Why your COD remittance is lower than your order total

You sold a certain amount last month. The courier paid you noticeably less. Some of that difference is contracted and correct, some is only timing, and some is money you should be chasing. The problem is that all three arrive in the same number, so it is impossible to react sensibly until you split them.

1. Contracted deductions

The largest and most legitimate slice. Shipping charges, COD handling fees, fuel and remote-area surcharges, insurance, and VAT on those services are netted off before payout. On lower-value baskets these can be a meaningful share of the order value, especially where a minimum COD fee applies rather than a percentage.

2. Timing, not loss

Orders delivered after a cut-off belong to the next cycle. If your sales are growing, this permanently understates every payout: each period pays for a smaller past period than the one you just sold. The fix is not a dispute, it is comparing like with like — measure the payout against the orders in that statement's date range, not against the month's revenue.

3. Returns and RTO charges

A returned COD order collects nothing but still costs the forward leg, often the return leg, and sometimes a failed-attempt fee. A high RTO month can turn a strong sales month into a thin payout with nothing wrong in the statement at all. Sizing this is covered in RTO in cash on delivery.

4. Partial collections

The rider collected less than the invoice — a discount agreed at the door, a rejected item in a multi-item parcel, or a customer without exact change. The order shows as delivered in full in your store, so it silently becomes a shortfall. These only appear when you compare collected amount to order value line by line.

5. Missing remittance lines

Delivered, cash collected, no line in any statement. Usually an internal reconciliation gap at the carrier rather than anything sinister, and usually recoverable if raised inside the claims window. This is the category that most reliably contains real money.

6. Duplicate charges

The same AWB carrying two shipping fees, or a return fee applied to a delivered shipment. Individually small, but they repeat across cycles, and they are the easiest category to evidence.

7. Rate drift

The fee applied is not the fee agreed. Rate cards change at renewal, surcharges get introduced, and portal defaults sometimes lag the signed contract. Recompute a sample of lines against your rate card each quarter — a fraction of a percent applied to every order adds up quietly.

8. Adjustments outside the line detail

Prior-period corrections, withheld balances, claim settlements from an earlier cycle. Legitimate, but only if you can see what they refer to. If the sum of the lines does not reconcile to the transfer, ask for the adjustment detail in writing.

Splitting the difference in practice

Take one cycle. Add up the order values of every shipment in the statement. Subtract the deductions you can trace to your rate card. Compare what remains to the actual transfer. Whatever is still unexplained is your exception list — and it will resolve into the categories above once you look at it order by order.

As a rough sense of scale: an unexplained gap under a fraction of a percent of collected value is usually rounding and small partials. A gap of one to two percent, sustained, is worth a formal claim. On meaningful monthly COD volume that percentage translates into thousands of dirhams, which is why the exercise pays for itself.

The mechanics are in the step-by-step reconciliation guide, or send one file to the free preview and we will produce the split for you.