Why your payout and sales are different

A marketplace can collect money from customers, issue refunds, deduct selling and payment fees, hold reserves, add reimbursements, and then deposit a net amount. Looking only at that deposit can hide both income and expenses.

A simplified settlement
Customer sales shown for the period£4,500
Less customer refunds− £250
Less marketplace and payment fees− £620
Plus other net adjustments+ £20
Expected bank payout£3,650

The £3,650 deposit helps reconcile the bank. It does not, by itself, tell you the turnover and expense figures to use in your accounts or Self Assessment. A platform's annual information report is another distinct record; see platform report vs payout vs MTD qualifying income before treating its total as turnover.

This worksheet checks settlement arithmetic, not tax treatment.

Refunds, VAT, reserves, foreign currency, timing, cash versus traditional accounting and platform-specific adjustments can change the bookkeeping. Use the underlying reports and obtain advice where needed.

Browser-only payout worksheet

Use one settlement period from one platform. Enter summary figures from the platform statement. Do not enter buyer names, order IDs, tax references or bank-account details.

Sales less refunds reference£0
Expected payout from entries£0
Difference from actual deposit£0

The “sales less refunds” subtotal is a reconciliation reference, not an automatically correct tax-return or MTD figure.

If the difference is not zero

Do not force the bank deposit to match by changing sales. Look for reserves, prior-period adjustments, advertising charges, chargebacks, reimbursements, currency conversion, loans or advances, taxes collected or remitted by the platform, and payout timing.

What MTD changes—and what it does not

HMRC's current MTD guidance generally bases qualifying income on self-employment turnover and your property-income share before expenses and tax allowances. If MTD applies, you must use compatible software to create and keep digital records, send quarterly updates and submit the tax return.

For digital records, HMRC describes sole-trader income as including sales, takings and fees earned or charged to customers. Those income fees are different from marketplace or payment-processing fees you pay, whose tax treatment is separate. HMRC also says retailers can choose to create a digital record of daily gross takings instead of recording every individual retail sale. That does not remove the need to reconcile platform statements and preserve supporting records.

Quarterly updates are summaries built from the records. They do not replace the year-end checks, adjustments, other income and tax return.

A repeatable marketplace routine

  1. Download and preserve the platform settlement and transaction reports for the period.
  2. Record customer sales/takings using a method consistent with your accounting basis and current HMRC rules.
  3. Record refunds, fees and other expenses separately with enough evidence to explain them.
  4. Reconcile the calculated settlement to the actual bank deposit and investigate differences.
  5. Correct the source records rather than overwriting the payout to make it fit.
  6. Back up the spreadsheet or system and keep the platform statements supporting it.
  7. Before an MTD deadline, review the cumulative period and use compatible software to generate the update.

If reconciling several platforms is the main problem, choose “reduce manual marketplace reconciliation” in the QuarterReady route planner, then read the independent Link My Books fit guide. It explains who the connector suits, who should skip it and what to test before paying. QuarterReady is not yet approved as an affiliate; the current provider link is direct and untracked.

Sources and limits

Core rules checked 13 July 2026. The worksheet is deliberately a reconciliation check, not a profit, VAT or tax calculator.