$27,400 recovered from 18 months of FBA inventory discrepancies

The brand shipped about 4,000 units a month into FBA and had never audited the reimbursement reports. They assumed Amazon's automatic reimbursements covered everything. The Inventory Adjustments report alone had 1,300 lines they had never opened.

• Pulled 18 months of Inventory Adjustments, Inventory Reconciliation, Shipment, Returns and Reimbursements reports and matched every unit by FNSKU.
• Grouped the claims by type: lost inbound (shipment reconciliation), warehouse lost and damaged (codes M, E, D), and refunds without a return within 60 days.
• Filed in batches with the wording Amazon's policy uses, tracked every case ID, and re-opened the ones closed without a decision.

$27,400 reimbursed over eleven weeks, most of it inside the first month. A monthly audit now runs on the same account; the average recovery since is about $900 a month.

Why it worked

Automatic reimbursements cover the cases the system notices by itself. Everything else has to be claimed, inside a time window, with the right report lines attached. Matching units across five reports is slow work, which is why most sellers never do it and why the money stays unclaimed.

What to check on your own store

• Reconcile every inbound shipment once it closes: units sent against units received.
• Open the Inventory Adjustments report monthly and look for lost and damaged codes without a matching reimbursement.
• Check refunds where the item never came back to the warehouse.
• Claim windows have been shortened in recent years, so old discrepancies expire. Check the current policy and start with the oldest months.

Our free reimbursement estimator gives a rough figure before a full audit.