For anyone paid by a delivery platform
You got paid.
But were you paid correctly?
A payout statement and a bank deposit are two different numbers, produced by two different systems, and almost nobody checks that they agree.
The short answer
Your payout is lower than your sales because the platforms deduct from it before it reaches you — commission, error charges, ad spend, subscription fees — and you have a limited window to dispute any of it. DoorDash gives you 14 days from delivery. Uber Eats gives you 30. Both publish this; almost nobody reads it.
Error charges are the ones worth watching. DoorDash states it deducts “between 25% to 100% of the applicable item price + tax” directly from merchant payouts when a customer reports a problem. Uber Eats deducts the cost of the missing or incorrect portion.
- DoorDash: dispute an error charge within 14 days of delivery.
- Uber Eats: dispute within 30 days of the order date.
- DoorDash absorbs customer reports made more than 72 hours after delivery; Uber Eats exempts reports after 96 hours.
- No independent research measures how much restaurants lose to unreconciled adjustments. Anyone quoting you a figure is quoting a vendor.
One payout cycle
Two numbers that should be the same number
The gap is rarely dramatic. That is exactly why it survives — small enough to look like rounding, frequent enough to matter.
Figures illustrate the mechanism. They are not a customer result, and we would never present one as such.
Nobody opens a ticket over five dollars
Why it survives
Individually too small to chase. Collectively, not.
Refunds, promotional chargebacks, fee corrections and disputed orders all move the number, and each is individually explainable. The cost of checking by hand exceeds the value of any single discrepancy — which is precisely the economics that lets it run every cycle, forever, until something checks automatically.
What gets automated
Match, explain, pursue, confirm
Match every payout against the deposit that actually landed
Automatically, every cycle, rather than when someone finds time.
Explain the gap before raising it
Most gaps have a legitimate cause. The ones that do not are the ones worth your time.
Prepare the support case with the specifics attached
A vague complaint gets a vague answer.
Track the thread
An enquiry nobody follows up is a write-off with extra steps.
Confirm against the bank
A promised correction is not a recovery until the money is in the account.
What each platform actually publishes
The deduction rules, side by side
Error charges run “between 25% to 100% of the applicable item price + tax” and are “deducted directly from merchant payouts”. You dispute in the Merchant Portal under Financials → Transactions. Reports made 72+ hours after delivery are absorbed by DoorDash.
Adjustments take “the a la carte cost of the missing or incorrect portion” from your pay. Disputes go through Uber Eats Manager “within 30 days of the order date”. Reports after 96 hours are exempt.
Six separate things move the number: commission, error charges, advertising and promotions, subscription or tablet fees, how sales tax is remitted, and the timing of the payout window.
Local Law 79 of 2025 requires platforms to give a restaurant a monthly itemised list of every transaction and fee.
There is no independent study quantifying what this costs restaurants. The figures in circulation come from companies selling reconciliation software.
Who does this
What SidRatnam.com does about payouts
SidRatnam.com builds the reconciliation loop for a specific restaurant: matching each platform payout against the deposit that actually arrived, identifying which deductions explain the gap, preparing the dispute inside the platform’s own window, and confirming the correction reached the bank.
What that includes: payout-to-deposit matching every cycle, identification of error charges and ad spend against each order, dispute preparation within the 14 or 30 day window, and confirmation at the bank rather than at the promise.
What it contributes to: recovering money already earned, and knowing what the delivery channel actually nets.
We build this for you
Evidence
What the research actually says
Every figure carries its source, date, the population it was measured across, and whether it is an observation or a projection.
DoorDash deducts error charges directly from merchant payouts, at “between 25% to 100% of the applicable item price + tax”, and gives merchants 14 days from delivery to dispute one. Customer reports made more than 72 hours after delivery are absorbed by DoorDash rather than the restaurant.
observed DoorDash, “Understanding Error Charges and Disputes”
checked 20 September 2026 · US DoorDash merchants · current policy
Uber Eats adjusts “the a la carte cost of the missing or incorrect portion” from merchant pay, and allows disputes “within 30 days of the order date” — twice DoorDash’s window. Reports made more than 96 hours after the order are exempt.
observed Uber Eats, Order Errors (merchant resource)
checked 20 September 2026 · US Uber Eats merchants · current policy
New York City caps what delivery platforms may charge restaurants — 15% for delivery, 5% for other basic services and 3% for transactions — and Local Law 79 of 2025 added an enhanced service fee capped at 20% on top. The same law entitles a restaurant to a monthly itemised list of every transaction and fee, and protects its right to put menus or coupons in the bag.
observed New York City Council, Local Law 79 of 2025 (Int. 0762-2024)
enacted 31 May 2025 · New York City food service establishments · in force
A typical restaurant ran a pre-tax profit margin of roughly 5% before the pandemic. 42% of operators reported their restaurant was not profitable in 2025, while total expenses for an average restaurant rose 36% between 2019 and 2026.
estimated National Restaurant Association, “Elevated costs continue to pressure restaurant profitability”
8 July 2026 · US restaurant operators · 2019–2026
Connected problems
These turn out to be the same conversation
How do I reduce DoorDash fees?
How do I automatically itemize QuickBooks?
Why am I busy but not making money?
This sits under increase revenue and reduce expenses.
Find out whether your payouts reconcile
The free analysis looks at how you actually get paid and where the gaps would be. If there is nothing to recover, we will tell you that.