Provisions for Receivables

Provisions for receivables are temporary credit memos placed on vendor accounts by Amazon. These occur when the expected costs from returns, marketing, and rebates owed to Amazon exceed the forecasted payments due to the vendor. The purpose is to prevent a debit balance on vendor accounts.

These provisions are deducted from payments due to vendors and adjusted based on actual costs and payments. A provision is shown with a date format of YYMMDD_PROVISION_FOR_RECEIVABLES, indicating when it was placed. For example, 161017_PROVISION_FOR_RECEIVABLES would mean the provision was made on October 17, 2016.

Provisions are reversed when relevant invoices are settled or a decision is made not to return the inventory. A reversed provision is indicated with YYMMDD_PROVISION_FOR_RECEIVABLESR. Provisions are recalculated daily, and since they are not actual deductions, no invoice copies are produced.