Amazon recently announced updates to its Deferred Transactions process, including a new Deliver Date + 7 Days or DD+7 policy which will mean that all orders will now have their proceeds deferred until 7 days after the delivery date.
Amazon Deferred Transactions Policy
What is a Deferred Transaction?
A deferred transaction is a sale where the payment is temporarily held and will be paid out at a future date. Most transactions go through a deferral period before they become available for payout.
Where can I see my Deferred Transactions?
In Amazon Seller Central go to Transaction View, select “Deferred Transactions” from the “Transaction Status” drop-down, and click Update. This view shows the deferral reasons and expected release dates. Once a transaction is released, it will become available for payout in your next settlement.
Why are my transactions deferred?
Your transactions can be deferred for the following reasons:
Delivery Date Policy: Orders are held until delivery is confirmed, plus a reserve period (usually 7 days). This ensures enough funds are available to cover any refunds, claims, or chargebacks.
Invoiced Orders: For Amazon Business customers, payments are deferred until the buyer pays the invoice, which typically takes 30-45 days. These orders are also subject to delivery date policies, but the invoice due date may extend beyond the delivery reserve period.
Source (Log in to Seller Central Required)
Amazon Delivery Date Reserve Policy FAQs
What is the Delivery Date Reserve Policy?
Amazon holds funds from your sales until a specified number of days after the items have been delivered to customers. These transactions are marked as "Deferred" in your Payments dashboard.
Why are funds reserved?
Funds are reserved to ensure there are enough resources to cover potential refunds, claims, or chargebacks.
How long are funds held?
The standard holding period is 7 days after the delivery date (“DD+7”). For example, if an order is delivered on January 6th, the funds will be available for withdrawal starting from January 14th.
Can the reserve period be extended?
Yes, the reserve period might be longer based on your account’s risk and performance.
What portion of funds is reserved?
Amazon reserves funds for orders delivered within the last 7 days (or your specified reserve period). You can view these transactions under the “Deferred Transactions” section on your Payments dashboard.
How to view or download your reserved transactions?
In Amazon Seller Central go to Payments > Transaction View and filter by “Deferred Transactions” to see which funds are on hold and when they’ll be released.
For detailed reporting, go to the Payments Reports repository and request the “Deferred Transactions” report.
How does Amazon determine the delivery date?
If you use Amazon’s integrated carriers, the actual delivery date is used.
If no tracking is available, Amazon uses the latest Estimated Delivery Date (EDD).
Understanding Settlement Periods: Order Date vs. Posted Date
Why does Link My Books use the “Posted Date” instead of the “Order Date” for settlements?
Currently, Link My Books uses the “Posted Date” from Amazon's settlement file to determine the settlement period because the order date is not directly available in the settlement reports. This ensures accuracy when reconciling the financial data.
However, the order date can be found in separate order reports, which means we could potentially use it as the basis for settlement periods. If we switch to using the order date, it would change the settlement date range in Link My Books to reflect the earliest order date to the latest order date for all orders in a given settlement.
What impact would using the order date have?
Change in Settlement Period: Using the order date would alter the settlement date range in Link My Books, affecting how settlements are shown and subsequently sent to your accounting software.
Handling of Settlement Entries: Each settlement period determines how we generate the entries sent to your accounting software. For example, if a settlement period spans from 25th Sep - 9th Oct, Link My Books will create:
One entry for 25th - 30th Sep
A second entry for 1st - 9th Oct
This ensures that the data is accounted for in the correct month and that you can reconcile your bank transactions accurately.
Complexity with Multi-Month Settlements: If a settlement period spans two calendar months, we split the settlement into two separate entries. Any remaining balance from the first month is rolled over into the second month's entry, so that the first entry totals to 0.00 and can be marked as paid and reconciled. The second month's entry is for the full deposit received, making it easy to reconcile with a single click.
If we used the order date, some business orders that offer up to 45 days credit might cause settlements to span three months. In such cases, you would have to manually reconcile the deposit against three separate parts, as Link My Books currently does not support auto-rollover for settlements spanning more than two months.
Can I switch to using the Order Date instead?
Yes, if you’re happy with this potential complexity, we can explore adding a setting that would allow you to use order dates instead of posted dates for settlements. Let us know if you’d like to enable this option!
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].