My Amazon sales data is completely off! What's going on?
A few things could be happening here. Two important details to consider first.
- KDP's own reports are estimates. They mark their reports as estimates on their dashboard and reports pages. This is due to multiple factors such as exchange rates, reconciliation due to refunds that take place outside of the reporting period, reconciliation due to errant charges outside of the reporting period, and delivery rate changes.
- AHS is not accounting software. We target a maximum of 5% delta between KDP and AHS. AHS is designed to help you spot trends and identify actionable data.
With these details in mind, here are the most common reasons for discrepancies between AHS and KDP.
1. If you haven't signed into AHS and either uploaded a revenue report or used the KDP Tool then you may have days without sales data. Our KDP Tool only pulls five days of data, so if you go 5+ days without using the tool you will miss some sales. Upload a 90-day KDP report if you believe you've missed days.
2. AHS focuses on "Net Units Sold" which is a more reliable metric in the long-term than "Orders" which the KDP Dashboard displays.
3. Another reason could be that you have not assigned all of your paperback books to their eBooks yet. Go to the Books page and look for a message near the top of the page that tells you if you have unassigned paperbacks.
Go ahead and assign them and save the changes. Once done, upload a 90 day KDP report again. The sales will now show.
NOTE: AHS currently requires uploading non-KDP files (i.e. Shopify, BN.com) twice whenever a new book is launched. The first time lets AHS know the book exists and the second upload pulls in the sales data. This only needs to be done when you're a new customer and/or when you launch a new book with a paperback version.
4. Exchange rates. We use a very reliable exchange rate service but it's different than Amazon's proprietary service. This can cause imperceptible differences with low revenue. But big earners may notice large differences between KDP and AHS. NOTE: For this reason (and others) even the KDP Dashboard notes that they show "Estimated Royalties."
5. Be sure you're comparing identical timeframes. For instance, set the report to "Last Month" on both AHS and KDP.
6. If you have multiple pen names, please ensure that you are looking at the correct account's data by selecting the correct author name from the drop-down in the top menu.
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