The short answer
Download the payout report for the period, match each payout to the orders it covers, and record the gross food sales. Then record commissions, promotions, adjustments and any tax the platform handled as separate lines. What's left should equal the deposit to the cent.
Why the deposit doesn't equal your DoorDash sales
DoorDash, like most delivery platforms, pays you net. Before the money reaches your bank, the platform has already taken its commission, the cost of any promotions you ran, and any refunds or error charges for orders that went wrong. Payouts also run on the platform's own schedule, so one deposit can cover orders from several days.
If you record the deposit as your sales, three things go wrong at once: sales look lower than they were, the platform's fees never show up as a cost, and you can't tell what delivery actually earns compared to dine-in.
Step by step
- Pull the payout report from the merchant portal for the same dates as your bookkeeping period, plus a few days either side to catch orders that straddle the cut-off.
- List each payout with its date, amount and the order dates it includes.
- Record gross sales from the order subtotals, not from the deposit.
- Split out what the platform kept: commission, marketing and promotion costs, refunds and error charges, and any other adjustments, each to its own account.
- Check the tax. Depending on where you operate, the platform may collect and remit sales tax for you, or pass it through to you to remit. Which one applies changes what you owe, so confirm it for every state or province you sell in.
- Match to the bank. Gross sales, less everything the platform kept, should equal the payout. Match it to the deposit and note any payout that's missing or late.
Example: one weekly payout
Example figures only. Your commission rate and fees depend on your plan and agreement.
What to watch for
- Driver tips paid by customers go to the driver. They aren't your sales and shouldn't appear in your revenue.
- Error charges for missing or wrong items add up quickly. Tracked as their own line, they show which location or shift has a packing problem.
- Promotions are a marketing cost. Netting them against sales hides what the promotion cost you.
- Several locations on one account need splitting by store, or no location's P&L is right.
- The same method for every platform. Uber Eats, Skip and others work the same way: gross sales in, fees out, payout matched.
How Savoury handles it
Platform sales are recorded gross, with fees split out, so you know what each channel actually makes. Every payout is matched to its orders and to the bank, location by location.
POS & payment reconciliation