, and Net sales of $49.00. Subsequent rows detail individual orders: on Jan 24, 2023, order #2351 for "Core Biohacking Pack Subscription" had gross sales of $99.00 with -$50.00 in order level and total discounts. Order #2362 for "NAD Regen" on the same date shows gross sales of $134.00 and -$134.00 in order level and total discounts; this row is highlighted with a red box. Similarly, order #2363 for "Cell Shield" also on Jan 24, 2023, had gross sales of $135.00 and -$135.00 in order level and total discounts, also highlighted by a red box, with a cursor visible over the gross sales amount. Further entries for Jan 24, 2023 include another #2363 "Cell Shield" with $275.00 gross sales and -$275.00 in discounts, and #2363 "NAD Regen" with $335.00 gross sales and -$335.00 in discounts. The page concludes by indicating "Showing 5 of 5 result(s)."

From an accounting point of view, the transaction nets off to zero and that is why when looking at the Finance Summary, the total of all sales matches the total of the Payment Gateway.

We break down the Shopify Payments payouts as sales, refunds, fees and taxes and then for the other Payment Gateways, we look at all the orders that make up that payment gateway but if the order has been fully discounted, the transaction will not have an assigned payment or transaction and therefore has no payment gateway, so the order is ignored from our reports.

Had the order been, let's say $269 with a discount of $268 (in line with the example used above) and the customer made a payment of $1, then it would have a payment gateway and we would account for the items being sold under Principle, and a discount of $268, leaving the $1 transactional value.

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