Overview

Amazon provides sellers with multiple reporting tools, each designed to highlight different aspects of account performance. Because these reports pull from slightly different data sets and apply different filters — such as whether cancelled orders are included or how refund dates are attributed — the numbers across reports often don't match exactly. Understanding these differences is essential for accurate bookkeeping and informed decision-making.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Reports use different data sets — Even though several Amazon reports may appear to track similar metrics, each one is built on a slightly different underlying data set tailored to a specific purpose.
• Cancelled orders cause discrepancies — Some reports, such as the Detail Page Sales and Traffic report in Business Reports, include cancelled orders in their totals, while others like the Orders Report exclude them entirely.
• Pending vs. shipped orders matter — Certain reports display all orders placed during a time period regardless of fulfillment status, while others only reflect orders that have actually shipped.
• Refund date attribution varies — One of the most common sources of confusion is how refunds are counted. Some reports attribute refunds to the original order date, while others attribute them to the date the refund was actually processed.
• Settlement timing affects payment reports — The Payments reports only reflect transactions that have been settled, meaning orders that are still pending settlement won't appear until a future reporting period.

How Report Differences Work

Amazon's reporting ecosystem includes Business Reports, the Orders Report, Payments Reports (including the Transaction View and Date Range Reports), and the Detail Page Sales and Traffic By ASIN report, among others. Each serves a distinct analytical purpose. Business Reports are designed to give sellers a broad view of page traffic and sales conversions, so they include all orders placed — even those later cancelled — because the goal is to measure buyer interest and conversion rates. The Orders Report, by contrast, is focused on fulfillment and operational logistics, so it typically excludes cancelled orders and may only show shipped units. Payments Reports are tied to Amazon's settlement cycle and reflect only transactions that have been financially processed.