Quick answer. Once a quarter, walk through eight areas of your Seller Central account in a fixed order and save what you find. Read the Account Health page first and last, and in between check business information and verification documents, listings and the claims they make, restricted products and approvals, inventory and supply chain records, performance metrics, intellectual property exposure, and user access. Give each area one owner, check the specific Seller Central page, compare it with your own records, and fix gaps before Amazon finds them. Amazon says its Account Health Rating reflects the last 180 days and that a single critical violation qualifies an account for deactivation, so a quarterly rhythm catches drift while it is still small and documented.

Most suspensions we see started months before the notice. An expired business license, a supplier who stopped issuing proper invoices, a former contractor who still had a login, a late shipment rate that crept up. Each was visible in Seller Central early, and nobody was assigned to look.

Below is a repeatable quarterly audit covering what to check, where to check it in Seller Central and official government databases, who owns each check, and what to do when the audit finds a real problem. It cannot prevent every enforcement action. It does mean that when Amazon asks a question, the answer is already on file.

Why a quarterly audit matters to Amazon’s account health system

Amazon describes the Account Health page as an overview of your adherence to the performance targets and policies required to sell, so you can improve account health before violations or defects affect your ability to sell. Amazon encourages sellers to check it regularly and address issues as they arise. A quarterly audit does that, with records to prove it.

How the Account Health Rating scores you

Amazon’s Account Health Rating (AHR) is a color-coded score from 0 to 1,000. You lose points when new policy violations are detected and gain points when you successfully address them. New sellers start at 200, and over time the score reflects policy adherence and selling activity over the last 180 days. Amazon uses three bands.

• Healthy (green), 200 to 1,000. The account is not at risk of deactivation based on the policies in the score.
• At Risk (yellow), 100 to 199. The account is at risk of deactivation.
• Unhealthy (red), 99 or lower. The account is eligible for deactivation or already deactivated.

Regardless of the score, Amazon says it may deactivate an account immediately if required by law or if it suspects fraudulent, deceptive, illegal or otherwise harmful activity, including attempts to circumvent its systems. A green score is a good sign, not a shield.

Severity and repeat violations are why timing matters

Amazon groups violations into Critical, High, Medium, Low and No Impact. Its examples put counterfeit products found through a test buy and solicitation of reviews at Critical, a valid notice of infringement from a rights owner at High, listings that link to external websites at Medium, and a customer report that a product was expired or in the wrong condition at Low. Any single Critical violation immediately qualifies the account for deactivation. When one is detected, the AHR turns red with a score of zero and the seller has a three-day grace period to address it before deactivation.

Repeat violations compound. Amazon says point values rise each time the same policy is violated, and an account may be at immediate risk of deactivation on reaching the maximum number of repeat violations for a single policy in a 180-day period. That maximum is five for infringement-related policies and two for restricted products policies. A quarterly audit looks at every 180-day window at least twice.

How to set up the audit before you open Seller Central

Capture before you change anything

Every audit starts by capturing the Account Health page as it stands, including the AHR, every listed violation with its date and severity, and the Customer Service Performance and Shipping Performance sections that Amazon’s Order Performance policy points to. Do this before anyone fixes anything. If a problem later becomes an appeal, the page as you found it is evidence. Save the screenshots in a folder named for the quarter.

Read the whole page before working one item

List every policy issue and every metric separately, then rank each by how close it sits to an action. Anything already past a threshold or marked at risk comes first, a drifting metric second, an informational item last. Then look for clusters. A rising late shipment rate beside a jump in negative feedback is usually one operational cause showing up twice.

Assign owners, not tasks

Each area has one owner who signs off, even if one person owns several. A workable split looks like this.

If this is already affecting your Amazon account, our Amazon suspension team can review the notice and prepare the response with you.

Business information and verification documents

Amazon’s verification and INFORM pages rest on one expectation, that the information on your account is accurate and stays accurate. Amazon’s global seller identity verification page says it verifies the information you gave at registration, covering identity, address verification, beneficial owner and business verification, and that business documents must match the business information you entered.

