Cases · Reconciliation
Shopify sales vs Shopify Payments payouts
Self-initiated case study using synthetic data in the real Shopify export layouts. The disagreements were planted on purpose, and the code that reconciles was written by the same person, so the case shows the method and what a client receives; it is not a blind test.
The case
Goal
A shop owner saw EUR 529,976 of March sales but only EUR 244,892 net from Shopify Payments for March transactions, and wanted to know where the other EUR 285,084 went, and whether any of it should have arrived and did not.
Challenge
Half of the sales went through PayPal, Klarna, bank transfers and cash. Refunds in the orders export have no date. Two customers paid twice, by card and through PayPal, one was charged twice by card, and one dispute was not in the shop's books.
Solution
The two exports were matched by order number under rules written down before counting. Every card order was set against its charge, and a table was built from sales to payout in which each line is a sum of rows of one of the two files.
Outcome
The gap explained to the cent. 1,439 of 1,444 card orders match their charge. Eight records need a person, among them two customers who paid twice, by card and through PayPal (EUR 792.95), and a double charge whose fee was kept; separately, a chargeback on an order still marked paid. Of the EUR 244,892 net, EUR 15,943 was paid out in early April. 78 refunds the two files cannot place are listed, not guessed.
Note on this case: Where €285,084 went between sales and payouts
From the case
The case, 2 pages (PDF)
Service
Reconciliation for your own files
The same method on your exports: definitions in writing first, then an independent recount.