The supplier who says you overcharged
A supplier emails their account manager with a spreadsheet. By their calculation, you took more commission last quarter than their agreement allows. Some of it is refunds: orders were refunded in full, but the commission deducted from their payout was never returned. Some of it is a category they were told would be charged at a lower rate. Some of it is their own mistake. Your finance team has to go through it order by order to find out which.
At the same time, your own management accounts show commission income that does not quite match what the payment provider reports. Nobody is sure why.
Why commission drifts from what it should be
Commission looks simple: a percentage of each sale. In a B2B marketplace it rarely is. Rates vary by category and sometimes by supplier. Some suppliers have negotiated rates or promotional periods. Delivery charges may or may not attract commission. Orders change after they are placed: lines cancelled, quantities reduced, partial refunds, credits for damaged goods.
The commission is usually calculated once, at order or dispatch, and deducted from the supplier payout. Later changes are handled by whoever processes them, in whatever way they think is right.
| Event after the order | Commission question |
|---|---|
| Full refund | Is commission returned to the supplier? |
| Partial credit | Is commission adjusted proportionally? |
| Cancelled line before dispatch | Should commission ever have been taken? |
| Rate change mid-period | Which rate applies to which orders? |
| Supplier-specific rate | Was it applied, and from when? |
What commission drift costs
Overcharging suppliers damages trust and invites disputes that take hours to resolve. Undercharging is income you are entitled to and never collect. Commission income in your accounts that cannot be tied back to orders makes reporting and forecasting unreliable. And when a supplier challenges a statement, answering takes days.
The commercial team loses out as well. Decisions about category rates, supplier deals and promotional periods are made without a clear view of what commission they actually produced after refunds and credits. A rate cut to win a large supplier may look affordable on gross sales and much less so on the final numbers.
The commission ledger we build
- Rate rules: commission rates by category, supplier agreement, period and charge type are held as data with effective dates, maintained by your commercial team.
- Order final state: each order's final state is built from the platform and payment provider, including cancellations, partial refunds and credits.
- Recalculation: expected commission is recalculated per order line from the final state and the rules that applied on the relevant date.
- Comparison: expected commission is compared with what was actually deducted from payouts or invoiced to the supplier, through your payment provider, such as Stripe Connect, and your accounts package.
- Differences: each difference is listed with its cause, such as refund not reversed or wrong category rate, and corrections are drafted for your finance team to approve as adjustments on the next payout or as credit notes.
- Supplier statements: suppliers receive a monthly commission statement by order, so they can check it themselves.
How commission applies to refunds and credits is set by your supplier agreements. The ledger applies whatever those agreements say, consistently.
Month end with the ledger
Finance reviews a list of differences with causes, rather than rebuilding commission from order exports. Supplier queries are answered from the statement. Commission income in the accounts ties back to orders, and the commercial team can see the effect of rate changes and negotiated rates on real sales.
Does commission cause arguments here?
- Suppliers have challenged commission on their statements.
- Refunded orders do not always have commission reversed.
- Supplier-specific rates are applied by hand.
- Commission income does not match the payment provider's reports.
- Answering a supplier query takes days of spreadsheet work.