How to reconcile Amazon settlements to QuickBooks or Xero

Amazon pays you a single lump-sum deposit every settlement period. Your accountant sees one number in the bank; the reality is dozens of fee types, refunds and tax movements bundled inside it. To keep clean books, that deposit has to be broken into a journal that ties out exactly. Here's how — and how to do it without paying a per-order connector price that climbs as you grow.

Why the deposit needs a journal

If you book the deposit as "sales," your revenue is understated (fees were already netted out) and your fees are invisible. Proper bookkeeping splits each settlement into gross revenue, each fee category, promotions, refunds, and tax — summing back to the exact deposit.

The four steps

Download the Flat File V2 settlement report for the payout period.
Categorise every line into revenue, fees, promotions, tax (pass-through) and refunds. See the fee glossary for the mapping.
Tie out — the sum of your categories must equal the deposit. If it doesn't, a line is miscategorised. SettleClear checks this automatically and flags the gap.
Post one summarised journal per settlement into QuickBooks or Xero (a manual journal or a draft you review before posting).

Do you need a paid connector?

Connectors that auto-post to QuickBooks/Xero are convenient, but many price per order and summarise the detail away — you lose the SKU-level view and pay more as volume grows. If you post one journal per settlement and want to keep the underlying per-SKU dataset to verify, a free tool that gives you the clean categorised export can cover the same ground. SettleClear runs in your browser, keeps your data local, and exports a per-SKU CSV you can hand to your bookkeeper.