A marketplace settlement lands short for three separate reasons: fees the platform charges you, taxes it collects out of the sale for the government, and recoveries it takes back after a delivered order went wrong.
Telling them apart is the whole job: only one of the three is genuinely disputable, and only one of them comes back to you. All three belong to the money that leaves after the sale; the fee arithmetic already has a calculator of its own.
None of this is tax advice. Every deduction below is named with the section it is taken under and the place its rate is published, so your CA can check a figure in a minute.
Meesho payment kam aaya — baaki paisa kahan gaya?
Sort the report’s lines by type before you add anything up, and it will separate the three piles for you on its own.
The single most common cause of a short payout is timing. A cycle carries returns and courier returns belonging to orders paid to you in an earlier cycle, and those land as negative lines against this cycle’s sales. The credit is small because it is settling reversals from last month.
| Family, as it appears on the report | Who sets the amount | Can you price it before you list? | Disputable? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fee — commission, fixed or closing fee, shipping you pay, GST on those fees | Your own rate card in the seller panel | Yes, to the rupee | Only where the band applied is not the band on your card |
| Tax — TCS under GST, TDS under income tax | The law, not the platform | Yes, though it is not a cost | No — the platform is holding your money, not keeping it |
| Recovery — return freight, weight discrepancy, penalty, customer compensation | An event after dispatch | No, only its likelihood | Often, with evidence and inside a window |
Which of these lines are fees, and where do I price them?
Commission, the fixed or closing fee, the shipping you pay, and the 18% GST charged on those fees: those four are the fee pile. All four are priced per piece against your own rate card.
To work the other way, from the profit you want in hand back to a listing price that survives all of it, use the Reverse Price Calculator.
Matching the report against the bank credit is still your own sheet, once a month.
What is TCS on a marketplace sale, and where does it come back?
The marketplace holds back a share of your sale value and deposits it with the GST department against your GSTIN. That is TCS — tax collected at source, under section 52 of the CGST Act.
The collection is worked on the net value of taxable supplies made through that operator in a month (everything sold through it, less what came back as returns inside the same month). A return processed in a later month reduces that later month’s net value, which is why the deduction never falls in step with the refund a buyer received.
The rate itself is set by notification under section 52. The rate in force since 10 July 2024 is 0.5% of that net value: 0.25% CGST plus 0.25% SGST within a state, or 0.5% IGST across states. It has been changed once already, so the figure to price on is the one published on the GST portal on the day you are pricing.
The money comes back on that same portal. The operator files a monthly statement of what it collected, and the amount appears against your GSTIN under TDS and TCS credit received. Accepting it there adds it to your cash balance, to be set against your own GST liability. TCS is not an expense. It is your tax, paid early, by somebody else.
Is TDS on e-commerce the same deduction as TCS?
No. TDS on an e-commerce sale is an income-tax deduction under section 194-O of the Income-tax Act. TCS is a GST collection under section 52 of the CGST Act. Separate laws, separate departments, and the money surfaces in two different places.
They are also worked on different amounts. Section 194-O takes its deduction from the gross amount of the sale, before the platform takes anything, while section 52 works on the month’s net value of taxable supplies. The two percentages cannot be added together, because they are percentages of two different numbers.
The rate under 194-O in force since 1 October 2024 is 0.1% of the gross amount. The section also carries a threshold: no deduction where the seller is a resident individual or Hindu Undivided Family whose gross sales through that operator stay within ₹5,00,000 in a financial year. The threshold also requires the PAN or Aadhaar to be on the account. Where the PAN does not match, section 206AA pushes the deduction to a higher rate, and the only place to correct it is the account details.
| Deduction | Law and section | Worked on (the basis) | Where it comes back to you |
|---|---|---|---|
| TCS — tax collected at source | Section 52, CGST Act | Net value of taxable supplies through that operator in the month, sales less returns | TDS and TCS credit received on the GST portal, against your GST liability |
| TDS — tax deducted at source | Section 194-O, Income-tax Act | Gross amount of the sale, before fees | Form 26AS and the AIS on the income-tax portal, against income tax for the year |
What are the recovery lines on a settlement report?
