Ops & Supply

How to reconcile amazon seller settlements as DTC Brand Founders

Ops & SupplyFor DTC Brand Founders2 apps10 steps~20 min to set up

Every two weeks Amazon drops a settlement report that's essentially a CSV of line items in a language only an accountant fluent in FBA fee codes can read. You're cross-referencing it against your Shopify orders to figure out which units actually sold, hunting for FBA storage fees that spiked because you didn't clear slow SKUs before the Q4 surcharge window, and trying to reconcile the deposit in your bank account against what Amazon says it sent. Most DTC founders doing any real Amazon volume are losing 30–60 minutes per settlement period just to answer 'did Amazon pay us what they owe us?' — and a meaningful chunk never actually confirm the answer.

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Ops & SupplyFor DTC Brand Founders2 apps10 steps~20 min to set up

Outcome

What you'll set up

A live reconciliation view that matches every Amazon settlement line — product sales, FBA fees, referral fees, ad spend reimbursements, and adjustments — against your actual bank deposit, so you know within minutes whether the numbers close.

Automatic flagging of discrepancies, missing reimbursements for lost or damaged FBA inventory, and unexpected fee increases by SKU or fee type, so nothing leaks without you seeing it.

A single source of truth that connects your Amazon settlement data, Plaid bank transactions, and Stripe or Shopify revenue so your 'what did we actually make this month' number is one place, not three spreadsheets.

The Starch recipe

Apps, data, and prompts

The combination of Starch apps, the data sources they pull from, and the prompts you use to drive them.

Apps used

Transaction Insights

Data sources & config

Wire Starch to your Amazon Seller account using the Amazon Seller Dashboard app, which connects via browser automation and the Selling Partner API — no manual CSV export required. Connect Plaid so Starch syncs your business checking account on a schedule and can match deposits automatically. Optionally connect Stripe or Shopify from Starch's integration catalog; the agent queries them live when your reconciliation view runs. Transaction Insights uses your Plaid scheduled sync to surface the bank-side of each settlement deposit and flag anything that doesn't line up.

Prompts to copy

Pull my latest Amazon settlement report and match each line item against the deposit Plaid shows in my checking account for the same period. Flag any difference greater than $50 and list the fee categories where actuals don't match my expectations based on the last three settlements.

Show me a breakdown of my Amazon FBA fees by SKU for this settlement period — storage, referral, and fulfillment — and compare them to last period so I can see which products got more expensive to sell.

Find any reimbursements Amazon owes me for lost or damaged inventory this cycle and list the ASIN, quantity, and estimated recovery amount.

Build me a monthly view that puts my Amazon net proceeds, Plaid bank deposit, and Shopify revenue side by side so I can see total DTC revenue in one place.

Run these in Starch → or paste them into your favorite agent

Walkthrough

Step-by-step

1 Install the Amazon Seller Dashboard app from the Starch App Store and connect your Seller Central account. Starch reaches Amazon through browser automation and the Selling Partner API — you authenticate once and it handles the data pull from there.

2 Connect your business checking account through Plaid. Starch syncs your transactions on a schedule, so every settlement deposit shows up automatically without you logging into your bank.

3 Tell Starch: 'Pull my most recent Amazon settlement report and show me a line-item breakdown by fee type — product sales, FBA fulfillment, referral fees, storage fees, sponsored product charges, and any adjustments or reimbursements.' This becomes your standing settlement summary view.

4 Run the reconciliation prompt: 'Match the net proceeds total from my Amazon settlement against the deposit Plaid shows in my checking account for the same date range. Flag any gap and tell me which fee categories account for the difference.' Starch does the cross-source matching so you're not doing it manually in a spreadsheet.

5 Set up a SKU-level fee breakdown: 'For this settlement period, show me total FBA fees per ASIN — fulfillment cost, referral fee, and storage — and calculate my net margin per unit after those fees and after my average ad spend for each SKU.' This is the number most founders are guessing at.

6 Create a reimbursement tracker prompt: 'Check this settlement for any reimbursements Amazon issued for lost or damaged inventory. Also flag any ASINs where units were removed from FBA without a corresponding sale or return, which might indicate missing reimbursements I haven't claimed.' Amazon owes money more often than founders realize.

7 Add a fee-trend alert: 'Compare my FBA storage fees this period to the prior three settlement periods by ASIN. Flag any product where storage cost increased more than 20% and show me current inventory age for that SKU.' This catches Q4 long-term storage surcharge exposure before it hits.

8 Wire in Transaction Insights to monitor the bank side ongoing: 'Alert me any time a deposit tagged to Amazon in my Plaid account is more than 5% lower than my prior-period average, and flag any new Amazon-related charges — like reimbursement clawbacks — I haven't seen before.'

9 Build a consolidated DTC revenue view: 'Create a monthly dashboard that shows Amazon net proceeds from settlements, Shopify net revenue queried live from my integration, and total deposits from Plaid, all in one table. I want to see each channel's contribution to total revenue without pulling three reports.' Starch queries Shopify live and layers it against the synced data.

10 Schedule the full reconciliation to run automatically: 'Every time Amazon releases a settlement — roughly every two weeks — run the full reconciliation, compare it to Plaid, flag discrepancies, and Slack me a summary with any action items.' From here it runs without you initiating it.

See this running on Starch

Connect your tools, describe what you want, and the agent builds it. Closed beta is free.

