Practical guide

Review a zero or negative settlement before deleting anything

Last materially reviewed 2026-09-30

Quick answerA settlement with no positive transfer can still contain real activity and a useful accounting trail.
What to know

Start with the components

Zero cash does not mean zero sales, fees or refunds. A negative amount may represent deductions exceeding available activity, but the precise explanation belongs to the provider’s settlement record. Inspect the components and status before interpreting the sign. Never discard a settlement solely because no matching positive deposit is visible.

What to know

Preserve linked outputs

Link My Books documents zero-total settlements and cases with offsetting output, including month-end splits. Review those pieces together. One part viewed alone may look like a duplicate or an unexplained negative even though it belongs to a wider settlement.

What to know

A fictional zero

Suppose 80 of activity and 80 of supported deductions offset. There is no net transfer, yet both parts may matter to the records. Write the component explanation beside the zero. If instead the provider shows a separate charge to another payment method, record that connection rather than searching only for a bank deposit.

What to know

Decide before acting

Ask whether the item was posted, whether related entries exist, whether the accounting period is closed and who can authorize a correction. Deleting one linked output may break an otherwise understandable trail. Our duplicate-postings guide helps establish whether the same economic activity has actually been recorded twice; matching zero values are not sufficient evidence.

Continue when useful

Next: Duplicate postings

Use identifiers and transaction populations—not matching amounts alone—to establish a duplicate.

Open Duplicate postings →

Sources used for this page

These records support the facts and comparisons above. Merchant-controlled records are labelled so you can separate product claims from independent evidence.

  1. Zero-total settlements — Merchant documentation · help.linkmybooks.com · Merchant-controlled · checked 2026-09-30