ChannelEngine: settlement export and customization [beta]

About this article

This article describes how to automatically export settlement reports to FTP or email and how to create custom settlement reports. 

Table of contents

Introduction

Export settlements

Custom settlement reports

FAQs

Introduction

Each payment that a marketplace sends to a merchant is included in a settlement report. You reconcile the totals in the settlement report with the amount you received from the marketplace to verify your payments from the marketplace.

You can already access the standard settlement reports that your marketplaces provide via the ChannelEngine web interface or the Merchant API. For guidance on retrieving the standard reports, check out the article ChannelEngine: settlement reports.

If you wish to export your settlement reports to FTP or email, or to create a custom settlement report based on the available data on ChannelEngine, then you can use the ChannelEngine Settlement Export plugin on your dashboard.

Export settlements

To export settlement reports via the web interface, add the Settlement Export plugin to your dashboard.

1. From the sidebar menu, go to Plugins, and select the plugin from the dashboard.
2. Go to the Setup step of the plugin. Configure the settings as follows:
   • Export settlements automatically - choose your preferred method for receiving settlement reports: via email or FTP server. 
     • If email is selected, provide the email address for the settlement export. 
     • If FTP server is selected, make sure to enter the required credentials in the Connection settings, i.e.: hostname, username, password, root folder, and port number. 
     • It is also possible to choose No. In this case, you retrieve your settlements via the Merchant API.
   • Settlement report type - select the type of the settlement report to be exported to your email or FTP server. Options are:
     • Detailed - a detailed report containing all transactions. It includes the currency, transaction type, order ID, VAT, and net/gross amount.
     • Detailed (extended) - a report that contains all the fields as the Detailed option does, with the addition of the following fields per row: ChannelId, Channelname, StartDate, EndDate, CurrentReserveAmount, PreviousReserveAmount, ReserveMutationAmount, PaymentAmount.
     • Custom JSON mapper - a custom settlement report. You specify which data to include in the report. To configure the settings required for the custom JSON mapper, refer to the Custom settlement reports section of this article.
   • Settlement file type - choose the preferred file format, CSV or CSV (for Excel). If you open reports in Microsoft Excel, select CSV (for Excel) for better compatibility.
3. Click Save.
4. To activate the plugin on ChannelEngine, go to the Activation tab and toggle the Activate synchronization for settlement export setting.

Once activated, ChannelEngine starts executing the Export settlements to merchant task and sending the settlement reports in CSV format to your email or FTP(S) server. The frequency of the task is set to once a day. To see the latest scheduled tasks, their status, and the next schedule, go to the Dashboard.

Custom settlement reports

Use the custom JSON mapper to generate a custom settlement report in CSV format. This report unifies the format of settlements retrieved from various marketplaces, making it easier to settle orders in your systems (e.g.: ERP, financial system). Custom settlement reports are retrievable only by setting up the automated exports in the Settlement exports plugin.

The report has four parts: order, product, additional costs, and fee corrections. These parts appear in the following order:

1. Order - includes order proceeds and various types of commissions.
2. Product - includes marketplace inventory fees.
3. Additional costs - includes other fees charged by the marketplace, such as marketplace fulfillment fees or subscription fees.
4. Fee corrections - includes adjustments made by the marketplace to correct errors when calculating fees. These corrections are not related to specific orders.

The table below lists all ChannelEngine fields available for mapping.

Setup for custom settlement reports

To generate a custom settlement report in CSV format:

1. Go to Setup, Settings in the ChannelEngine Settlement Export plugin.
2. In the Settlement report type dropdown, select Custom JSON mapper.
3. Proceed to the Plugin-specific settings.
4. In the Custom JSON mapper, map ChannelEngine fields to your preferred names. To do so:
   1. Choose the fields to add to the report from the table above.
   2. Input the data in JSON format as shown below. For each ChannelEngine field you add, set the active value to 1 if the field should be included in the report. To hide a certain field, set its value to 0.
   3. Provide the appropriate name for each ChannelEngine field in the name field. E.g.: the JSON configuration below renames the field orderProceeds to 'Order proceeds' in the report. Note that the revenue field is not included in the settlement report as its active value is set to 0.

   4. Lastly, specify the sortId of the property to determine its horizontal placement in the CSV file.

      {
       "mapping": 
       {
        "orderProceeds": 
        {
         "active": 1,
         "name": "Order proceeds",
         "sortId": 1
        },
       "fees":   
        {
        "active": 1,
        "name": "fees",
        "sortId": 2
        },
       "revenue": 
        {
        "active": 0,
        "name": "revenue",
        "sortId": 3
        }
       }
      }

5. To include the reference field in the report, enter the value in the corresponding Channel reference for [marketplace] setting on the Setup page. This will be your unique reference for the marketplace.
6. You can easily exclude specific parts from the report (i.e.: order, product, or additional costs) by disabling the corresponding settings at the bottom of the Setup page. To include a certain part in the report, add one or several fields related to that part to the JSON, and make sure the corresponding setting is enabled. E.g.: if you want to add the orderId , orderProceeds, and revenue to your settlement report, make sure the Include order part in export setting is enabled.

FAQs

How do I know if my automated settlement report exports have succeeded?
ChannelEngne runs a scheduled task to export settlement reports to your email or FTP server, and you opt into receiving a notification when this task fails. To receive notifications if the export fails, set up the Settlement export failed notification. For guidance on setting up this and other notifications, check out the article ChannelEngine: how to configure notifications.