Why Are There Differences Between The SellerLegend Dashboard & The Seller Central Dashboard
Where Is The Truth?
You may see differences between the number of orders/units sold/revenue shown on SellerLegend and Seller Central dashboards.
This is normal and is due to:
A difference in the accounting for Sales
The fact that Amazon only report on Ordered Product Sales and SellerLegend reports on Gross Revenue
The fact that Amazon account for Ordered Units and SellerLegend accounts for Shipped/Pending Units
A difference in the accounting for Pending Orders
Accounting for Refunds
The timing of orders retrieval
Read on, it’s fascinating …
Accounting For Sales
The Seller Central Dashboard only reports on a sale-by-sale basis and therefore is not a true reflection of your current position. For example:
When an order is received, SellerCentral will account for it there-and-then and increase your number of orders, number of units and revenue accordingly
If that order is subsequently canceled before shipping, the SellerCentral dashboard will not be retrospectively adjusted. SellerLegend will retrospectively adjust those figures.
SellerCentral units sold include units from removal orders. SellerLegend won’t.
SellerCentral will not reduce your revenue and unit count when you have incurred refunds, while SellerLegend will
This means that in most instances, SellerLegend is more accurate than SellerCentral
Accounting For Revenue Vs Accounting for Ordered Product Sales
As the Amazon Sales Snapshot in the SellerCentral Dashboard clearly says, it only reports on Ordered Product Sales.
SellerLegend’s aim is to get to your profit numbers.
Therefore SellerLegend reports on Total Gross Revenue because Profit = Total Gross Revenue – Total Costs.
The numbers in the SellerCentral Ordered Product Sales snapshot do not represent your Total Gross Revenue
What is the difference?
Amazon SellerCentral does not reflect the effect of shipping revenue
Have you noticed what happens when Amazon charge shipping to your customer? Have a look in SellerCentral for an order of yours which has a shipping element, and observe:
Amazon gives you credit for the shipping, which lands in your revenue
However, Amazon then takes it away in fees as a debit, named Shipping Chargeback.
You would think that the shipping debit and credit numbers would even out, right? Well, not always:
Amazon can elect to either take the total Shipping Chargeback away OR not take the Shipping Chargeback away at allOR only take a portion of the chargeback away.
In the last two instances, you are then left with MORE income than just the Ordered Product Sales, which is NOT reported in the Amazon Sales snapshot.
SellerLegend correctly accrues that shipping revenue in your Total Gross Revenue and correctly accrues the Shipping Chargeback in your Total Costs.
If there is a remaining revenue, SellerLegend will rightly increase your revenue number above your ordered product sales.
Amazon SellerCentral deducts your promotions from revenue
This is incorrect in a book-keeping sense
SellerLegend considers promotions as revenue and then deducts the amount of promotions as expenses, which is a more accurate way of reporting revenue
Because of the shipping revenue and promotions impact, SellerLegend will often report a higher revenue than SellerCentral, except in cases where you have no promotions and Amazon does not give you any shipping surplus
Accounting For Ordered Units Vs Accounting For Shipped Units
On the SellerCentral Dashboard, you will be told how much revenue is due for the number of units times cost per unit at the time of the order placement
If Amazon ships a partial order, the SellerCentral Dashboard is not retrospectively adjusted
In the instances where an order is past the Pending stage, SellerLegend will ONLY report on Shipped Units
If there are multiple partial shipments for an order, SellerLegend will update revenue numbers every time a partial order is shipped, until all the units are shipped
So for example, let’s assume an order of 100 units at a price of $10
SelerCentral will tell you that you have made $1,000
While the order is pending, SellerLegend will also tell you that you have made $1,000 (see the section about Accounting For Pending Orders)
Once the order passes the Pending stage, assume only 30 units are shipped. SellerLegend will reduce your revenue by $700. (100 ordered – 30 shipped units x $10). SellerCentral dashboard won’t change your numbers.
Assume a further 30 units are shipped. SellerLegend will increase your revenue by $300. SellerCentral dashboard won’t change your numbers.
Assume your customer at that stage gets bored and cancels the rest of the unshipped units. SellerLegend reflects the true revenue for that partially fulfilled order at 60 units. SellerCentral Dashboard does not, as they are still reflecting 100 units in revenue.
