Amazon profit dashboard: what to track
A dashboard is only as good as the numbers behind it. These are the figures worth watching for an FBA business, where each one comes from in Amazon's reports, and the mistakes that make a dashboard say you're doing better or worse than you are.
The numbers worth watching
| Number | Where it comes from | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Sales and units | Orders (the orders report or Business Reports) | Amazon's day runs on Pacific time. Cancelled orders and promotions come off. |
| Amazon's fees | Estimated when the order comes in; charged in the settlement report weeks later | Know which you're looking at. A fee that jumps for one product usually means Amazon re-measured it. |
| Landed cost | Your supplier invoices, freight and duty bills | Per batch: units from an older, cheaper batch still sell at their own cost. |
| Refunds and returns | The settlement report (money) and the FBA returns report (what came back, in what condition) | A refund lands weeks after the sale. Units refunded but never returned are often owed to you. |
| Advertising | The Amazon Ads console and its reports | ACoS for each campaign, TACoS (all ad spend ÷ all sales) for profit. |
| Storage and other charges | Lines in the settlement report that aren't on an order | Storage is billed the month after, and triples per cubic foot from October to December. |
| Reimbursements | "FBA Inventory Reimbursement" lines and the reimbursements report | Amazon also takes some back later (clawbacks); count the net. |
| Profit and margin per product | All of the above, per SKU | The total can look fine while a few products lose money on every sale. |
| Payouts | The settlement report's summary | A payout pays for orders delivered at least a week earlier, not for the period's sales. |
| Stock and days of supply | FBA inventory | Under 28 days of supply means the low-inventory-level fee; a lot more means storage surcharges. |
Eight mistakes that make a dashboard wrong
- Sales tax counted as sales. Amazon collects sales tax from US buyers and pays it to the states itself. It passes through the order and the settlement report, but it was never yours: leave it out of sales.
- Ads counted twice, or not at all. Amazon Ads charges either your card or your seller account. Charged to the account, the spend appears in the settlement report as well as the ads console, so adding both counts it twice; paid by card, it never appears in the settlement report, so a dashboard built only on payouts misses it.
- Estimated fees shown as final. Fees estimated at order time are fine for today's numbers, but last month's should be the fees Amazon actually charged. When the two differ for one product, it's worth a look: an overcharge from a wrong measurement can be claimed back.
- Currencies added together. Canada pays in Canadian dollars and Mexico in pesos. Adding them to US sales as if they were dollars inflates sales and fees alike. Convert first, or show each marketplace in its own currency.
- Stock counted more than once. When several SKUs share one FBA barcode (FNSKU), Amazon can report the whole shared stock under each of them. Adding up the SKUs then counts the same units two or three times. Count each barcode once.
- Payouts compared with sales for the same dates. Amazon holds a sale until a week after delivery (the DD+7 reserve), so a period's payout and that period's sales never match, and a busy week shows up in the next payout.
- Today's cost used for last year's sales. If a product's cost went up this spring, last year's profit didn't go down. Costs need dates, or batches, so old sales keep the cost of the units they came from.
- A bounced payout counted as income. When your bank turns a transfer down, Amazon re-sends it with the next payout as a "Transfer of funds unsuccessful" line. It's the same money moving again, not new income: see payout late or missing.
A spreadsheet or software?
A spreadsheet works while you have a handful of products: once a month, download the settlement reports, group the lines by SKU, add landed cost and ad spend, and share out storage (the real profit guide walks through the steps). It gets slow as products, marketplaces and batches multiply, and it only ever shows last month.
If you choose software, check that it:
- reads the settlement reports, so fees are the ones Amazon charged, not estimates;
- keeps costs by date or batch, including freight and duty;
- shows profit per product and per payout, and ties each payout to your bank;
- leaves out sales tax and counts ads once, whichever way you pay for them;
- finds reimbursements and fee overcharges, not just costs.
MyProfit was built around those checks. It loads your orders, settlements, returns, inventory and ad spend from Amazon every night and shows profit by product, day and payout, with landed costs from your supplier invoices. Its free plan finds the money Amazon still owes you and checks your FBA fees, for good.
Based on Amazon's settlement, returns, reimbursements and FBA inventory reports and its Seller Central help pages on fees, payments and the delivery date reserve, read October 2026.
A profit dashboard built on what Amazon actually charged
MyProfit pulls your orders, fees, settlements, returns and ad spend from Amazon every night and shows your real profit by product, day and payout. 30 days of everything free, then $19.99 a month, or keep the free plan: it finds the money Amazon still owes you and checks your FBA fees, for good.