Why TRANSACTION_AMOUNT is not your revenue (and what to use instead)

Open any Whatnot weekly earnings report and the column that looks like “the sales number” is TRANSACTION_AMOUNT. It is on every order row, it is in dollars, it adds up to something plausible. Nearly everyone sums it and calls it revenue.

It is your payout: what Whatnot sent you after taking its commission, the payment processing fee, any shipping deduction, and tax on the fees. The identity holds on every row of the report:

TRANSACTION_AMOUNT = item price − commission − processing − shipping deducted − tax on fees

Two things go wrong when you treat it as revenue.

Mistake 1: your “sales” are understated

Sum payouts and you have understated gross sales by the fee total: 12.6% of sales in two years of sample data. If you compare that figure to what Whatnot’s dashboard shows, or to what a 1099-K reports, nothing reconciles. And your Schedule C Line 1 is wrong in the direction that also loses you a deduction.

Fix: gross sales = POST_COUPON_PRICE, or ORIGINAL_ITEM_PRICE plus COUPON_COST (the coupon is stored as a negative) on older reports.

Mistake 2: you subtract the fees twice

The more expensive mistake. Spreadsheet logic that feels right:

Net = TRANSACTION_AMOUNT − COMMISSION_FEE − PAYMENT_PROCESSING_FEE − cost of goods

But the payout already has those fees taken out. Subtracting them again understates your net by the entire fee total, about 13% of sales.

Plenty of spreadsheets do exactly this. Gross defined as the sum of payouts, then the fee columns subtracted to get net, leaves profit low by about 13% of sales in the sample data. The arithmetic looks flawless; the definition is wrong. The check that catches it is the fee identity: gross minus fees must equal payout on every row.

Fix: net = payout − cost of goods − giveaway costs − refunds − platform charges + tips. The fees are already gone from the payout; show them as line items, never subtract them.

The three numbers, side by side

For the $25 item with $6.99 buyer shipping:

Say “gross,” “payout,” and “net” and mean these three things, and every conversation with your preparer, your spreadsheet, and your own head gets simpler.

A five-minute spreadsheet fix

1. Add a column Sale price = POST_COUPON_PRICE, falling back to ORIGINAL_ITEM_PRICE + COUPON_COST.
2. Gross = sum of Sale price for rows where TRANSACTION_TYPE = ORDER_EARNINGS and TRANSACTION_AMOUNT > 0.
3. Fees = gross − sum of TRANSACTION_AMOUNT for those rows. (Yes, that simple. The difference is the fees, tax on fees included.)
4. Net = sum of TRANSACTION_AMOUNT − your COGS − |giveaway rows| − |refund rows| − |SHIPPING_CHARGE rows| + tips.

Or upload the file to MARGN.PLUS, which does precisely this and shows every definition on the dashboard, so nothing is implied.

MARGN.PLUS is independent and not affiliated with Whatnot, Inc. Whatnot is a trademark of Whatnot, Inc.