Marketplace payouts and fees: gross or net sales?

Marketplace payouts and fees in your company accounts

Your bank shows less than you sold because the platform pays you after taking its fees and any refunds. In your company’s accounts, sales go in at the full amount buyers paid, refunds come off sales, and the platform’s fees go in as a cost. The profit is the same as the bank suggests. The turnover is higher, and correct.

By Fileyear teamLast checked 1 November 20262 min read

Why the bank shows less

A platform is the middleman. The buyer pays the platform. The platform keeps its fees, takes back refunds and any chargebacks, and pays out what is left, usually every few days or weeks. So one payout of £1,200 might be £1,450 of sales, less £40 of refunds, less £210 of fees.

How it goes in the accounts

Turnover is the money from selling goods, after trade discounts and VAT¹. Company accounts can’t set income off against costs². So the £1,200 payout above is recorded as:

	Amount
Sales	£1,450
Refunds	−£40
Platform fees (a cost)	−£210
Paid into the bank	£1,200

Over a year the same holds. The profit is the same whether you record sales gross or net. But turnover matters on its own: it decides your company’s size for its accounts, and VAT registration is based on taxable turnover over the last 12 months, with a threshold of £90,000⁵.

Check your company’s dates and set a reminder

Search the Companies House register. Your company page shows its filing dates, what to file next and a reminder you can set.

Money owed at the year end

Platforms hold your money for a while before paying it out. Say your year ends on 31 March. Sales of £2,300 made in the last days of March, less £300 of fees, reach the bank as £2,000 on 4 April. That £2,300 of sales and £300 of fees belong to the year to 31 March. The £2,000 is money owed to the company at the year end.

A limited company can’t use the cash basis⁴. It counts income when it earns it, so this matters³. It also works the other way at the start of the year: a payout received in early April for March sales is last year’s income, not this year’s.

How Fileyear does it

Fileyear spots payouts from Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Etsy and TikTok Shop in your bank statement. On the year-end step it offers to read your platform’s payout or summary report for the year.

If the report’s payouts match your bank, Fileyear records the full sales, the refunds, the fees as a cost, and the money the platform owed you at the year end.
If they don’t match, it keeps the bank figures, so nothing gets counted twice or missed.
It is optional. Skip it and your payouts are your sales.

More on the whole year end in how to do your company accounts as an online seller.

See Fileyear for online sellers for the supported stock, payout and bookkeeping inputs.