What to compare, line by line

Open the account information and verification pages under Settings, put your current documents beside them, and check each line.

• Legal business name and registration number match your current state registration exactly, including punctuation and entity suffix.
• Registered business address matches your proof of address. For professional sellers, Amazon accepts bank and credit card statements, utility bills, lease agreements, tax documents showing the address, and a business license or extract.
• Primary contact and beneficial owners are the people running and owning the business today.
• Government photo ID on file has not expired and matches the identity information selected.
• Bank account, phone and email are current, working and in the business name or the name of someone legally authorized to act for it.

Check your documents against government sources

Amazon says business verification documents must come from a government-authorized agency and, for verification, be issued within the past 180 days, showing the issuing authority, the business name, the license or registration number, the issue date, and validity dates where they apply. Accepted documents include a certificate of good standing (or equivalent showing the business is active and compliant as of a recent date), a recently issued or renewed business license, and official registry extracts.

You do not need a new certificate every quarter, but you do need to confirm the facts still hold. Use the National Association of Secretaries of State corporate registration page to reach your state’s business registry and corporate name database. Search your entity and confirm it shows as active, the registered name matches Amazon exactly, and no annual report or franchise filing is overdue. A lapsed entity is the most urgent item in the audit.

INFORM Consumers Act and the annual certification

Amazon’s INFORM page says the law took effect on June 27, 2023 and applies to third-party sellers who, in any continuous 12-month period during the previous 24 months, sold 200 or more new or unused consumer products and had $5,000 or more in gross revenues. Amazon must collect and verify your name, a government-issued ID, a business address, bank account information, a working email, a working phone number and a tax identification number. You must keep this information current and tell Amazon when it changes, and high-volume sellers are asked to certify it at least once a year. Respond within the stated timelines to avoid disruption.

The Federal Trade Commission’s business guidance on the same law says the marketplace must give notice if a seller does not supply required information and, if the seller still has not complied within 10 days, must suspend future sales activity until the seller complies. In your audit, confirm whether you meet the threshold, when you last certified, and that whoever reads the account email treats a certification request as urgent.

Related guide. Amazon Account Suspended? How to Keep Your Business Running in the First Weeks.

Listings and the claims they make

Listings drift as bullets get rewritten and suppliers swap components. Amazon’s Restricted Products page says products must be accurately categorized, described and compliant with its listing standards. Listings that are purposefully inaccurate, miscategorized or deceptively described to get around category, product and listing restrictions can draw corrective action up to immediate termination of selling privileges.

Build a claim sheet

For each active ASIN, list every factual claim in the title, bullets, description, images and A+ content, such as materials, dimensions, certifications, test results, “organic,” “FDA,” “non-toxic,” “compatible with,” and safety or health effects. Next to each claim, record the document that proves it and where it lives. A claim with no proof is removed or substantiated before the audit closes.

Check condition, categories and outbound links

• Condition. Amazon gives “a used item is listed in new condition” as an example of a Low severity violation, and Low does not mean harmless. Make sure every offer’s condition matches how it is sourced and handled, especially returned or refurbished units.
• Category. Confirm each product sits in the category that describes what it is, not the one with fewer requirements.
• External links. Amazon gives listings that prompt users to visit external websites as a Medium severity example. Search your content for web addresses, QR references and “visit our site” wording.

Reconcile the listing with the physical product

Pull one unit of each top seller and compare its label, model number and components with the detail page, including bundle contents and variation details.

Related guide. How to Keep Up With Amazon Policy Changes Before They Become Violations.

Restricted products and category approvals

Amazon’s Restricted Products page says products must comply with all applicable laws, regulations and Amazon policies. If you supply a product in violation, Amazon may take corrective action including immediately suspending or terminating selling privileges, destroying inventory in its fulfillment centers without reimbursement, returning inventory, ending the relationship and permanently withholding payments. Certain categories need pre-approval, some need additional information or a supplemental guarantee, and FBA sellers should review the FBA product restrictions page.

