The reimbursement audit routine what to check on arrival, weekly and monthly
Amazon's shortest claim windows are 7 and 15 days, so a monthly check alone is too slow for some of them. A three-pass routine built from those clocks, the reports to pull, and a deadline log.
Why a monthly check alone is late
Amazon does not give one deadline for reimbursement. It gives a clock for each kind of loss, and each clock starts on a different event. On amazon.in the shortest claim windows are 7 days (a removal order delivered short or damaged, counted from delivery) and 15 days (a SAFE-T claim on an Easy Ship, Self-Ship or Seller Flex return). The claim-based FBA windows run from those 7 days up to 60.
Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA lost inventory reimbursement policy (amazon.in, read October 2026).
Source: Amazon Seller Central, SAFE-T policy for Easy Ship, Self-Ship and Seller Flex orders (amazon.in, read October 2026).
Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.
A monthly audit sees each event late. Say you audit on the 1st, and the events you are checking happened evenly across the 30 days before it. The audit then meets each one between 1 and 30 days after it happened. By that arithmetic 23 of every 30 removal deliveries are already older than 7 days when the audit meets them, so their 7-day claims have closed. Taking the return date as the start, half of the seller-fulfilled returns are older than 15 days, so their SAFE-T claims have closed too. A later refund date moves the start, so some of them still have days left.
That is why the routine has three passes, not one. The 60-day claims suit the monthly pass. The short ones need a check at the moment a carton or a return arrives.
Three passes, set by the shortest clock
Our advice: match the pass to the clock.
- On arrival, same day. Protects the 7-day removal clock and the 15-day SAFE-T clock.
- Weekly, about 20 minutes. Removals in transit (30 days), seller-fulfilled returns still to claim, and shipments that have closed.
- Monthly, about an hour. Lost and damaged units against payments (60 days), refunded returns that never came back, payment amounts and storage charges.
The passes are in order of how little time they have. Nothing in the weekly pass replaces the arrival check: a carton delivered the day after a weekly pass is already six days into a 7-day window by the next one.
On arrival: the 7-day and 15-day clocks
A removal carton arrives
Open it that day and count the units against the removal order. If a unit is short, damaged or not the one you sent, the claim window is 7 days from delivery. For a shipment that reached you short, Amazon asks for the removal order ID, the tracking ID, the FNSKUs missing, an image of the whole shipping label, proof of delivery stating that units were missing, and an image of the contents with the quantity visible (plus the sides of the outer box, if it shows signs of tampering). It may also require an unboxing video, recorded continuously from start to end: it does not accept footage in two or more pieces, or with pauses. Our advice is to start filming before you cut the tape, not after you notice a problem.
If the carrier's website shows the package delivered but it never reached you, ask for proof of delivery. Amazon counts the same 7 days from the delivery date shown on the carrier's website. Nothing arrives to prompt a check in this case, so our advice is to look at the tracking of every removal order in transit in the weekly pass, and again on the day each one is due.
Amazon's page puts the missing-units evidence list under its removal-lost heading, which counts 30 days from shipping, while its table gives 7 days from delivery for a shipment delivered but not received. Plan on the shorter 7 days.
Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA lost inventory reimbursement policy (amazon.in, read October 2026).
The removal order guide has the full evidence list, and the returns evidence checklist has the photographs to take.
An Easy Ship or Self-Ship return arrives
Write down the date Seller Central marks the shipment returned or delivered to you, and check whether the buyer has been refunded by Amazon Customer Service. A SAFE-T claim is due within 15 calendar days of the later of those two dates, and a returned shipment is not eligible if no refund was issued, or the refund was not issued by Customer Service. Amazon also tells you not to discard a bad return before the refund, and to keep the photographs, packaging and labels.
Source: Amazon Seller Central, SAFE-T policy for Easy Ship, Self-Ship and Seller Flex orders (amazon.in, read October 2026).
The SAFE-T guide covers filing, exclusions and why claims are refused.
