Courier statement reconciliation: making sure every COD payment reached you

Under cash on delivery, your money takes a detour. The customer pays the courier, the courier collects from hundreds of stores' customers, and then it transfers your share, minus its fees. Every week, a large part of your revenue sits with someone else, and the only proof you have of what you're owed is the courier's own statement.

Checking that statement against your orders is called reconciliation: comparing your internal records against external statements, so you catch differences before they turn into losses. Matching hundreds of lines by hand is slow. The five checks below, and the free tool at the end, make it quick.

How COD money reaches you

Each courier sets its own terms, usually in your contract. Two published examples:

• Bosta (Egypt) says in its help center that a cash-out transfer is the sum of revenue of all orders delivered the week before, counting only orders in a final state, such as delivered or returned to origin. How often it pays out depends on your order volume. The page dates from 2021, so check your current terms.
• Aramex, through the Saudi platform Salla, lists a COD fee of SAR 8.00 plus 1% of the order value per order, with COD amounts transferred twice a week.

Payouts can also carry deductions that have nothing to do with your orders. Bosta, for example, says that if you take a loan through Bosta Capital it will deduct 12% from the business cash-out transfer to repay it. That's fine if you agreed to it, but it's one more reason to check that each payout matches your delivered orders.

Cash isn't free either. BCG's analysis, reported by Enterprise, put the cost of cash in Egypt at about 1.8%. A payout that's short on top of that eats straight into your margin.

The five things to check

Put your courier's statement next to your store's order export for the same period, matched by tracking number or order number. Then look for:

1. Delivered but not paid. The order shows as delivered, in your store or with the courier, but it isn't in any payout.
2. Short payments. The amount the courier collected is less than the order's COD amount.
3. Fees above your agreed rate. The shipping or COD fee on a line is higher than the one in your contract.
4. Return fees on delivered orders. A return fee charged on an order your store shows as delivered.
5. Orders missing from the statement. Orders you handed over that don't appear on the courier's statement at all.

Each one is money you've earned and haven't received. Add up each group in your currency, and you have a claim to send the courier, with the order numbers attached.

Where to find each file

• The courier's statement: look in your courier's merchant dashboard, or ask your account manager, for the report that lists every order with its COD amount, fees and payout date.
• Your orders export: in Shopify, WooCommerce or EasyOrders, export the period's orders with order number, tracking number, status and total.
• Your agreed fees: your courier contract or price list.

How often

Check every payout if you can, and every month at the least. Differences are easier to claim while they're recent, and a pattern, such as the same fee error on every line, is easier to spot early. It's one of the monthly numbers in How to measure an online store's success.

Do it in minutes

The free courier statement checker matches your courier statement with your orders export in your browser. It works with Bosta's format and any other through column mapping. It lists every delivered order that wasn't paid, every short payment, every fee above your agreed rate, every return fee on a delivered order and every order missing from the statement, with the total to claim. Your files never leave your device. To see what each order should leave you once the cash arrives, use the COD profit calculator.

Common questions

What is courier reconciliation?

Comparing the courier's statement of what it collected and paid you with your own list of delivered orders, line by line, to find payments that are missing, short or carry the wrong fees.

How often do couriers pay COD money in Egypt?

It depends on the courier and your contract. Bosta's help center describes weekly or more frequent cash-out transfers depending on order volume. Check your own contract, since terms change.

What should I do if I find a difference?

Collect the order numbers, the amounts and the evidence for each one (your order record and the courier's line), and send them to your courier account manager as one claim. Keep a copy, and check the next payout for the correction.

Is my data safe in the courier statement checker?

The checker reads both files in your browser. Nothing is uploaded or stored.