The quarterly restricted products check

1. List every ASIN in a category that needed approval, and confirm the approval record is still in your file with the documents you submitted.
2. Re-read the Restricted Products help pages for each category you sell in. Amazon says its examples are not all-inclusive.
3. For any product with safety documentation (test reports, certificates, labels), confirm each document is still valid for the version you are selling now.
4. Search the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission recalls database for each product type you sell. The CPSC site lets you search by keyword and filter by date, hazard and product category, and its product safety warnings tell people not to sell or give away hazardous products. If you find a match, stop and investigate before the next order ships.
5. Check Account Health for any restricted products violations in the last 180 days. Amazon’s repeat threshold for restricted products policies is two in 180 days.

Our article on restricted products you cannot sell covers the categories that catch sellers out most often.

Inventory and supply chain records

When Amazon questions where a product came from, the answer is a supplier invoice. Amazon’s invoice requirements page says invoices verify that sellers source from legitimate suppliers, and clear invoice documentation helps prevent listing removals, supports account health and speeds up appeals.

What Amazon says a usable invoice contains

• Supplier name, phone number, address and website.
• A clear issue date within the 365 days before the performance notification.
• Quantities sufficient to cover your sales and in-stock inventory for each cited ASIN over the past 365 days.
• Clear product identifiers. Product names, model numbers, or UPC, EAN or ISBN, with variation details and bundle components.
• A completed and fulfilled transaction, in PDF or image format (.jpg, .png or .gif), no larger than 10MB.

Amazon will not accept invoices sent by email or third-party sharing, quotes or pro forma invoices, self-issued invoices or ones where the supplier appears to be the same entity as the buyer, digitally manipulated or editable files such as .xlsx or .docx, or invoices that are illegible, low resolution, inconsistent or missing details. You may remove pricing, but everything else must be visible. Amazon may also contact the supplier to verify the document.

The quarterly reconciliation

For each active ASIN, compare units sold plus units on hand over the trailing 365 days with units on invoices dated in that window. In a hypothetical case, a seller sold 2,400 units of a kitchen scale in the last 365 days and holds 600 in stock, so 3,000 units need support. The invoice file shows 1,800 units dated within the window and 1,500 units on an invoice from 14 months ago. The older invoice falls outside the window, so on paper this ASIN is short by 1,200 units. The fix is to get the genuine invoices for recent purchases from the supplier now.

When genuine documents cannot be obtained, do not create substitutes. Never edit, recreate or “clean up” an invoice. If a supplier cannot produce a proper invoice for a purchase, treat that inventory as unsupported, stop reordering from that source, and decide with your advisers what to do with the stock. An altered document turns a supply chain question into a far more serious one.

Supplier due diligence and retention

Amazon’s invoice page suggests reviewing official business documentation such as licenses, verifying a physical business presence, and checking credibility through government resources and other credible sources. Re-check your main suppliers in their state registry each quarter. On retention, the IRS says to keep records for 3 years in the general case, longer in specific situations (6 years for certain underreported income, 7 years for worthless securities or bad debt claims, indefinitely if no return or a fraudulent return was filed), and employment tax records for at least 4 years. Amazon’s 365-day window is no reason to throw out older invoices. Our guide to invoices that meet Amazon’s requirements goes deeper.

Performance metrics and the numbers Amazon expects

Amazon’s Order Performance policy sets minimum standards for fulfillment, delivery and customer service, shown in the Customer Service Performance and Shipping Performance sections of the Account Health dashboard. Several apply only to orders you ship yourself, so check which apply to you first.

Amazon also announced a handling time requirement starting June 29, 2026. Handling time for seller-fulfilled SKUs counts as accurate when actual handling time consistently matches the configured time, and Amazon recommends enabling Automated Handling Time in Shipping settings. If you manage SKUs individually, Amazon monitors them over 30 days, and if accurate handling times are not set within 30 days of a notification, it adjusts them for the next 180 days. Add Shipping settings to the metrics check.

