This article is part of our Complete Guide to Royalty Management.
If you publish through Amazon KDP, you already know the routine. Every month, you log in to download sales reports, wrestle the numbers into a format your spreadsheet can handle, and then manually split out each marketplace so you can calculate what you owe your authors. Multiply that by several marketplaces, two or three formats, and a growing catalog, and you have a process that eats hours every royalty period.
It does not have to be this complicated. Here is exactly how to get your KDP sales data out of Amazon and into royalty software that can do the heavy lifting for you.
Where to find your KDP sales reports
Amazon KDP provides sales reports through its reporting dashboard. To download them:
- Log in to your KDP account.
- Navigate to Reports in the top menu.
- Select Prior Months’ Royalties to pull historical data for a completed sales period.
- Choose the month you need and download the report as an
.xlsxfile.
KDP generates separate reports for each marketplace (US, UK, DE, FR, JP, and so on). This is important to understand because each marketplace report arrives in its local currency. Your US sales come in USD, your UK sales in GBP, your German sales in EUR. If you are handling royalties for titles sold across multiple territories, that means multiple files and multiple currencies every single month.
Both ebook and print (paperback and hardcover) sales appear in these reports. KDP rolls the data together, so a single marketplace file may contain Kindle sales alongside print-on-demand sales. Each row represents a transaction for a specific title in a specific format.
Understanding KDP payment timing
One thing that trips up newer publishers is the payment delay. Amazon KDP pays roughly 60 days after the end of the sales month. Sales from January, for example, will not arrive in your bank account until late March.
This matters for royalty accounting because you need to match the right sales period to the right payment. When you import January sales data, the corresponding income payment will not show up for another two months. Good royalty software lets you track sales and payments independently and reconcile them when the money arrives.
If you are also importing from other distributors with different payment schedules, the timing differences add up fast. Managing multi-currency royalties across several distributors, each with its own delay, is one of the main reasons publishers move away from spreadsheets.
Preparing your files for import
The best part about importing KDP data into purpose-built royalty software is that you should not need to edit the file at all. This is a common mistake. Publishers open the .xlsx file, rename columns, delete rows, or try to merge marketplace files together before uploading. That usually causes more problems than it solves.
When a royalty platform natively supports KDP’s file format, the raw file is the correct file. Download it, leave it untouched, and upload it directly. The software should recognize the layout, column headers, and data structure without any manual intervention.
If you have sales from sources that are not natively supported, such as your own website or wholesale orders, you would typically use a custom import template for those. But for KDP, the native format is the way to go.
How Royalties HQ handles this
Royalties HQ natively supports Amazon KDP sales reports as one of its 10 built-in file formats. The import process is straightforward:
- Go to Add New Sales from the main menu.
- Drop your KDP
.xlsxfile into the upload area. - Royalties HQ automatically recognizes the file as a KDP report. You will see the file type pre-selected in a dropdown. Click Continue.
- The system validates the file. If everything checks out, the status changes to “Ready to import.”
- Click Import. Each row from the KDP report becomes a sales line, grouped into one or more sales batches.
Because KDP files contain marketplace and currency information, Royalties HQ preserves all of that context. Your US sales stay in USD, your UK sales stay in GBP, and so on. When you later record the corresponding publisher income payment, the system reconciles each sales batch against what you actually received, handling the currency conversion automatically.
Royalties HQ also supports importing KDP payment reports directly. You can upload the payment file from KDP’s Statements section, and the system extracts each marketplace payment along with its breakdown details. It even flags potential duplicates if you have already recorded a payment for the same period and marketplace. For a full walkthrough, see the importing Amazon KDP payments documentation.
Handling ebook and print reports together
Since KDP bundles ebook and print sales into the same report files, you do not need to separate them before uploading. Royalties HQ reads the format column in each row and maintains the distinction between Kindle, paperback, and hardcover sales throughout the system.
This matters when your author contracts have different royalty rates by format. An author might earn 25% of net receipts on ebooks but 10% on paperback. Because the format data is preserved from the original KDP file, royalty calculations can apply the correct rate to each line automatically.
Tips for a smooth KDP import workflow
Download reports promptly. KDP reports are available once a sales month closes. Get into the habit of downloading them as soon as they appear, even if payment has not arrived yet. This keeps your sales data current and makes reconciliation easier when the deposit lands.
Do not merge marketplace files. Upload each marketplace report as a separate file. The system processes them individually and tracks the currency correctly. Merging files before upload almost always causes validation errors.
Watch for pending payments. If you are importing KDP payment reports, make sure all payouts in the file have finalized. If any row still shows “Pending info from Bank,” the file will be rejected. Wait until all marketplace payments have cleared before importing.
Keep the originals. Store the raw .xlsx files from KDP in a folder structure organized by month. If you ever need to re-import or verify data, having the unmodified originals saves time.
Beyond KDP: building a complete import workflow
Most publishers do not rely on Amazon alone. If you also distribute through Ingram, you will want a similar streamlined process for those reports. Our guide to importing Ingram IngramSpark sales data covers that workflow in detail.
The goal is to build a repeatable monthly routine: download reports from each distributor, upload them without reformatting, and let the software handle matching, currency conversion, and royalty calculations. Once that routine is in place, a process that used to take a full day can be finished in under an hour. If you are evaluating whether your current setup can handle this, download our free guide for a closer look at what modern royalty workflows look like.