Refund & Return Metrics

Overview

Refund and return metrics track the financial impact of orders that were returned, refunded, or cancelled. These costs directly reduce your Operating Profit. Understanding how Dashboardly attributes and calculates refunds helps explain differences you may notice between Dashboardly and TikTok Seller Center.

Metrics

Gross Sales Refund

What it shows: The pure product value refunded to customers, without including tax or shipping refunds.
Formula: Signed product-refund amounts from TikTok settlement detail, with returned seller discounts netted once; return details supply the supported fallback where needed
Where you see it: Profit & Loss (within Refunds & Returns breakdown)
Important notes: This specifically excludes shipping fee refunds and tax refunds. It represents only the product portion of the refund. This matches the "product-only" refund concept -- shipping and tax refunds are tracked separately.

Other Refund Costs

What it shows: The shipping fee portion of refunds.
Formula: Sum of shipping fee refunds from returned orders
Where you see it: Profit & Loss (within Refunds & Returns breakdown)
Important notes: This captures the shipping fees you had to refund. It is kept separate from Gross Sales Refund so you can see exactly how much of your refund costs come from product value versus shipping.

Refunds & Returns

What it shows: The signed financial impact of refunds and return-related costs, including a cancelled-order reversal when your selected report includes cancelled sales.
Formula: Gross Sales Refund + Other Refund Costs, plus Cancelled Order Value when Include cancelled orders in sales is selected
Where you see it: Dashboard, Profit & Loss, Sales & Profit
Important notes: This is the combined total that appears as a single line item in the Operating Profit calculation. The cancelled-order term follows your report’s Figures setting. Under Settlement basis, TikTok has already included refunds in its settlement amount; the breakdown explains that amount and must not be deducted from it again.

Returns Count

What it shows: The number of completed return-and-refund requests. Refund-only requests and replacements have separate counts.
Formula: Count of completed return request identities in the selected report scope
Where you see it: Dashboard, Profit & Loss
Important notes: A request containing several items counts once, rather than once per item. Separate completed requests for the same order can count separately. Return-and-refund requests belong to Returns; refund-only requests belong to Refunds; completed replacements belong to Replacements. A product-scoped count can include a request involving that product, so adding product counts need not equal a distinct shop-order count.

Cancelled Orders

What it shows: The count of orders, number of units, and financial value of cancelled orders.
Formula: Count and sum from orders with CANCELLED status
Where you see it: Profit & Loss, Dashboard
Important notes: The cancellation count in the ordinary P&L view uses the stored order status update date for orders currently marked Cancelled. This date may differ from a separate cancellation timestamp. The Orders list instead filters these orders by their original creation date. The monetary reversal follows the selected report date basis and Figures setting; compare the same basis and scope.

How These Metrics Connect

Refund metrics explain the overall profit picture:

Gross Sales Refund captures product value lost to refunds
Other Refund Costs captures shipping fees lost to refunds
Cancelled Order Value supplies the matching reversal when cancelled sales are included
The applicable signed components form Refunds & Returns. On Accrual basis they enter the profit calculation with their existing signs. On Settlement basis they explain the refund activity already included by TikTok

On the Profit & Loss page, you can see the full breakdown of each component. On the Dashboard, you see the combined Refunds & Returns total.

Common Questions

Why do my refund numbers not match TikTok Seller Center? First distinguish the request count from the refund amount.

The ordinary return/refund count includes a request only after TikTok marks it completed and the buyer has been refunded. A newly opened request, an approved request still in progress, or an item still being shipped back is not included. Rejected and cancelled requests are excluded. Completed replacement requests are counted separately as replacements.

In the usual Order date view, return/refund event counts use the imported return record's last update date, in your selected reporting timezone. This is TikTok's last update to the record, not a separate immutable completion date. A request opened on January 28 and completed with a February 3 update normally enters the count on February 3 once that update has synced. A later TikTok update can move the record into another reporting period.

Settled refund amounts in Order date reporting follow the original order date, so an imported refund can change an earlier sales period. In Statement date reporting, financial amounts follow the applicable TikTok statement period. Fulfillment date reports use the matched fulfillment cohort for return counts. Counts and money can therefore appear in different periods. Match the metric, date basis, timezone and filters before comparing Seller Center. See Profit & Loss for the reporting choices.

Why does TikTok show higher "Refunds" than Dashboardly's Refunds & Returns? TikTok's "Refunds" figure in some reports may include cancelled order values. Dashboardly tracks cancellation counts separately. The cancelled-order monetary reversal enters Refunds & Returns when cancelled sales are included by your report's Figures setting. Match that setting, the date basis and the order scope when comparing a combined TikTok figure.

Why is my Gross Sales Refund different from the total refund amount I see on TikTok? Gross Sales Refund only includes the product portion of refunds. TikTok's total refund amount typically includes product + shipping + tax refunds combined. In Dashboardly, shipping refunds appear under Other Refund Costs.

Do refunded orders still count toward COGS? The original outbound COGS remains recorded. A completed TikTok refund or return status does not prove that a sellable item was received back into inventory. A separately confirmed sellable restock creates a positive COGS recovery adjustment on its receipt date; it does not erase the original sale's cost. For seller-fulfilled returns, this requires warehouse receipt confirmation and the actual sellable quantity. FBT recoveries use qualifying TikTok warehouse inventory records. Refund-only resolutions and damaged or unconfirmed returns do not automatically recover COGS.

Can I count only return shipping instead of the refunded product amount? The product refund still reverses the revenue you no longer retain. Recovering sellable stock offsets its cost separately, and refunded platform fees can also reduce the net loss. Removing the product refund would retain revenue that was returned to the buyer. Review the revenue reversal, restock recovery, and unrecovered fees or shipping together rather than replacing the refund with a shipping-only amount.

Why are cancelled orders shown on a different date than when the customer placed them? The ordinary P&L cancellation count uses the stored order status update date. The Orders list selects orders by original creation date, including cancelled orders. Match the report’s date basis, timezone and Figures setting when comparing cancellation counts and financial amounts.