Amazon FBA auditing is vital to ensuring your company maximizes profits in Seller Central or Vendor Central. While your company may have exceptional Amazon account management, you should also be considering an Amazon auditing service. In this article, you’ll...
Amazon FBA reimbursements are critical for ensuring your profit margin as a seller. Unfortunately, Amazon loses a percentage of its inventory every day. Without an FBA audit, you may never discover that Amazon owes you money for the inventory you entrust to the company.
This article will cover what an FBA audit should look like, along with a few FBA for beginners notes.
Getting Started with FBA Record Keeping
Good record-keeping is essential throughout the selling process. Part of any successful FBA program should include choosing a record system that tracks every product when it is in your facility. Generally, barcode systems are the easiest to integrate, and many of these systems can use Amazon barcodes or UPCs.
These records may become part of the proof you need to show Amazon that they lost inventory or incorrectly registered your shipments. Without them, you may not receive the FBA reimbursements you are guaranteed.
As a note for FBA for beginners, tracking your products throughout the Amazon inventory lifecycle is invaluable. Unfortunately, Amazon can incorrectly log shipments, damage inventory, improperly handled returns, fees, and more Amazon Inventory Accountability. While some of these items may be reimbursed through the automated system, most will not.
The FBA Audit Process
You can claim Amazon FBA reimbursements on up to 18 months of records at a time. The report is called an Inventory Reconciliation Report and can be found through your dashboard. You can download the report in a variety of formats to facilitate the process.
The first step is checking any inventory codes. You want to match the inventory code to your financial data to confirm that the automated system awarded you Amazon FBA reimbursements. If something does not look right, you should flag that entry.
The next step in an FBA audit is determining if your inventory records match what FBA has to items in the system. For beginners it is important to confirm numbers in each shipment before it hits the facility, and that each item was properly logged into the system.
Additionally, the FBA auditor will need to look into all of the fees associated with each sale. Many companies may end up losing money since other causes are more obvious in the paperwork and they don’t connect the dots to realize Amazon is at fault. Additionally, for FBA for beginners, Amazon can also reverse a previous judgment, which is another thing meticulous paperwork can reveal.
All of this data should be flagged appropriately and noted. This form of data review must happen regularly, and it’s not uncommon for devoted sellers to perform a daily or weekly audit. This timeframe allows them to catch errors regularly and minimize the chance they miss a reimbursement.
Submitting for Amazon FBA Reimbursement
Once the data processing is done on an FBA audit, it’s time to turn in the forms for Amazon FBA reimbursements. Failure to submit the forms with the requisite information means you will not see the results.
First, you will need to select the appropriate form. Amazon divides the reimbursement forms into categories like fulfillment center damage or returns for the organization’s sake. Each form has a slightly different set of requirements, but the general information is the same FBA Auditors.
While signed in to your seller account, you should confirm that the item you intend to submit for has not already been reimbursed. If not, the form requests the item or order identification, some information on the circumstances, and anything else you think is relevant to the claim.
Generally, you can expect to hear from Amazon within 12 hours. If Amazon agrees with your claim, you can see FBA reimbursements within 5 to 12 business days, case dependent. By then, you will be ready for your next FBA audit.
Conclusion
Regular FBA audits to ensure that you profit as much as possible from the products your company sends. The work for Amazon FBA reimbursements adds up to significant profit whether you’re in your first year or first decade. All of this work may seem daunting and arduous, that’s where Refund Sniper comes in. With millions of dollars recovered for Amazon Sellers and hundreds of 5-star customer reviews, you can trust that Refund Sniper experts will get you all the refunds you deserve.
