Kobo and Kobo Plus Sales Reports
Where to find your monthly Kobo reports and how to bring them into Familiar
Rakuten Kobo sends a sales report every month you have activity. If you also have reads through Kobo Plus, Kobo's subscription service, you get a second, separate report for those. Familiar reads both. Kobo posts each report on the 25th of the following month, so January's sales show up by February 25.
Which Reports to Upload
Monthly sales report → upload as “Kobo”
Covers ebook and audiobook sales, including refunds. Upload it as Kobo sends it, in either XLSX or CSV. In an XLSX file, Familiar reads the Details sheet; the Summary sheet is the invoice cover page.
Kobo Plus report (marked “SUBS”) → upload as “Kobo Plus”
Covers minutes read or listened to through the subscription. This one must be the XLSX workbook with its Details sheet.
Don't use the Download CSV button on the Kobo Writing Life dashboard. That exports the dashboard's estimates, which leave out coupons, discounts, refunds, Kobo Plus and library sales. The monthly reports come from Kobo's finance team and match what you're actually paid.
How to Download Your Reports from Kobo Writing Life
Open Payment Information
Sign in to Kobo Writing Life, open the My Account menu and choose Payment Information.
Find the Month You Need
Your report history is listed here. You can filter it by date and download one month at a time, or download your full history at once if you're setting up Familiar for the first time.
Download Both Reports for the Month
Download the regular sales report. If you had Kobo Plus reads that month, a second report marked SUBS is posted alongside it; download that too.
Upload to Familiar
Drop both files into the royalty upload. Familiar usually recognizes them from their filenames: a name containing “kobo” and “subs” is treated as Kobo Plus, and any other Kobo file as a regular sales report. For the sales report, confirm the month it covers. The Kobo Plus report needs no month, because each row carries its own read period.
Direct Kobo Accounts and Aggregators
Publishers with a direct vendor account at Kobo, outside Kobo Writing Life, receive the same monthly invoice workbook with Summary and Details sheets. Kobo doesn't publish instructions for direct accounts, so if you can't find your reports, ask your Kobo account contact for the monthly sales invoice in its original Excel format.
If you reach Kobo through an aggregator such as Draft2Digital or PublishDrive, you won't get these reports. Your Kobo sales appear in the aggregator's own report instead. See the Draft2Digital guide if that's how you distribute.
Good to Know About Kobo Reports
- • Refunds appear as rows with a negative Total Qty and a Refund Reason. Familiar keeps them, so a refunded sale reduces that month's royalties.
- • Net Due is what Kobo pays you, in your payable currency, after Kobo's share and any promotion adjustment (the COGS Adjustment column). Familiar records it as the royalty Kobo paid you. The report has no gross figure, so gross revenue and net receipts stay blank.
- • Kobo Plus pays from a monthly pool divided across all minutes read. Familiar records the minutes as units and your revenue share as the royalty Kobo paid you.
- • Payment arrives about 45 days after the month ends, on the 15th, once your balance reaches CAD $50. Smaller balances roll into the next month.
- • Country comes from each sale (or the Region column for Kobo Plus), so you can see where your readers are.
Timing and payment details are from Kobo Writing Life's help center. Check there if your terms differ.
Troubleshooting
“Missing expected sheet Details”: the workbook was edited or re-saved without its Details sheet. Download a fresh copy from Kobo and upload it unchanged.
Totals look higher than your Kobo dashboard: the dashboard shows estimates; the monthly report reflects final sales after refunds and adjustments. Trust the report.
A .xls file won't upload: Familiar reads Kobo reports as XLSX or CSV. Open the file in Excel and save it as .xlsx, keeping both sheets.