The weekly pass
About 20 minutes, on the same day each week. Each step ends by writing what it found into the log below.
Removals in transit
5 minOpen Supply chain, then Supply chain reports, and under Removals open Removal Order Detail, which lists each removal order with its status and the quantity shipped. Check it against your own receiving record and list the orders that have shipped but not reached you. A removal shipment lost, with no delivered notification, is a claim within 30 days of the date the removal order shipped. Self-pickup removals are not reimbursed at all.
Seller-fulfilled returns
5 minOpen Orders, then Manage returns, for the returns that have come back or are due. Then open Orders, Resolve claims, then Manage SAFE-T claims to see what is already filed. For each return with a bad unit, work out its 15-day deadline from the later of the two dates. For a return that never came back, the window is days 50 to 75 after the refund, replacement or exchange, once you have checked it has not been reimbursed on Amazon's own. If Amazon refunded the buyer for a Self-Ship order as not delivered, there is no return, and the 15 days count from the refund. If the buyer shipped the return back themselves, the window is days 30 to 60 after the return request instead, so check which applies to the order.
Shipments that have closed
5 minOpen Supply chain, then Manage shipments. For each shipment with the status Closed, use View Details, go to the Contents tab, and look for a SKU where the units located are fewer than the units expected. Amazon says to raise a missing-inbound claim no sooner than 14 days after the receive date. Its policy table counts the 60 days from delivery and its text from the receive date; our advice is to count from delivery, as in the log below.
Write it down
5 minEvery unit that might be a claim goes into the log with its deadline, even if you plan to file later in the week. The log is how a Thursday finding survives to Monday.
Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA lost inventory reimbursement policy (amazon.in, read October 2026).
More on step 3 in the inbound discrepancies guide.
The monthly pass
About an hour, on the 1st or as close to it as you can, covering the month just ended. Each day you wait takes a day off the 60-day clocks. Step 5 waits until the storage charge has posted, in the second week.
Pull the two reports
10 minUnder Supply chain reports, pull Inventory Ledger (Summary view) under Inventory and Reimbursements under Payments, both for the month. The online Reimbursements view shows at most 10,000 items; download the report for more.
Match lost and damaged units to payments
25 minIn the ledger, find SKUs with units in the Lost or Damaged columns, and open the Detailed view with Event Type set to Adjustments for the rows behind them. Look up each FNSKU in the Reimbursements report. Units with no matching payment are candidates. Check for a matching transfer or found units first; the ledger guide shows how. Units lost in the fulfilment centre are a claim within 60 days of the inventory adjustment. Units damaged in the fulfilment centre are reimbursed automatically within 60 days of the adjustment, so look for the payment before raising a case.
Refunded returns that never came back
10 minFor a customer return, Amazon reimburses automatically if the unit has not returned to the fulfilment centre within 45 days of the refund, or of the replacement order if a replacement was sent instead. List the orders past 45 days whose unit has not come back, and look each up in the Reimbursements report by Amazon Order ID. A buyer-damaged or carrier-damaged return is paid automatically on a 45-day clock from the unit reaching the fulfilment centre. If a return that never arrived has passed day 45 with no payment, contact Selling Partner Support and ask them to investigate the order.
You may see "45 to 105 days" quoted from a January 2025 seller-forum announcement. When we asked Amazon Selling Partner Support in October 2026, they answered that the 105-day window is not part of the current policy, and they named no later cut-off. Our advice: raise it in the week it passes day 45 instead of waiting.
Check the amounts paid
10 minCompare each payment from the month with your own expected figure. Amazon pays an effective rate times the fair market value less fees, so a payment can be made in full by Amazon's arithmetic and still be lower than you expected. A re-evaluation request must be filed within 60 days of the original reimbursement. See the damaged inventory guide for the formula.
Storage charge
5 minThe long-term storage charge for a month is applied in the first week of the next month, so do this step in the second week, once it has posted. The report shows only the most recent cycle: download the Aged Inventory Surcharge report under Payments before the next cycle replaces it. If a charge looks wrong, notify Amazon within 60 calendar days of the charge.
Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA lost inventory reimbursement policy (amazon.in, read October 2026).
Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA inventory reimbursement policy (damaged inventory) (amazon.in, read October 2026).
Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA fulfilment centre reimbursement FAQ (amazon.in, read October 2026).
Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA long-term Storage Fee (amazon.in, read October 2026).
Keep a deadline log
One row per candidate, in any spreadsheet. The column that does the work is deadline: the clock's start date plus the window. Sort by it every time you open the sheet.
found_on | type | sku | fnsku | qty | clock_starts_on | window_days | deadline | filed_on | case_id | amount_expected | amount_received | status
Keep the windows beside it, so nobody has to remember which clock starts where.
DAYS CLOCK STARTS ON
7 removal delivered short or
damaged: delivery date
15 SAFE-T: later of return
delivered to you and refund
(not delivered: the refund)
30 removal shipment lost:
date the order shipped
30-60 SAFE-T, buyer self-shipped
return not received: days
after the return request
45 FBA return not received:
automatic payment due, days
from refund or replacement
order; then ask support
50-75 SAFE-T return not received:
from refund or replacement;
log day 75 as the deadline
60 lost in warehouse: date of
the inventory adjustment
60 missing from inbound: delivery
date (our advice); not before
14 days after receipt
60 re-evaluation: date of the
original reimbursement
60 wrong storage charge: the
charge date (calendar days)Three worked dates, so you can check your own arithmetic:
- A unit adjusted as lost on 12 September: 60 days later is 11 November.
- A removal carton delivered on 3 October, with a unit missing: 7 days later is 10 October.
- An Easy Ship return marked delivered to you on 8 October, with the buyer refund on 12 October: the later date is 12 October, and 15 days later is 27 October.
Amazon does not say whether the day of the event counts as day 0 or day 1. File at least a day before the deadline you calculate; that is our advice, not Amazon's.
Use the same three outcome words as the returns evidence checklist: PAID IN FULL, PAID SHORT, DENIED. Add one more, LAPSED, for a row whose deadline passed unfiled. Counting your LAPSED rows each month tells you which pass is too slow.
Before you file, and after it pays
The Reimbursements report shows what Amazon paid or decided, never what it missed. A unit with no payment against it is a lead, and the audit exists to turn leads into researched claims, not to file one for every gap. Amazon's own policy lists insufficiently researched or premature requests, and high volumes of requests in a short period of time, as activity that interferes with its capacity to help other sellers. For SAFE-T, among the suspicious filing metrics that can lead to denial, it names a claims-to-returns ratio above 8%.
Source: Amazon Seller Central, FBA lost inventory reimbursement policy (amazon.in, read October 2026).
Source: Amazon Seller Central, SAFE-T policy for Easy Ship, Self-Ship and Seller Flex orders (amazon.in, read October 2026).
After a case closes, the clocks start again: an appeal on a resolved case must be made within five business days of the last resolution date, and a dispute within seven days of the case closure date. Both need valid reasons and supporting documents. Put those dates in the log when a case resolves.
Where Unilytic fits
Unilytic syncs the Inventory Ledger, the reimbursements and the returns reports from Amazon. Its Returns Reconciliation page has a tab for FBA returns refunded but not received (monthly step 3) and one for seller-fulfilled returns (the weekly SAFE-T check), with a claim-window label on each line that has one. Two more tabs list returns that came back damaged or unsellable at the fulfilment centre, and the reimbursements Amazon has paid. Those tabs work from the returns and reimbursement reports, so matching ledger Lost and Damaged adjustments to payments (monthly step 2) stays a manual step. The closing day that tab currently shows for refunded FBA returns, day 105, comes from the older announcement above, not from Amazon's current policy. Treat a "closed" label on an FBA line as a prompt to ask Amazon support, not as a deadline. In the warehouse workspace, a scanned damaged return with no claim yet shows a deadline badge for the 15-day SAFE-T and 7-day removal clocks.
