Amazon Lending Pauses Loan Repayments in Spring 2020

In brief: Amazon Lending offered short-term loans to sellers, repaid from their Amazon accounts. As the first pandemic lockdown began, Amazon paused repayments from 26 March 2020, with no interest accruing during the pause. Repayments restarted on 1 May 2020, with each loan statement still dated as before and the same number of payments remaining. Amazon warned that some repayment notices might still go out after 26 March and could be ignored.

What the Amazon Lending repayment pause meant

Item	During the pause
Repayments	None from 26 March to 1 May 2020
Interest	Not charged
Remaining payments	Unchanged in number — the schedule moved back
Statement date	Same day of the month as before

A worked example

A seller repaying £1,500 a month kept that £1,500 in their business for April 2020. Because no interest accrued and the number of payments stayed the same, the loan simply finished about a month later than planned.

What it means for your bookkeeping

• Loans are liabilities, not income. The loan amount belongs on the balance sheet, and repayments reduce it; only the interest is an expense.

• Repayments come out of settlements. When Amazon takes loan repayments from your account, the payout is lower than your sales minus fees. Post the repayment against the loan so the settlement still matches the bank deposit.

• Check the pause was applied. Settlements between 26 March and 1 May 2020 should show no repayments; if any were taken, they should have been reversed.

• Where it shows up. Repayments are deducted from settlements, a frequent cause of a payout not matching Xero; a heavy deduction can even produce a negative settlement.

How TrueBooks helps

TrueBooks posts every line of each Amazon settlement to Xero so each one matches the bank deposit, which makes non-sales deductions like these easy to find. See the Amazon Xero integration.