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Worked example

March 2026 Amazon Settlement — Cycle Ending March 14

Sample numbers from a real run

Product sales (gross)	41,200
FBA fulfillment fees	-8,640
Referral fees (15% avg)	-6,180
FBA storage fees	-1,850
Sponsored Products charges	-4,300
Reimbursements — lost inventory	610
Other adjustments	-230
Amazon net proceeds	20,610
Plaid deposit (actual)	20,420
Unresolved discrepancy	-190

Starch pulled the March 14 settlement and matched it against the $20,420 deposit Plaid showed hitting the business checking account on March 17. The $190 gap flagged immediately. Drilling in, Starch found that Amazon applied a $190 reimbursement clawback from a prior period adjustment that wasn't clearly labeled in the settlement report — exactly the kind of line item that disappears into 'other adjustments' and never gets questioned. The SKU-level breakdown showed that two SKUs in the snack category had FBA storage fees up 34% versus the January settlement, driven by units sitting longer than 180 days and hitting the aged-inventory surcharge. Starch flagged those SKUs for a removal-or-liquidation decision before the April 15 long-term storage assessment date. The reimbursement scan also surfaced $610 in recoveries for units Amazon marked as lost in transit — those were already in the settlement, but Starch confirmed two additional ASINs with unfulfilled removal orders that may have additional unclaimed reimbursement. Total time to full reconciliation: under four minutes.

Measurement

How you'll know it's working

Settlement reconciliation rate — % of settlement periods where net proceeds match Plaid deposit within a defined tolerance (e.g., <$100 or <0.5%)

Reimbursement recovery per settlement cycle — dollars recovered for lost, damaged, or mishandled FBA inventory

FBA fee ratio by SKU — total Amazon fees (fulfillment + referral + storage) as % of gross sale price, tracked per ASIN over time

Aged inventory exposure — units at risk of long-term storage surcharge within the next 30 days, by SKU

Amazon net margin after fees and ad spend — true contribution margin per ASIN after every Amazon cost is included

Comparison

What this replaces

The other ways teams handle this today, and how the Starch version compares.

Manual settlement CSV + Google Sheets

Free but takes 45–90 minutes per cycle, requires someone who knows the fee codes, and produces no alerts — you only find discrepancies if you go looking.

Seller Ledger or A2X

Purpose-built for Amazon accounting reconciliation and integrates well with QuickBooks, but they're accounting tools, not operational dashboards — you get clean books but not SKU-level fee trend alerts, reimbursement scanning, or cross-channel revenue views.

Helium 10 Profits

Good for profitability analytics inside Amazon, but it doesn't cross-reference your actual bank deposits, doesn't connect to Shopify or Stripe, and can't be extended with custom automations or Slack alerts the way Starch can.

In-house ops analyst or bookkeeper

A dedicated person brings judgment and context, but at $50–80k/year fully loaded they're still working from the same CSV you are — Starch handles the rote reconciliation so a human can focus on the decisions the numbers surface.

On Starch RECOMMENDED

One platform — amazon seller dashboard, transaction insights all running on connected data. Setup in plain English; numbers stay current via scheduled syncs and live agent queries.

Try it on Starch →

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Does Starch pull the settlement data directly from Seller Central, or do I have to upload a CSV?

Starch connects to your Amazon Seller account through the Amazon Seller Dashboard app using browser automation and the Selling Partner API. You authenticate once and Starch handles the data pull — no manual CSV export or upload required. When a new settlement is available, Starch can retrieve it automatically as part of a scheduled reconciliation.

How does the bank reconciliation actually work — does Starch have access to my bank account?

Yes, through Plaid. You connect your business checking account and Starch syncs your transactions on a schedule. When it pulls your Amazon settlement, it looks for the corresponding deposit in your Plaid transaction feed and matches them. The data stays inside Starch; you're not sharing credentials with anyone beyond the Plaid OAuth flow you've already used for other tools.

Can Starch identify specific reimbursements Amazon owes me that I haven't claimed yet?

Starch can flag patterns in your settlement data that suggest unclaimed reimbursements — units marked lost in transit, removals with no corresponding refund, or inventory adjustments without clear resolution. It's surfacing what's visible in your Seller Central data. For a full reimbursement audit going back 18 months, you'd want to combine this with a manual review or a dedicated reimbursement service, but Starch catches the ongoing leaks in real time.

I sell on both Amazon and Shopify. Can Starch show me combined revenue in one place?

Yes. You can connect Shopify from Starch's integration catalog — the agent queries it live when your dashboard runs — and combine that with your Amazon settlement data and Plaid bank transactions in a single view. Tell Starch what you want to see: 'Show me total net revenue by channel for March, with Amazon proceeds from settlement and Shopify net revenue after returns, side by side.' It builds that view from the connected data.

Is Starch SOC 2 certified? I'm connecting bank accounts and revenue data.

Not yet — Starch is not SOC 2 Type II certified as of today. That's the honest answer. If your company policy requires SOC 2 for any tool handling financial data, that's a real constraint to evaluate. Starch is working toward certification. In the meantime, connections go through established OAuth flows (Plaid, Amazon's SP-API) and data is not shared with third parties.

What if my Amazon FBA fee codes change or Amazon adds a new fee type?

You'd tell Starch in plain English. 'Amazon introduced a new inbound placement fee in April. Update my reconciliation breakdown to include it and flag any settlement where this fee exceeds $200.' Starch adjusts the logic based on your description — you're not editing formulas in a spreadsheet or waiting for a software vendor to ship an update.

Can I get a Slack alert when a settlement drops and something looks off?

Yes. Set up an automation: 'Every time my Amazon settlement reconciliation runs and finds a discrepancy greater than $100, or any SKU with a fee increase over 15% versus last period, send me a Slack message with the summary.' Starch connects to Slack through its integration catalog and the agent queries it live when the automation fires. Starch syncs your Slack workspace and the alert goes to whatever channel you specify.