Unilytic does not file claims, and it does not track every clock on this page. The inbound shipment, warehouse-lost, removal-lost, re-evaluation and storage charge windows stay in your log. See FBA reimbursement tracking and the recovery use case.
Questions sellers ask
How often should I audit my Amazon FBA reimbursements?
Amazon gives no schedule, only claim windows, so our advice is to set the schedule by the shortest window you face. On amazon.in a removal order delivered short or damaged must be claimed within 7 days of delivery, so those cartons are checked the day they arrive. Seller-fulfilled returns (SAFE-T) have a 15-day clock, so they get a check when they arrive and again in the weekly pass. The 60-day claims, such as units lost in the fulfilment centre, can be checked monthly: a pass on the 1st leaves at least 29 days, and each day later takes a day off.
What is the shortest claim window on amazon.in?
Seven days, among the FBA and SAFE-T claim windows this guide covers. Amazon's FBA reimbursement policies give 7 days from delivery for a removal shipment that is delivered but not received, damaged, or switched. The next shortest is the SAFE-T claim for Easy Ship, Self-Ship and Seller Flex returns: 15 calendar days from the later of the return being marked returned or delivered to you and the refund to the buyer.
How do I find units Amazon lost but did not reimburse?
Compare two reports for the same period: units in the Lost and Damaged columns of the Inventory Ledger, and the Reimbursements report, matched by FNSKU. Units in the ledger with no matching payment are candidates, not proven claims: check for a matching transfer, found units and automatic payments still due first, and remember that Amazon decides each claim under its own policy.
Does a payment in the Reimbursements report mean I was paid enough?
No. The report shows what Amazon paid, not what it should have paid. Amazon works out the amount itself from a fair market value (capped at ₹1,00,000 per item) less fees, so compare each payment with your own expected figure. A re-evaluation request must be filed within 60 days of the original reimbursement.
Can I file all my claims in one batch at the end of the month?
You can, but short windows will have closed on some of them, and Amazon's policy says that insufficiently researched or premature requests, and high volumes of requests in a short period of time, interfere with its capacity to help other sellers. Filing each researched claim as the weekly or monthly pass finds it avoids both problems.
What if a claim window has already closed?
Treat it as closed. The policy pages we read describe no way to reopen a missed claim window, and Amazon's shipment statuses include Claim window expired. The useful response is to find out why the pass missed it, and fix the cadence so the next one is caught.
FBA reimbursements in India
Amazon now pays some losses without a case - but its report only shows what it paid, never what it missed. How to read the reimbursement report, what Amazon pays for a lost unit, and how to find what is still owed.
How to read the Amazon Inventory Ledger
The bank statement for your FBA stock: the two views, the columns and event types, how to reconcile a SKU, and the three traps that make stock look lost when it is not.
The returns evidence checklist
What to photograph and record on every returned unit, so a claim has evidence behind it instead of being reduced or refused for the lack of it. Set it up in about 30 minutes, on a phone you already own.
SAFE-T claims for Easy Ship and Self-Ship
How to file a SAFE-T claim on amazon.in: the 15-day window and the three others, what SAFE-T will not pay for, why claims are refused, and the patterns that get SAFE-T blocked.
FBA inbound shipment discrepancies in India
Amazon counted fewer units than you sent. How to reconcile the shipment on amazon.in, the 14-day and 60-day window, the documents it asks for, what it pays, and how to stop short receipts happening.
FBA removal orders in India
How to remove stock from an Amazon fulfilment centre: the two ways to create an order, the bulk file, what Amazon charges, how long it takes, and the 30-day and 7-day windows if units arrive short or damaged.
FBA damaged inventory reimbursement in India
What Amazon pays for a unit damaged in a fulfilment centre or by a buyer: the formula, flat and grade-based rates, what changed on 5 March 2026, worked examples, and how to check a payment.