A payout nobody can explain
A payout from one platform lands in the bank. It covers four sites and a week of orders. It is lower than the delivery sales in the EPOS by more than the commission rate would explain. Somewhere inside it are refunds for missing items, a charge for a promotion the marketing team opted into, an adjustment from a previous week and a tablet rental fee. The statement is a long PDF or CSV. Finance posts the payout as one figure and moves on, because there is no time to pick it apart.
The ops director asks whether delivery is actually profitable at the smaller sites. Nobody can answer with confidence. The GMs have their own view, usually that delivery makes the kitchen chaotic on a Friday night, but there is no figure to set against that feeling, so the decision about whether to keep a site on each platform is made on instinct.
Why delivery income is so hard to pin down
- Each platform uses its own statement format and payout cycle.
- Payouts can combine several sites or brands under one account.
- Deductions include commission, promotions, refunds, adjustments and fees, often grouped differently each time.
- Orders may or may not be injected into the EPOS, so the till total may not match the platform's order list.
- Refunds for missing or wrong items are charged back weeks later.
What an unreconciled channel costs
Without reconciliation, the group does not know the real margin on delivery by site. Refunds that point to a kitchen problem, such as a site regularly missing sides, go unnoticed. Promotions are opted into without anyone checking what they cost against the orders they brought. Occasional platform errors are never challenged, because nobody has the data to challenge them. And delivery sales in the site P&L are shown gross or net inconsistently, which makes sites hard to compare.
How we reconcile delivery by site
- We read statements from each platform, through their partner reporting or scheduled downloads, and break them into orders and deductions.
- Each order is assigned to its site and matched to the EPOS record where orders are injected, or reconciled against the platform's daily totals where they are not.
- Deductions are categorised: commission, promotions, refunds, adjustments, fees.
- Each payout is matched to the bank deposit, and the difference between gross sales and cash received is explained line by line.
- Refunds are reported by site and reason, so repeated missing items show up as a kitchen or packing issue.
- A delivery view shows each site's gross sales, deductions and net income by platform, ready to post to the accounts.
| Line on the statement | What we do with it | Who acts on it |
|---|---|---|
| Orders | Match to site and EPOS | Finance |
| Commission | Check against agreed rate | Finance, commercial lead |
| Promotions | Show cost against promoted orders | Marketing |
| Refunds | Report by site and reason | Ops and kitchen |
After the change
Finance posts delivery income by site with deductions broken out, rather than as one net figure. The ops director can see delivery margin by site and platform and decide where delivery is worth running. Marketing sees what each promotion cost. Kitchens see refunds for their site and the items involved, which is where improvements actually happen.
The reconciliation also creates a history, so questions to the platforms about a disputed charge are backed by order-level data.
Is this your delivery reporting?
- Platform payouts are posted as one figure with no breakdown.
- Payouts combine several sites and cannot be split.
- Nobody knows delivery margin by site.
- Refunds are not reviewed by site or item.
- Promotions are opted into without measuring their cost.