Overview

Amazon Seller Central provides detailed Payments reports — also known as settlement reports — that break down every transaction affecting your account balance. Knowing how to properly open, read, and interpret these reports is essential for reconciling your Amazon sales revenue, fees, and disbursements with your own bookkeeping records.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Tab-delimited text files — Payments reports download as plain text files with tab-separated columns, not as ready-made spreadsheets. You will need to import them into a spreadsheet or database application to work with the data effectively.
• Save before opening — Most web browsers will try to open downloaded reports in your system's default text editor, which makes the data difficult to read. Always save the file to your computer first, then open it in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice Calc.
• Settlement-based structure — Each report corresponds to a settlement period and includes all orders, refunds, fees, and other financial transactions that occurred during that cycle.
• Column definitions matter — The report contains numerous columns covering order IDs, transaction types, marketplace details, product charges, shipping credits, fees, and more. Understanding what each column represents is critical to accurate bookkeeping.

How to Download and Open Your Payments Report

To access your Payments reports, navigate to the Payments section within Seller Central and look for the option to download settlement reports. When you click the download link, your browser may attempt to open the file immediately in a basic text editor, which will display the data as a wall of unformatted text. Instead, right-click the download link and choose "Save As" to store the file on your computer. Once saved, open the file using a spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. During the import process, make sure to select "Tab" as the delimiter so that each data field is placed in its own column. This will give you a clean, organized view of all your transaction data.

Understanding Report Columns and Data

Payments reports contain a wide range of financial data organized into specific columns. Common fields include the settlement ID, settlement start and end dates, order IDs, transaction types (such as orders, refunds, service fees, and adjustments), marketplace identifiers, and detailed breakdowns of charges. You will find columns for product sales revenue, shipping credits, gift wrap credits, promotional rebates, selling fees, FBA fees, and other Amazon-assessed charges. Each row typically represents a single transaction or line item, so a single customer order with multiple products may appear across several rows. Familiarizing yourself with the column headers and their meanings is the first step toward building accurate financial summaries.