---
title: "Prepare the reports"
description: "Configure and download reports."
url: "https://docs.adyen.com/payouts/payout-service/prepare-reports"
source_url: "https://docs.adyen.com/payouts/payout-service/prepare-reports.md"
canonical: "https://docs.adyen.com/payouts/payout-service/prepare-reports"
last_modified: "2026-05-26T13:48:55+02:00"
language: "en"
---

# Prepare the reports

Configure and download reports.

[View source](/payouts/payout-service/prepare-reports.md)

Make sure that your reports contain the information that you need for full reconciliation, and try out your reconciliation processes before going live.

## Requirements

Before you start preparing reports, make sure to:

* Be familiar with the [balance platform's account structure](/payouts/payout-service/account-structure-resources), and [how funds flow](/payouts/payout-service/account-structure-resources#how-funds-flow).
* Find out which [types of reports](/payouts/payout-service/reports-and-fees#relevant-reports) are relevant for your use case.
* Understand the [types of fees](/payouts/payout-service/reports-and-fees#fees).

## Configure reports

When you know the reports that are relevant for your reconciliation processes, proceed to:

1. [Configure timezones](/reporting/time-zone-setting). Reports are generated for different periods and can be based on different time zones. If reconciliation fails, mismatches in reporting periods or time zones are the common causes.
2. [Configure report columns](#add-report-columns).

### Configure report columns

All reports have default columns, but in many [Adyen account reports](/payouts/payout-service/reports-and-fees#adyen-account-reports) you can add more columns. Adding columns increases the report file size. We recommend that you first review the default settings and only add columns that you really need.

You can also change the location of the columns within your reports, or remove columns that are not relevant to your reporting use case.

#### Instructions

If you want to add additional columns or change the order of columns in a report, you can do so in the [Customer Area](https://ca-test.adyen.com/). If you have an automated system that uses the report's data, configuring the report columns can affect your automated system.

To configure report columns, you need to have one of the following [user roles](/account/user-roles):

* Merchant admin
* Merchant report role
* Merchant financial
* Merchant POS Report role

To configure report columns:

1. Log in to your [Customer Area](https://ca-test.adyen.com/).
2. Go to **Settings** > **Report columns**.\
   This opens a page with all the reports that you can configure.
3. Find the report that you want to configure and select **Configure**.
4. Select checkboxes to indicate which columns you want to include in the report.
5. Drag the columns into the order you want them to appear in.
6. Select **Save configuration**.

## Download reports

Download reports, either manually or automatically through your [Customer Area](https://ca-test.adyen.com/). If you want to regularly do a full reconciliation, consider building a scalable solution by automatically ingesting and combining reports.

Refer to these instructions:

* For **Adyen account reports** see [Generate and download reports manually](/reporting/manually-get-reports) and [Get reports automatically](/reporting/automatically-get-reports).
* For **balance platform reports**, see [Get platform reports](/payouts/payout-service/prepare-reports/generate-download-reports).

## Test your reconciliation process

Before you start reconciliation in the live environment, we also recommend that you test your processes using complete reports. In the [common reconciliation processes guides](/payouts/payout-service/reconciliation-use-cases), we only show selected rows and columns to illustrate the examples.

To get complete reports, you can:

* Download sample reports from the documentation pages that discuss specific reports.
* Make test transactions and then [download reports in the test environment](#download-reports).

## Next steps

[Common reconciliation processes](/payouts/payout-service/reconciliation-use-cases)

[Learn how you can use reports in common reconciliation use cases.](/payouts/payout-service/reconciliation-use-cases)