Four kinds of recovery turn up on a jewellery catalogue: freight on a return, a weight discrepancy, a penalty, and compensation credited to a customer. All of them are money taken back after an order was already counted as a sale. This is the pile where mistakes actually happen.
A weight discrepancy is raised when the hub weighs and measures the parcel and reads a different figure from the one your catalogue declared. The charge is per parcel, and it repeats on every parcel of that piece until the declared weight and box size are corrected, so it turns up as a run of identical small deductions. Why a courier’s figure can be larger than the reading on your own scale is a courier question, and the Courier Rate Comparator answers it.
Every penalty belongs to one order: a dispatch handed over after the promised window, a cancellation raised from your side, an SLA the platform names in its policy. Check each one against that order.
Where a piece arrives damaged, wrong or missing, the buyer is given compensation and the platform recovers it from your settlement. Behind that line is a claim, and what the platform will actually look at when a return arrives wrong or empty decides whether it stays on your report.
Both the weight line and the compensation line are decided at the packing table, a week before they appear on the report. The box that fixes the declared weight and the seal that survives a return are covered in packing a piece so the claim is winnable.
How do I match one payout against one report?
Work one payout against one report and nothing else. With two cycles open at once, lines from one keep explaining the other.
- Fix the payout: its date, its amount and the cycle it belongs to.
- Download the order-level report for that cycle from the payments section of the panel. The summary is the thing you are trying to explain.
- Total the report’s net column against the credit. If those two agree, no money is missing and the only question left is what it was made up of.
- Sort the lines into the three piles by type.
- Pull out the lines that are not this cycle’s sales: returns, courier returns and reversals of orders paid earlier. Most of the gap is usually sitting here.
- Only then read the tax lines, against the cycle’s taxable sales, because that is the basis they are worked on.
- What is still unexplained is now a short list, and that is what you raise.
What can I actually dispute, and what cannot be reversed?
Some of these lines are simply the terms you accepted when you listed, and chasing them uses up the time the real errors needed.
The disputable ones all look the same: the platform recorded an event differently from the way it happened, and you have evidence with a timestamp on it. A recovery for a return that never reached you. A weight discrepancy against a parcel whose box you can show. A penalty for a dispatch a manifest puts inside the window. A fee charged at a band your rate card does not carry.
The rest are not open. Commission at your agreed rate, the GST on those fees and both tax deductions are not the platform’s to reverse. TCS and TDS are already with the government by the time the report reaches you, and you get them back when you file your returns.
Each platform runs its own window for raising a recovery, counted from the settlement date, and states that window in the panel. Raise it from the order line so the order number, the claim and the attachments arrive together.
Where do I check the rates that apply to me this month?
Three places, one for each pile. The GST portal carries the collection and its rate: against your GSTIN you will find both the operator’s monthly statement and your TDS and TCS credit received table. For the income-tax deduction, look in Form 26AS and the AIS on the income-tax portal. Fees are in your own rate card in the seller panel, the only fee card that describes your account.
Both tax rates named on this page have been changed by notification since 2024, which is why a screenshot forwarded in a seller group is not a source. It carries no date, no section and no state — the three things that decide whether it applies to you at all.
Keep one distinction straight. The GST you charge on the piece sits on the bill you issue, which the Jewellery GST Invoice Maker works out line by line. The tax collected on your settlement is a collection against your GSTIN, out of what the marketplace already owes you. They meet only on the return you file.
Do this much before the next payout lands. Open the GST portal, go to the TDS and TCS credit received table against your GSTIN, and accept what the operator has filed. Until you accept it, that money is not on your cash balance. Then pull the order-level report for the cycle you were last paid for and sort it into the three piles. Whatever is still unexplained after that is the list to put in front of your CA.