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How Amazon Global Logistics charges become landed cost

With Amazon Global Logistics (AGL), Amazon books your ocean or air freight from the supplier and clears customs, then delivers the goods into Amazon Warehousing and Distribution (AWD) or FBA. The freight and the import duty are part of what that stock cost you. SKU.io can capture both from your Amazon settlements and add them to the purchase order's landed cost, so you don't have to key in the invoices AGL sends you.

Where AGL charges show up​

When Amazon takes AGL charges out of your payouts, each one is a line in the settlement:

Settlement lineWhat it is
FBA International Freight Shipping ChargeThe freight for the shipment
FBA International Freight Duties and Taxes ChargeThe import duty and taxes Amazon paid at customs

Each line carries the shipment ID of the inbound shipment the goods were booked into, such as the AWD shipment STAR-…. That ID is how SKU.io ties the charge back to your purchase order.

Charges you pay to AGL another way, such as by card, don't appear in your settlements. Enter those invoices as landed cost bills on the purchase order.

How a charge reaches the purchase order​

  1. You process the inbound shipment. For goods that go from the supplier straight into AWD, you link the AWD shipment to its purchase order with Link to PO. See Track AWD inventory.
  2. Amazon settles the charge. The settlement line names the AWD shipment.
  3. SKU.io places it. When it processes the settlement, SKU.io follows the AWD shipment to its purchase order and adds the charge to a landed cost bill on that order. The cost is spread over the order's products, and it stays with the units as they move from AWD to FBA. It reaches COGS as they sell. See How AWD stock is costed.

If the charge arrives before you've processed the shipment, the settlement waits for it, and the settlement shows which shipment to process. Goods you first receive into your own warehouse and then send to AWD or FBA follow the same path through the warehouse transfer instead.

Set it up​

AGL charges follow the same rules as every other inbound fee. On Settlement Mappings:

  • Put both AGL lines in a group marked Landed Cost Group, as in Choose which fees to capitalize. Until you do, they post as an expense.
  • Choose Auto-create bills from settlement data under Landed Cost Settings, so SKU.io creates the bill for you.

Once set up, check Settlement Lines: each AGL line's Landed Cost Link names the purchase order it was added to.

Don't count them twice​

  • Don't also key the AGL invoice. The settlement already brings the charge in. A bill you enter for it after SKU.io has captured the charge counts the cost twice.
  • If the purchase order already has other bills, such as an agent's commission or a forwarder's invoice, SKU.io doesn't create its own bill there. The settlement waits for a bill whose invoice number is the AWD shipment ID. Enter the AGL charge as a bill with that invoice number, or put the ID on the AGL bill you already entered. See Bills you enter yourself.
  • Let the duties line clear your duty estimate. If you capitalize estimated duty, Amazon's duties line works like your broker's duty bill: it clears the estimate, and only the difference moves. For that, choose your customs duty category under Settings → Purchasing → Landed Cost Estimates. SKU.io puts the duties line in it, even though its name mentions freight.

Which cost category each charge gets​

On the landed cost bill, SKU.io puts each Amazon charge in a cost category, so the landed cost breakdown shows freight and duty separately:

  • The duties line goes to your customs duty category.
  • Any other line goes to the category whose name is the line's full name. Failing that, it goes to the category with a keyword alias that appears in the line's name, then to a category whose name appears in it. The freight line therefore lands in Freight if you have that category.

To steer a charge to a different category, add a keyword alias for it. This applies to bills SKU.io creates from then on; it doesn't change existing bills.

Next steps​

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