How FBA reimbursements are accounted for
Amazon loses and damages units in its fulfillment centers, pays you for some of them, takes some of that money back when the units turn up, and quietly finds others on its own. Each of those events changes what your FBA stock is worth. SKU.io follows every lost unit from the moment it leaves your inventory to wherever it ends up, and moves its cost between your accounts so that your books match what actually happened.
This page explains the model. To act on it, see Check whether Amazon reimburses you at cost, Reconcile FBA reimbursements and Post reimbursed-unit COGS.
SKU.io moves cost, not cash
There are two sides to a reimbursement:
- The cash Amazon pays you. It arrives on a settlement, next to your sales and fees. Your settlement bookkeeping (SKU.io's Amazon settlement mappings, or a tool such as A2X) already records it as income.
- The cost of the units Amazon paid for. That cost left your FBA inventory when Amazon lost the units. Nothing else in your books moves it on.
SKU.io handles only the second side, so nothing is counted twice. When Amazon pays for a lost unit, the unit's cost moves into a dedicated cost of goods sold account, in the same settlement period that carried the cash. Your profit and loss then shows the income and its cost side by side.
The life of a lost unit
Every loss in Amazon's inventory ledger becomes a loss event in SKU.io. Each payment, clawback, settlement line and found unit for the same product is matched to the loss it belongs to, so you can open any loss and see its whole story.
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Researching | Amazon is still looking. Most misplaced units turn up within a few weeks. |
| Confirmed lost | Research is over and Amazon hasn't paid. You can still file a claim. |
| Reimbursed / Partially reimbursed | Amazon paid cash or sent a replacement for all, or some, of the units. |
| Reversed | Amazon took a payment back because it says the units were found. |
| Found | The units are back in your FBA inventory. |
| Written off | The claim window closed without a payment. |
The four journal entries
The How FBA reimbursements are accounted for panel, on Recovery's Reconciliation tab and on Amazon Finance → Reimbursement COGS, shows the same four steps.
| Step | When | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Amazon loses units | The inventory ledger shows the loss | FBA Inventory Loss (or Receiving Discrepancies) | FBA inventory |
| 2. Amazon pays for them | The settlement that carried the payment | COGS – FBA Reimbursed Units | FBA Inventory Loss (or Receiving Discrepancies) |
| 3. Amazon claws it back | The settlement that took the money back | FBA Inventory Loss (or Receiving Discrepancies) | COGS – FBA Reimbursed Units |
| 4. The units turn up | The ledger shows them found | FBA inventory | FBA Inventory Loss (or Receiving Discrepancies) |
A few rules keep these entries honest:
- Cost is the FIFO cost the loss consumed, not today's cost and not what Amazon paid. A unit that cost you $9.69 moves $9.69, whether Amazon paid $8 or $12 for it.
- Found units come back at the cost they were lost at. If the original loss cost nothing, the found unit comes back at nothing too.
- A clawback reverses the exact losses it takes back, at their cost, and against the account each loss was first booked to.
- One journal per settlement period. Step 2 and step 3 post as one entry per settlement period and kind, dated to the end of the settlement period. A payment that no settlement carries within 60 days posts at the end of its approval month instead.
Step 1 and step 4 always post. Steps 2 and 3 post only when you switch on Post reimbursed-unit COGS in Recovery settings, which needs the COGS – FBA Reimbursed Units account mapped first.
When a journal can't post on its own date
- Locked period. If a settlement falls in a period you have closed, its journal is held. You decide when to post it to the first open day. Nothing is back-dated into a closed month.
- Before your inventory start date. Your opening balances already carry anything before that date, so those periods show Before start date and never post.
What can't be matched automatically
Matching follows the product and the dates, and it's right most of the time. When the three sources disagree, for example a settlement line no report row explains, or a payment for a product the ledger never showed lost, the mismatch becomes an exception on the Reconciliation tab for you to fix or explain. The full list is in the FBA reimbursement reference.