Why doesn’t my seller report match my payout? Etsy, eBay, Amazon, PayPal, Shopify and Stripe

By Kayabyte · Last updated 11 November 2026

When a marketplace report doesn’t match the payout that reached your bank, the cause is usually one of four things: the file covers only part of the payout period, two files from overlapping dates were added together, a row type has the wrong sign, or the report has no balances to check against. Balanced, a Mac app, shows the difference and the rows involved, so you can find which one it is. This guide is about the checks in Balanced. It is not tax advice, and menu names on each platform change, so look in your own account for the date limits and labels.

1. What “matches” means

A seller report is a list of sales, fees, refunds and movements. A payout is the money sent to your bank. They match when the lines belonging to that payout add up to the payout amount. The report can’t match a payout it only partly covers.

Balanced checks the report against its own numbers where it has some:

the running balance on each row,
a payout equal to the sum of its lines,
a settlement total equal to the sum of its lines,
net equal to gross minus fees on each row.

A report without balances or totals shows “not checkable” instead of a pass. That is not a failure. It means there was nothing in the file to check against.

2. Work through the usual causes

When a check fails, Balanced shows the difference and the rows involved. Look for these, in this order.

The file covers only part of a payout period. You downloaded a calendar month, but the payout you are checking spans two months, for example the end of one and the start of the next. The lines for the payout are split over two files. Add the neighbouring report, or download a range that contains the whole payout. Date range limits per file differ by platform and change, so check the limit in your own account.

Two files from overlapping dates are open together. Rows that appear in both are counted twice, so totals are too high and a payout looks too small by comparison. Remove one of the files, or download ranges that don’t overlap.

A row type is categorised with the wrong sign. One fee shown as income, or a refund shown as a sale, throws every total off by twice that amount. Open the Category menu on the line and pick the right one. Balanced asks whether the change is for “Only this line” or “Always for” that row type on that platform, and remembers the second kind for later reports. “Undo N category changes” above the lines reverts what you changed in one file.

Money that moves is mixed with income. Payouts, transfers in, reserves and holds, and currency conversion are not income or expense, and Balanced keeps them out of the category totals. If a total looks too high, check that none of these rows is sitting under Sales.

A row Balanced didn’t expect. Layouts change from time to time. Look at the rows around the first difference, and set the category by hand if one is wrong.

3. A quick manual proof

Take one payout and add its lines in a spreadsheet: sales and shipping charged, minus fees, minus refunds, adjusted for anything held. If that reproduces the payout, the report is complete for that payout and any difference in your totals is in how rows were sorted. If it doesn’t, the file is missing lines.

4. Keep the source files

Save the original CSV files next to anything you export. If a number is questioned later, the source file is your proof.

Where Balanced helps

Balanced reads the report on your Mac, categorises each row with fixed rules (not AI), and runs the checks above. It does not log in to any account and needs no API access; you download the report yourself. It reads Etsy, eBay, Amazon, Shopify, PayPal and Stripe reports. It exports a categorised CSV, Excel, a category summary, a Schedule C worksheet (a suggested grouping, not tax advice), Xero and QuickBooks Online journal CSVs, Beancount and Ledger.

Honest limits: results depend on the report layout, so check the preview; Balanced can’t fetch a missing page of lines for you, and a report with no balances can’t be checked.

Steps with Balanced

Download the report for the dates that contain the whole payout.
Drag it into Balanced and read the checks at the top.
If a check fails, look at the difference and the rows involved. Fix a wrong category, remove an overlapping file, or add the missing period.
When the check passes, export. With several reports, Export All… can combine reports of the same platform and currency into one file.

Download Balanced and try it free: the free version reads and checks everything and exports the first 5 lines per file, so you can test your own report before paying. Pro is USD 59 per year or USD 7.99 per month, for up to 3 Macs. macOS 15 or later. See pricing and the help page.

Questions

Why does “not checkable” appear? The report has no balances or totals to compare with. Balanced still categorises the rows; it can’t prove the total.

Why is my difference exactly double an amount? A debit read as a credit, or a row with the wrong sign, makes the difference twice the amount.

Does a passing check mean my books are right? No. It means the report adds up to its own numbers. It doesn’t say the right rows are in the right category for your tax return, so review it with your accountant.