Your revenue is up. Your bank balance disagrees.
By Jonny Golding · September 24, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
Your revenue is up. Your bank balance disagrees.
That conversation almost never traces back to advertising.
The money is leaving through reconciliation, and nobody in the monthly review is assigned to look there.
Four things changed behind you:
1- Reimbursements got repriced
Since March 2025, Amazon reimburses lost and damaged FBA inventory at sourcing cost, not selling price. Recoveries dropped 50 to 75 percent on average.
2- Blank cost fields cost you twice
Leave the SKU cost field empty and Amazon uses its own estimate. Usually lower than what you paid.
3- Returns fees widened
Returns processing now applies to nearly every category, not just apparel. And a blended 8 percent return rate can hide one SKU sitting at 27.
4- Fees moved to variant level
Low-inventory fees are assessed per FNSKU now. The parent reads healthy while one variant accrues charges underneath it.
Then add timing
Standard storage runs around $0.78 per cubic foot off-peak. Roughly $2.40 from October to December.
Same pallet, three times the cost. The aged inventory surcharge starts at day 181.
None of that appears on an ACOS report.
Six of the seven leaks below are reconciliation. One is reporting. All seven sit between finance, ops and whoever runs the account, which means they sit nowhere.
That is why they run for quarters before anyone puts a number on them.
Swipe through the seven below 👇