Reconciling Just Eat Payouts in the UK: The Weekly-Invoice Workflow
Of the three big UK delivery platforms, Just Eat is the one most restaurants find hardest to reconcile cleanly — not because the economics are more complex, but because the data it gives you is the least detailed. Where Uber Eats hands you a per-order CSV, Just Eat gives you a weekly invoice with the totals and not much underneath. This guide explains how Just Eat payouts work, what you can and cannot reconcile, and a practical weekly workflow that keeps your books accurate and your VAT correct.
How Just Eat pays UK restaurants
Just Eat runs on a weekly cycle. The invoice covers the previous Monday-to-Sunday trading week, is issued early the following week, and the net payment typically reaches your bank a few days after that. The amount that lands is a single net figure: your gross sales for the week, less commission, less VAT on that commission, less any refunds, plus or minus adjustments — all bundled into one deposit.
For where this sits relative to the other platforms' timings, see our guide to delivery platform payout schedules.
What the Just Eat invoice actually contains
A typical Just Eat weekly invoice for an independent restaurant looks something like this:
``` Total Just Eat sales this period: £282.43 Cash orders collected by you: -£73.87 Just Eat commission: -£48.14 VAT on commission: -£9.63 Net amount paid to your bank: £150.79 ```
Two things are worth noting. First, if you take cash on delivery (for self-delivery orders), that cash is deducted from the invoice because you have already collected it — so the bank deposit reflects only the card-paid balance. Second, the invoice is provided as a document (typically a PDF), not as a per-order data feed. There is no order-by-order CSV breakdown of the kind Uber Eats provides, so you reconcile at the weekly-total level, not order by order.
Just Eat commission: what you are actually paying
Just Eat's headline commission is usually lower than Deliveroo's or Uber Eats', but the rate depends heavily on which service you use:
| Service | Typical commission |
|---|---|
| Just Eat with your own delivery (self-delivery) | around 14% + VAT |
| Just Eat with the platform's delivery network | up to around 30% |
The VAT treatment
Just Eat's commission is a standard-rated service, so VAT is charged at 20% on the commission. For a VAT-registered restaurant, that VAT is generally reclaimable as input tax — which means your bookkeeping needs to capture it as a separate line, not bury it inside a net figure.
The usual zero-rated-food caveat applies: cold takeaway food is zero-rated (taxable at 0%, not exempt), and because zero-rated supplies are still taxable supplies you keep full input VAT recovery on related costs, including commission. Partial exemption only restricts recovery where you make genuinely exempt supplies, which most restaurants do not. The detail is in our VAT on delivery commissions guide.
A weekly Just Eat reconciliation workflow
Because Just Eat reports at the weekly level, your reconciliation is a weekly-total exercise rather than an order-matching one. The goal is to confirm that gross sales, deductions, and the net deposit all agree, and to record the components your books and VAT return need.
- Download the weekly invoice from the Just Eat Partner Centre as soon as it is available.
- Record gross sales as revenue — the full "Total Just Eat sales this period" figure, not the net deposit. This is the figure that keeps your turnover consistent with what HMRC receives (see below).
- Book commission and its VAT as separate lines. Commission is an expense; the VAT on it is reclaimable input tax for most VAT-registered restaurants.
- Record refunds and adjustments as their own line, not netted against sales.
- Account for cash collected separately if you self-deliver — the cash you took is income too, even though it does not appear in the bank deposit.
- Tie the net figure to the bank. The invoice's net amount should match the deposit that lands. If it does not, the difference is usually a timing gap or an adjustment carried to the next week — investigate before closing the week.
Just Eat and HMRC's Digital Platform Reporting Rules
Since January 2024, Just Eat reports your seller revenue to HMRC under the Digital Platform Reporting Rules, alongside Deliveroo and Uber Eats. HMRC receives the gross totals Just Eat paid you, the number of transactions, and the fees deducted — broken down by calendar quarter. It is not order-level data, but it is enough for HMRC to compare the gross figure against the income on your return.
This is the practical reason gross-revenue bookkeeping matters: if you book the net deposit, your declared turnover will be lower than the gross figure Just Eat reported, and that gap is exactly what HMRC's data-matching looks for. Our guide to HMRC's Digital Platform Reporting Rules covers what each platform reports, and the free HMRC Readiness Checker flags the common gaps.
Where the manual workflow breaks down
Reconciling one platform weekly is manageable. The difficulty is doing it across Just Eat, Deliveroo, and Uber Eats every week, each with a different report format — Just Eat's PDF invoice, Deliveroo's weekly statement, and Uber Eats' per-order CSV — and keeping the VAT correct on each. This is the gap PayoutLedger is being built to close: upload each platform's report, get VAT-correct journals, and reconcile every payout to the bank deposit, whatever format the platform uses. Join the waitlist for early access. If you keep your books in Xero, see also our guides to using Xero for restaurant delivery accounting and finding a reconciliation app in the Xero App Store.
Key takeaways
- Just Eat pays weekly, as a single net deposit covering the prior Monday-to-Sunday week.
- The invoice is a document (PDF), not a per-order CSV — you reconcile at the weekly-total level.
- Commission is around 14% + VAT for self-delivery, up to ~30% with platform delivery — individually negotiated.
- Record gross sales, not the net deposit, and book commission, VAT, refunds, and cash collected as separate lines.
- HMRC holds quarterly gross totals from Just Eat — gross-revenue bookkeeping keeps your return consistent with what HMRC already knows.
This guide is general information for UK restaurants reconciling Just Eat payouts, reviewed June 2026. It is not tax or accounting advice. Platform fees and processes change — verify current rates and report formats in your Just Eat Partner Centre. For your specific position, consult a qualified accountant.