I parsed 24 real food-delivery payout files. Three of them disagree with their own totals.
A technical read of the payout files, written after parsing 24 real ones. Every week, Swiggy and Zomato hand each restaurant a spreadsheet explaining what they were paid and what was taken out. Almost nobody opens it past the first tab. I didn't either, until I read a thread where an owner described finding lakhs of ad charges he'd never approved, buried in one. So I went and parsed them. One…
Swiggy and Zomato provide restaurant owners with payout files detailing their earnings and deductions. After parsing 24 real payout files from both platforms, it became clear that the numbers in these files do not always align with the totals presented on their surface-level tabs.
For Swiggy, the payouts are contained within five tabs, with the relevant information found in the "Other charges and deductions" sheet. This sheet contains two separate blocks - one for the current week's charges and another for adjustments carried over from the previous week. A common mistake made by users is overlooking the second block due to its cryptic header row. Additionally, Swiggy spells "Adjusment Type" incorrectly in the second block, which can lead to missed information if not carefully examined.
One of the peculiarities of the Swiggy payout file is a column titled "Restaurant Share (%)". When this column reads "100", it means the entire discount came out of the restaurant's own payout. However, there are instances where the "TOTAL" label in the "Restaurant Share" column, which should be used for summation, is actually a data row and not a label. This can lead to an incorrect, doubled amount if processed improperly.
On the other hand, Zomato's payout files follow a different structure. The relevant tab for checking deductions is named "Addition Deductions Details". This tab is divided into five sections, each with its own header row. The first section covers "Addition Type" - money added to the payout like cancellation refunds and carry-forward credits.
The subsequent sections detail deductions, including "Ads" under the "ADS" title. Here, there are two amount columns: "Total amount" and "Adjusted amount". While these columns are often equal, they can diverge in certain cases, such as onboarding fees where the full amount shows up in "Total" but is zeroed out in "Adjusted" and repeated in "Outstanding amount".
Zomato's glossary, which explains the fields in the file, sometimes omits certain columns present in the actual sheet and lists tax blocks in a different order. This can cause confusion and discrepancies if not double-checked.
Most intriguingly, Zomato's "Offers and Discounts Summary" tab, which should provide details on discounts, is entirely blank in all the 23 files parsed. Swiggy, on the other hand, explicitly labels the amounts funded for each discount in its payout files.
During a recent period, Swiggy agreed to refund charges for unauthorized advertising campaigns. Zomato recently introduced an OTP approval before discounts can be applied to a restaurant's payout. These changes suggest that the discrepancies found in the payout files are not just random data errors, but indicative of a systematic issue that might need addressing.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
