Hello,
You will not be able to reconcile a monthly Sales and Trends report, nor your server transactions, to the same monthly Financial Report. Please refer to the fiscal calendar located here:
FISCAL CALENDAR
Payments and financial reports are calculated and are based upon each fiscal month. Please note that payments are made based only upon the completed financial transactions that appear in your financial reports.
Sales and trends reports include all transactions of the day. They are provided so that you can get next-day data on your business and use the standard calendar. Units and proceeds from sales and trends are only estimates and should not be considered final.
Reports from the Payments and Financial Reports module of App Store Connect only include processed transactions and are based on the Apple fiscal period. Several factors impact the financial processing status, such as amount due, country of purchase, number of hours since purchase, content type, credit checks, and fraud rules. The payments in Payments and Financial reports are final.
The daily and weekly reports are based on customer interaction (click-to-purchase) and are coming from real-time systems while the monthly reports are based on financial transactions that have processed through our financial systems. There are intentional differences between these two types of reports.
Period Differences:
Weekly reports are based on the calendar week (Monday to Sunday), whereas the monthly financial report is based on the Apple fiscal calendar (i.e. you may not be comparing the exact same timeframe).
Order Process Period:
Items purchased in the App Store may take a few days to settle (be paid) in our financial system, as such items sold in the last couple of days of a fiscal month (see apple fiscal calendar) may not be completely processed until the subsequent month (e.g. if you buy an app you may not receive an invoice for a few days). The differences in timeframes between the two systems will not allow you to reconcile one to one on a monthly basis.
Product Type Differences:
Another common difference in the reports is that the sales/trend reports shows two types of transactions; downloads of apps (product type "1" which can be free or paid) and updates (product type "7" which are always free). If you are including product type "7" in your reconciliation against monthly financial reports they will not tie as free transactions do not exist in the monthly reports.
Reconciliation between the reports is not recommended due to the report and transaction processing differences. We are confident that over the life of an asset (app) the reports will be accurate (e.g if you put something on the store and sell it for a week and then remove it, your reports will reconcile over two months).
We are only able to report transactions that have processed through our financial systems. For example, a credit card transaction that was initiated in one fiscal earning month, and completed in the following fiscal earning month, will not be reported in the month it was initiated. We are unable to report earnings that have not been completed, hence the difference that you see in the trend reporting vs. the actual financial reporting.
The daily reports are more in line with managerial accounting while the monthly reports are more in line with financial accounting. Managerial accounting reports allow you to forecast your product. Financial accounting reports are based on historical information.
Again, for the reasons above, reconciliation between the reports is not recommended.
Also note that given the aforementioned, the daily / weekly trend reports provided on App Store Connect should not be used as a substitute for financial reports (Daily/Weekly reports should only be used for directional purposes).
We would like to reiterate the point that you will not be able to reconcile specific transactions and reports (sales and trends vs monthly financial). They are based on two different calendars, and two different systems. You will find intentional differences in the two styles of reports, and we highly suggest you use the sales and trends data for up to date performance indication, and the monthly financial reports for all official sales and payments.
Financial reports include only processed transactions and are based on the Apple fiscal period. Several factors impact the financial processing status, including amount due, country or region of purchase, number of hours since purchase, content type, credit checks, and fraud rules. The payments in Payments and Financial reports are final.
