The short answer
eBay Managed Payments collects the buyer's payment, deducts eBay selling fees and other applicable costs, then sends the remaining amount to the seller's linked bank account as a payout. Business sellers in the UK can track payouts in the Payments area and choose a payout schedule such as daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly.
What actually happens
For a business seller, the flow is broadly:
- A buyer pays for an order on eBay.
- eBay processes the payment.
- The sale proceeds appear in Payments as funds in process.
- eBay deducts selling fees and other applicable costs before the money reaches your bank account.
- eBay initiates a payout to your linked bank account based on your payout schedule.
That means the amount that lands in your bank is usually not the gross sales value. It is the net result after fees, refunds, credits and other payout activity have been taken into account. eBay explicitly states that selling fees and other costs are automatically deducted from sales proceeds before they appear in your account.
Where to find it in eBay
eBay says you can track payouts in the Payments tab in Seller Hub or in My eBay. For business sellers, payouts go to the linked bank account, and the default payout schedule is daily unless changed.
Why sellers get confused
The usual confusion is that there are three different levels of data:
- Orders: what the buyer bought
- Transactions / payment activity: fees, refunds, credits and adjustments
- Payouts: the final net amount sent to the bank
If you try to book the bank deposit as “sales”, your bookkeeping will usually be wrong because the payout is a net settlement, not a gross revenue figure. That follows directly from eBay's payout model, where fees and other costs are deducted before the payout reaches the bank.
Refunds matter too
Refunds can change the final economics of a sale, and eBay may also give partial fee credits depending on the refund scenario. eBay's own fee credit examples show that a seller refund can generate fee credits on eligible fees, but not necessarily on every fee component.
What this means in practice
For bookkeeping, the useful unit is often the payout, not the individual bank deposit in isolation and not the raw order total in isolation. A payout gives you the settlement event that ties together:
- sales
- fees
- refunds
- adjustments
- net amount paid out
That is why payout-based posting is much easier to reconcile than trying to rebuild everything manually from mixed order and bank data.
If you are trying to understand the next bookkeeping step, read why eBay payouts don't match your sales and how to record eBay payouts in Xero.
Key point
eBay Managed Payments is not just “buyer pays, seller receives money”. It is a settlement system: eBay collects, deducts, adjusts, and only then pays out the net balance to your bank.