If you have been using other applications to monitor your Amazon performance you might have observed some differences in the numbers that are displayed by Vendorati in the “Dashboard” section.
This article explains why these differences exist.
We chose to display Order information and Refunds information in separate sections because the Orders do not always have financial effects or those effects happen after the date of the order. An order may or may not convert into revenue and, just as important, it might be converted into revenue long after the order was actually placed.
Since an order affects your bottom line (both in terms of revenue and costs) at a date that differs from the actual date the order was placed, we think that the dashboard should reflect this reality. From our research, most applications do not make this distinction and the date of the order is used just as a reference on their reports.
If you were to drill down on the orders list in the other application that you use you might see some orders that are displayed in Vendorati in the subsequent month. This usually happens for orders that are placed on the last days of the month. The differences appear even for a single day since an order placed on February 14th may be shipped on February 16th.
However, in order to make a better sense of what you have sold on Amazon, Vendorati does include in the report orders that have not been shipped yet, but we do not estimate fees for those “pending” orders.
We believe that our choices better reflect the reality of the Amazon business particularly when we consider refunds.
Let’s consider the example of an order placed on February 27th, delivered on March 5th, and returned on April 2nd of the value of 100€:
| Date | Vendorati | Other applications |
| February 27th | Revenue for February includes 100€ from this pending sale | Revenue for February includes 100€ from this pending sale |
| March 5th | Revenue for February DOES NOT include 100€ from this delivered sale Revenue for March includes 100€ from this delivered sale | Revenue for February includes 100€ from this delivered sale Revenue for March DOES NOT include 100€ from this delivered sale |
| April 2nd | Revenue for February DOES NOT include 100€ from this refunded sale Revenue for March includes 100€ from this refunded sale Revenue for April includes -100€ from this refunded sale | Revenue for February shows 0€ for this refunded sale Revenue for March DOES NOT include 100€ from this refunded sale Revenue for April DOES NOT include -100€ from this refunded sale |
The effects are even bigger if we were to take into account the Amazon fees and commissions which are realized on March 5th and April 2nd respectively.
Since Vendorati is more accounting-centric, it is normal to show this information on the date they are reported and/or invoiced by Amazon.