Understanding Deferred Transactions in Amazon Seller Central

Amazon Seller Deferred Transactions

A deferred transaction refers to a sale where the payment is temporarily held and will be paid out at a future date. Amazon reserves funds from your sales until a specific number of days after your shipments are delivered.

What Are Deferred Transactions?

Deferred transactions are sales proceeds that Amazon holds until certain conditions are met. These conditions typically involve ensuring that the buyer has received the order in the promised condition and that there are sufficient funds to cover potential returns, claims, or chargebacks.

Reasons for Transaction Deferral
Transactions may be deferred for the following reasons:

  1. Delivery Date Policy (Orders Awaiting Delivery): Orders placed by customers are typically subject to delivery date-based reserve policies. Sales proceeds are reserved until Amazon confirms that the buyer received the order in the promised condition. This policy ensures that a Seller has sufficient funds to fulfill any returns, claims, or chargebacks.
  2. Invoiced Orders (Orders Pending Buyer Payment): Invoiced orders placed by Amazon Business customers are deferred while awaiting payment by the buyer. These transactions are released after the customer completes their invoice payment, which typically occurs within 30–45 days after the order date. These orders are also subject to delivery date policies, but in most cases, the invoice due date will be later than the reserve period.

Viewing Deferred Transactions

Only released transactions are included for payout in a settlement period. Deferred transactions will not be in your settlement reports. Amazon will not return deferred events in the Finance API, which means deferred transactions will will not show up in the API until in they are released.

At the moment, to monitor your deferred transactions:

  1. Navigate to the Transaction View page in Amazon Seller Central.
  2. Select “Deferred transactions” from the “Transaction Status” dropdown menu.
  3. Click “Update” to view the deferral reasons and the expected payment release dates for all deferred transactions.

After the payment release date, the transaction status will update to “Released.”

Understanding Delivery Date Reserves

Delivery date reserves ensure you have enough funds to fulfill financial obligations, such as refunds, claims, or chargebacks.

Duration of Fund Reservation
Funds are reserved until a shipment is delivered, plus a reserve period. The standard reserve period is 7 days after the delivery date (“DD + 7” reserve policy). For example, if you sell an item on January 1, and it is delivered on January 6, then under the DD + 7 policy, your funds will become available for disbursement starting on January 14. Your reserve period may be extended following an assessment of your overall risk and historical performance.

Amount of Funds Held Back
Delivery date reserves are calculated based on shipment delivery dates. You can view the list of transactions and the corresponding amounts subjected to reserve on the Payments Transaction view, and their total is included as part of the deferred transactions line of the Total Balance tile on the Payments Dashboard.

Impact of Delivery Date Reserves
If you recently had a delivery date reserve policy applied to your account, or if you have just started selling, it is normal for all of your funds to be held in reserve.

This is because your reserve amount is based on the funds from shipments that were delivered within your reserve period (with the standard being seven days, or “DD+7”).

When you ship a product, you can view the corresponding payment transaction on Payments > Transaction view. Filter for Transaction status Deferred transactions and click Update to see a list of all transactions currently held in reserve, and the expected payment release date for each transaction.

Funds from these transactions will be released in accordance with the shipment’s delivery date, at which point, the transaction status will update to “released” and funds will be available for transfer to your bank account.

You can also download a detailed report of these transactions by navigating to the Payments Reports Repository and requesting the Report type “Deferred transactions.”

Determining Shipment Delivery Dates
When you use an integrated shipping carrier, Amazon will use the actual delivery date of the order. In the absence of valid tracking data, Amazon will use the latest estimated delivery date (EDD).

Strategies to Accelerate Payment Release
To expedite the release of your funds:

  • Prompt Dispatch: Ship your items as soon as possible and confirm dispatch in Manage Orders.
  • Provide Valid Tracking Numbers: Use integrated carriers and provide valid tracking numbers when confirming shipments. This gives buyers peace of mind, knowing that their package is on the way.
  • Choose Faster Delivery: Opt for faster delivery methods to reduce the time between shipment and delivery.

By understanding and effectively managing deferred transactions, you can better plan your finances and maintain a healthy cash flow as an Amazon seller.

You might find the following video helpful:

References

Amazon Finance API for FBA Acquisition And Seller Growth

Understanding Deferred Transactions in Amazon Seller Central was originally published in Openbridge on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.



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