How to Access and Use Amazon's Archived Orders Report for Historical Sales Data
Amazon archives order data older than two years into a separate Archived Orders Report. Sellers must manually request and download these tab-delimited reports from Seller Central to access historical sales records for accounting, taxes, or business analysis.
Overview
Amazon automatically archives order data that is more than two years old, moving it out of standard reporting views and into a dedicated Archived Orders Report. For sellers who need to review historical transactions — whether for tax preparation, accounting reconciliation, or long-term business analysis — this report is the only way to retrieve that older data. Understanding how to generate and download this report ensures sellers never lose access to critical sales records.
Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know
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Orders older than two years are archived — Once order data passes the two-year mark, it is no longer accessible through standard Seller Central order reports and can only be retrieved via the Archived Orders Report.
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Reports are organized by month — Archived data is stored on a monthly basis, so sellers must select a specific year and month when requesting a report rather than pulling a broad date range.
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Generation takes up to 45 minutes — After submitting a report request, sellers should expect a wait of up to 45 minutes before the file is ready for download.
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Tab-delimited text file format — The report downloads as a tab-delimited text file, which can be opened in spreadsheet applications like Excel or Google Sheets for analysis.
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No personal buyer information included — Archived order reports do not contain personally identifiable buyer information such as names, phone numbers, shipping addresses, or gift messages.
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Includes both FBA and seller-fulfilled orders — The report captures all order types regardless of fulfillment method, giving sellers a complete picture of their historical sales activity.
How to Generate an Archived Orders Report
To access the Archived Orders Report, sellers need to navigate to the Reports section within Seller Central and locate the Archived Orders tab. From there, they select the desired date range by choosing a specific year and month. After clicking the request button, the system begins generating the report. It is important to note that this process is not instantaneous — Amazon states it can take up to 45 minutes from the time of the request for the report to be fully generated. Once the report is ready, sellers can return to the same section and click the download button to retrieve the file.
Analysis & Recommendations
Why This Matters
Sellers with more than two years of history on Amazon need to know that older order data is automatically archived and requires a separate report request. Missing this can cause problems during tax preparation or business audits when historical records are needed.
Key Takeaways
- Orders older than two years are automatically archived and removed from standard reports
- Archived reports take up to 45 minutes to generate and download as tab-delimited text files
- Both FBA and seller-fulfilled orders are included, but no buyer personal information is provided
- Proactively downloading archived data on a regular schedule prevents last-minute scrambles during tax season
Recommended Actions
- →Set an annual reminder to download and locally store your Archived Orders Reports before you need them for taxes or audits
- →When opening the tab-delimited file, use your spreadsheet software's import function with tab as the delimiter to ensure proper column formatting
- →If you need buyer-specific details for orders older than two years, contact Seller Support directly as the archived report excludes personal information
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