The year-end general account is in disarray and the balance is abnormal! The aftermath of Amazon's delayed payment? !

The impact of Amazon’s delayed payment policy, which was implemented in October, continues to expand…

As the end of the year approaches, this policy has seriously affected the capital flow and profit accounting of a large number of sellers . Sellers even worry that the ability to pay employee wages and repay loans on time will be affected during the retrieval period.

Starting from October this year, Amazon has deferred the processing of order payments for some sellers. This policy is mainly based on the "delivery date policy". According to this policy, the transaction payment will be postponed to the "deferred transaction" section before the buyer receives the goods. The seller may not be able to obtain the order funds immediately and need to wait 7 days or longer to release the funds.

The sudden large-scale deferred payment settlement has a direct impact on the current ERP profit data, and some sellers have downloaded the report form with a date range of 0 data after the 2nd. The data delay has caused the sellers' gross profit to be unable to be calculated, and the gross profit will also be delayed.

Many sellers also complained that their account balances were decreasing despite good sales. After investigation, it was almost certain that the cause was delayed payment.

However, due to the uncertainty of fund settlement time, sellers’ traditional profit reports cannot accurately reflect the current fund status, resulting in deviations in operating data and making it difficult to accurately calculate profits.

This situation is very worrying for many sellers. After all, Amazon requires continuous purchase of goods, replenishment of inventory, and payment of various operating expenses. Timely cash flow is directly related to whether merchants can maintain normal business activities. However, the current delays have suddenly made the cash flow of many sellers tight, and small sellers who were already in a difficult situation are facing the risk of capital interruption.

At present, this policy has been implemented for more than two months, and sellers have been complaining endlessly. According to the feedback, delayed payments have caused problems such as confusion in year-end accounts, difficulties in performance calculations, and fund turnover.

In addition, there is a potential danger in delayed payment: due to insufficient balance due to payment delay, a credit card will be used for automatic deductions. If the credit card deduction fails, it may threaten the security of the account.

After Amazon implemented the "delayed payment" policy, operations were the first to be affected.

At present, the commission system of most companies is not suitable for calculation after the implementation of delayed payment. Most companies settle commissions according to the established ratio after the funds are received after the order is completed. But now, many order payments are delayed, which makes the calculation of operation commissions lose accurate data. In the end , the commission will be reduced, but there is no basis for readjustment.

"The commission was directly cut in half. We have a tiered commission system, which caused my commission on Amazon to be directly reduced to a low commission point, which reduced my commission by several thousand yuan. "

" The finance department said that the sales volume didn't disappear and would be added to next month, but the key point is that the performance target for next month is also increasing, so I won't get the bonus no matter what. "

"Now everything is based on ERP data, resulting in no quarterly bonuses"

In order to get commissions, operators now have to spend time and energy to manually count and estimate the actual collection time for each order, but this undoubtedly increases the workload hugely, and accuracy is still difficult to guarantee.

In addition, delayed payment collection can have a serious impact on small businesses, potentially leading to financial difficulties or even bankruptcy . Many sellers rely heavily on the timely release of sales funds to manage daily operations, especially for new stores, where operations are even more difficult. According to the BBC, a seller had £5,000 frozen by Amazon on August 3 and is currently unable to withdraw any funds to maintain daily operations.

Now that we are approaching the end of the year, a large number of sellers may not be able to pay employee wages and repay loans on time.

Facing the troubles and challenges brought by Amazon's delayed payment policy, some sellers shared some feasible solutions:

1. Independent financial tracking sheet

Record every order on Amazon according to detailed information such as order time, expected payment time, actual payment status, etc. By comparing the platform data with your own records, although this takes time and effort, you can discover problems more promptly and communicate with Amazon customer service to resolve them in a timely manner.

To find the specific order number: Seller Backstage > Payment > Transaction Summary > Deferred Transaction

The seller can download the Excel report from the backend to check the estimated payment time:

2. Modify the accounting dimension

Because the total profit will not change, the seller only needs to adjust the calculation and the date of payment of employee commissions. For example, the October commission can be calculated in mid-November and paid to employees at the end of November.

The above methods will still affect employee enthusiasm to some extent, and are not suitable for all sellers. Sellers still need to modify the accounting methods and commission system based on the actual situation of the company to appease employees.

In addition, sellers can also consider negotiating with suppliers to adjust payment cycles to alleviate the financial pressure caused by Amazon's delayed payment.