Marketplace settlements: fees, payouts, 194-O and the TCS ledger

A marketplace pays you less than it sold for you. The gap is commission, fixed and closing fees, shipping, cash on delivery fees, ads, penalties, the GST TCS it collects and the income-tax TDS it holds back under section 194-O. The Settlements tab of Marketplace orders has a set of cards that open each settlement, check its fees against what the marketplace said it would charge, find the payout in your bank, and add up the TCS and TDS you can claim. Nothing on these cards is posted to your books, filed or claimed for you.

Where to find it

Open Marketplace orders and tap Settlements. The tabs appear once at least one order, settlement or return has come in from a connected marketplace or a CSV import. The cards sit above the settlements table, in this order: Settlement check, Payout variance alert, Channel contribution, Profit per SKU, by channel, Settlement detail, Fee cards, 194-O TDS by operator and quarter, TCS credit ledger, TCS and 194-O rates and Check one settlement.

The Filter by kind and Operator filters at the top narrow the settlements that Settlement detail and Check one settlement let you pick from. The 194-O TDS card, the TCS credit ledger and Profit per SKU, by channel read your workspace's own records whatever the filters show, and each says Not narrowed by the filters above.

Payout variance alert: hear when a payout is short

Settlement check tests each payout against its own header: gross, less TCS, commission and shipping, should equal the amount paid. Payout variance alert lets you choose how big a gap you will accept before you are told about it.

1. 1

   Set your amount

   Under Alert when a payout differs by more than (₹), type an amount in rupees, above 0, up to two decimals and at most ₹1,00,000, then tap Save amount. The card then reads "You are alerted once per payout that differs from its own lines by more than" your amount.
2. 2

   Stop the alerts

   Tap Stop alerts to remove the amount. With no amount set, the card says No amount set, so no payout is alerted on.

The check runs each time the scheduled sync pulls a payout in from a connected marketplace. A settlement you import from a CSV file is not checked. The alert goes to the workspace owner through the online sellers journey, once per payout, so a payout pulled again is not alerted twice. It is sent only where journeys are switched on; where they are not, no alert is sent, even with an amount set. If your role cannot make changes, you see the amount but cannot change it.

Profit per SKU, by channel

Profit per SKU, by channel lists your top SKUs on each channel by sale value. For each SKU it shows the units and orders, the sale, cancellations, fees, shipping and returns, any claims recovered, and what is left as Contribution.

• Fees are the commission, fixed, collection, ads and penalty lines. Tax held back (TCS and 194-O TDS) and reimbursement lines are not in this figure. A claim counts only once it has been reimbursed.
• The charges on an order with one SKU go to that SKU. On an order with several, they are shared out by each line's value, and the SKU says how much of its figure was shared this way. Charges that could not be put on any SKU are shown per channel rather than dropped.
• Parcels that came back undelivered (RTO) are counted per SKU but not priced.
• It reads your latest 500 channel orders and says when older orders were left out. When some figures could not be read, the SKU says its number is partial.

Fee cards: what each marketplace said it would charge

A fee card records what you expect one marketplace account to charge for one kind of fee, from a date. The settlement cards compare the fees the marketplace actually took against it and flag a difference. They never change the fee.

1. 1

   Add a card

   On Fee cards, choose the Channel account and the Fee: Commission, Fixed fee, Shipping or Collection fee. Leave Category blank for every category. Enter Rate %, Fixed ₹, or both, then the From date and, if the card stops, the To (optional) date. Tap Add fee card.
2. 2

   Correct a card, or replace it from a date

   Edit opens a card with its values filled in; Save changes corrects it in place. When a marketplace changes its rate, do not edit the old card: set its To date to the last day of the old rate and add a new card from the next day. A fee is checked against the card in force on the order date or the settlement's end date, so older settlements stay checked against the rate that applied then.

Only people whose role can make changes see the form and the Edit button. Anyone else sees the cards. The check uses only cards set for every category, because a fee line does not carry a category yet. Ads, penalties, reimbursements, TCS and TDS lines are never checked against a card.

Check one settlement

On Check one settlement, pick a settlement under Settlement. The card then shows:

• Whether it adds up. Either "Adds up: sale, minus deductions, equals the payout" with the three amounts, or "Does not add up" with the amount the settlement's own figures do not explain.
• Fee lines. Every line on the settlement, by order, kind and amount, with how many you pasted yourself. A line that is not for one order shows as Whole settlement.
• Orders in this settlement. The orders expected are that account's orders placed between the settlement's start and end dates. Each is Paid, Short-paid, Not in this settlement or Could not be read. An order whose fees are above your fee card shows by how much, and one with no fee card to compare says fees not checked. With no fee lines at all, the orders are not matched, because every order would look unpaid.
• Draft journal. The entry the settlement would make, by role: bank or clearing account, marketplace fees, GST TCS to claim and the money the marketplace owed you. It is a draft by role only: your CA maps the lines to ledgers before anything is posted. When the settlement does not add up, there is no draft.

