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Third-Party Delivery Commission Audit for Multi-Unit Restaurants | Basis Point Hospitality

Recompute contracted tiers from transaction-level exports, compare deductions order by order and store by store, enforce signed terms, and separate recoverable variance from genuine marketplace cost.

Delivery· 7 min read

Contracted rate versus billed rate

The signed agreement and its amendments define commission tiers by service and fulfillment type. New stores, menu migrations, and later amendments can leave a location mapped to the wrong tier even when the master agreement is clear.

For a 20+ unit group, the reliable test is to recompute the contracted tier from transaction exports, compare it with the billed rate order-by-order and store-by-store, and classify each difference as contracted marketplace cost or recoverable variance. This is contract enforcement, not a promise that every difference will be recoverable.

Four leaks next to commission

Promo funding. Match each campaign's operator and marketplace funding schedule to the deduction actually taken. Tax handling. Trace collected, withheld, and remitted tax by jurisdiction and order rather than assuming the summary treatment is complete.

Fee stacking. Separate commission from advertising, service, delivery, adjustment, and other fee lines so no deduction hides inside a blended total. Payout timing. Follow late adjustments and rolling deductions into the period and deposit where they ultimately settle.

Pull transaction-level exports, the signed contract and amendment schedules, promotion, tax, and fee detail, payout files, and bank deposits. Summary PDFs cannot support an order-level or store-level reconciliation.

The three reconciliations

1. Order-to-order: match each POS order to its platform transaction, then investigate missing records, duplicate records, subtotal differences, cancellations, refunds, and fulfillment classifications.

2. Fee-to-contract: apply the signed tier and fulfillment terms to each matched order, then compare expected commission and adjacent fees with the deductions shown in the export.

3. Payout-to-deposit: roll net order economics into each payout file and tie that payout to the bank deposit, carrying timing differences and later adjustments forward until they clear.

How this pairs with dispute recovery

A billing audit asks whether commissions, fees, promotions, taxes, and payouts followed signed terms. Delivery dispute recovery addresses claims and adjustments tied to specific orders. The workstreams may share transaction data, but a billing variance is not automatically a dispute and a disputed order is not automatically a commission error.

The companion delivery dispute recovery guide explains the claims workflow separately. Keeping the two ledgers distinct prevents an adjustment from being counted twice or presented as expected recovery.

What does not change

The default audit does not change the guest app, in-store operations, or menu. Finance and accounting teams provide existing files; stores continue operating under the current marketplace setup while the records are tested.

For restaurant groups with 20 or more units, the diagnostic is free to the operator: no upfront fee, no retainer, and no invoice. Basis Point Hospitality is compensated by participating partners and programs out of the value they create. The review is educational and begins with the operator's own contracts and files.

Frequently asked questions

Delivery commission audit FAQs

  • It is a transaction-level review that recomputes contracted commission tiers, compares every deduction with signed terms, and reconciles platform orders through to bank deposits. The goal is to separate recoverable billing variance from the marketplace cost the operator agreed to pay.

  • No. The audit enforces the agreement already in place and does not recommend exiting a marketplace. Any future commercial decision remains with the operator.

  • A commission audit tests whether fees, tiers, promotions, taxes, and payouts follow the contract. Dispute recovery addresses order-level claims and adjustments, such as missing-item or fulfillment disputes. They use related data but solve different problems.

  • No. The default audit works from finance files only. It does not change the guest app, in-store operations, or menu.

Takeaways

  • Recompute contracted tiers from transaction exports rather than relying on summary PDFs.

  • Separate recoverable variance from the marketplace cost established by signed terms.

  • Run order-to-order, fee-to-contract, and payout-to-deposit reconciliations separately.

  • The default review changes no guest-facing or four-wall operations.

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