Paste fee lines from the marketplace report

When the marketplace's own report has fee lines that did not come in, copy them from its settlement report into Paste fee lines and tap Import lines. Put one line per row: order id, kind, amount, separated by commas or tabs. A header row naming the kind and amount columns is skipped. The kind can be commission, fixed fee or closing fee, shipping, collection fee or COD, ads, penalty, reimbursement, TCS, or TDS. Type the amount without a plus or minus sign: the kind says which way it goes. Leave the order id empty for a line that belongs to the whole settlement.

• If any row cannot be read, nothing is imported, and the rows that failed are named.
• A new paste replaces the lines you pasted before for that settlement. Lines the marketplace sent are kept.
• If your role cannot make changes, you see the settlement but not the paste box.

Settlement detail and the fee check

Settlement detail opens on your latest settlement; pick another from its list. It shows:

• Draft journal, not posted. The same proposal by role, with whether debits equal credits. Your accountant or the owner maps each line to a ledger and posts it.
• Payout in your bank. See the next section.
• Orders on this settlement. How many orders are on it, not on it, or could not be read. An order can settle in a later period, so check the next settlement before chasing one.
• Fee lines. The lines added up by kind.
• Fee check against your fee cards. How many lines are as expected, differ, have no fee card, or could not be read, and for each difference what was charged, what the card says and whether it is over or under.

Find the payout in your bank

Under Payout in your bank, Finocket looks through the bank statements you have imported for a credit of exactly the settlement's net payout, from the settlement's end date to ten days after. Each one it finds says Already matched or Not matched yet. Tap Match it on bank reconciliation to open bank reconciliation on that amount and those dates, and confirm the match there. This card only suggests. If nothing is found, import the statement, or the marketplace may have paid two settlements in one credit.

194-O TDS each marketplace withheld

194-O TDS by operator and quarter adds up the income-tax TDS your settlements say each marketplace held back, per quarter. Check each quarter against your Form 26AS or AIS. It reads every settlement in your workspace, whatever the filters show.

TCS credit ledger: your settlements against the operator's GSTR-8

TCS credit ledger has one row per marketplace per month. Each row shows the TCS On settlements beside what that marketplace Reported in its GSTR-8, and says Matches, Differs or Not entered.

1. 1

   Read the figure on the GST portal

   On the GST portal, open the TCS and TDS credit received for the month and note what each marketplace reported.
2. 2

   Type it in and save

   In that marketplace's row, type the amount in rupees and tap Save. The row then shows whether it matches your settlements. If your role cannot make changes, you see the rows without the box.
3. 3

   Accept the credit on the portal

   Accepting the credit into your electronic cash ledger is done on the GST portal. Finocket does not do it for you.

The ledger reads every settlement in your workspace, not just what the filters show. It needs its own setup step on your workspace; until then it says Not available yet. For the monthly check of your invoices against each marketplace's sales, see GSTR-8 reconciliation.

The rates these cards use

TCS and 194-O rates shows the rate in force today for GST TCS (CGST section 52) and Income-tax TDS (section 194-O), with the date it applies from and its source. The rates are added only once your CA signs them off; until then the card says No rates entered yet. They are entered once your CA signs them off. Finocket never assumes a rate. If no single rate covers today, the card says so rather than picking one. The card only shows rates: there is no form on it to type one.

What these cards do not do

• Post the draft journal. Your accountant or the owner posts it from the journal.
• Change a fee the marketplace charged, or raise a claim for a difference.
• Read GSTR-8 from the GST portal. You type what each marketplace reported.
• File a return, or accept a TCS or TDS credit for you.
• Confirm a bank match. That happens on bank reconciliation.
• Alert on a payout that came in from a CSV import, or alert at all where journeys are not switched on.

The same figures for your developer or AI assistant

With the pack switched on, four read-only reads give a program or your AI assistant the figures on these cards, on an API key with the reports:read scope. See the developers guide for keys and the MCP address.

• /api/v1/marketplace/settlements and the get_marketplace_settlements tool: each settlement with its header check, the same one Settlement check runs.
• /api/v1/marketplace/unmatched-orders and get_marketplace_unmatched_orders: invoiced orders that no settlement names 21 days or more after the order date.
• /api/v1/marketplace/claims and get_marketplace_claims: the claims register from the Returns tab.
• /api/v1/marketplace/tcs-tds and get_marketplace_tcs_tds: the TCS credit ledger and the 194-O TDS by quarter.

None of them can change anything: settlements, claims and the TCS figures are written on this screen. With the pack switched off, they answer not found.