Read the trend, not the snapshot

A metric under target today can still be heading the wrong way. Each quarter, record every metric and compare it with the last two quarters. A late shipment rate moving from 1% to 2% to 3% is not a pass. Find the operational change behind it and fix that.

For the mechanics of each defect type, see how Order Defect Rate is graded.

Intellectual property exposure

Amazon lists a valid notice of infringement from a rights owner, and customer reports of infringing or counterfeit products, as High severity examples, and counterfeit found through a test buy as Critical. The repeat threshold for infringement-related policies is five in 180 days.

What to check each quarter

• Notice log. List every IP complaint on Account Health in the last 180 days, the ASIN, the rights owner, the type (trademark, copyright, patent, counterfeit) and its status. Count repeats by policy.
• Your own marks. If you sell your own brand, check its status in the USPTO Trademark Status and Document Retrieval (TSDR) system for deadlines, office actions or a lapsed registration.
• Words and images in your listings. Search the USPTO Trademark Search system for any brand name, logo or distinctive phrase you use that is not yours.
• Resale authorization. For every brand you resell, confirm the invoice trail goes back to the brand or its authorized distributor.

Log every IP notice, decide whether it is valid, and act on the record. Our explainer on what an intellectual property complaint is covers the next steps.

User access and account security

Amazon’s user permissions page is direct. You are responsible for the actions of any users you add, including misuse or illegal activity through your account, so grant access only to people you know and trust.

The quarterly access review

1. Go to Settings, then User Permissions. List every employee login, its permissions, and whether it has View and edit on the User Permissions page itself, which Amazon says makes that employee an administrator who can manage permissions for others.
2. Remove anyone who has left or no longer needs access, using Remove user in Manage Employees.
3. Under Manage Services, review each third-party service provider, the tools it can reach and its service duration. Provider access expires automatically after the duration you select, but disable any you no longer use instead of waiting.
4. Confirm that each person has their own login. Amazon recommends individual logins with different email addresses for everyone who accesses the account and warns that shared logins are a security risk.
5. Confirm Two-Step Verification is set up with a current primary and backup method on each login. Amazon requires it to access Seller Central and calls it your best protection against unauthorized access.
6. Open Notification preferences and confirm the Emergency notifications phone number is current. An Account Health specialist may try to call during the three-day grace period after a critical violation.

Amazon also states that a seller account cannot be transferred. If business ownership changes, the new owner should open a new account in their name. If the audit shows the account is being used by a new owner in place of the original registrant, that is a structural issue to resolve properly, not a permissions tweak.

Where to verify each part of the audit

Answer each question below with a saved document.

When the audit finds a real problem

Handle each finding with the discipline a strong appeal needs, because if Amazon raises the issue later, your notes are your evidence.

Diagnose before you fix

Write down what you found, where, and the date it first appeared. Then check what else on the account shares a likely cause. A run of “item not as described” feedback, a condition complaint and a supplier change in the same month are probably one story.

Find the root cause

“We had late shipments” is a symptom. “Friday afternoon orders were not picked until Monday after the weekend shift was cut in March” is a root cause. It names the step that failed, why and when.

Correct, with proof

Fix the instances already affected and keep proof, such as the corrected listing, the removed user, the renewed certificate, the new genuine invoice or the inventory you pulled.

Prevent, with an owner and a date

Add a control that stops the cause from recurring, give it an owner and a start date, and check it at the next audit. If the problem already shows on Account Health, follow the Next steps guidance for that violation. Amazon’s AHR page says that if you believe a violation is a mistake, you should locate it on Account Health and follow that guidance. If a formal appeal is needed, the same root cause, corrective and preventive structure is the backbone of a plan of action that will not be ignored.

If a product cannot be supported with genuine records or is no longer permitted, the honest fix is usually to stop selling it.

Common mistakes that make audits useless

• Fixing before capturing. The record of what the account looked like on the day you found the problem is lost.
• Looking only at the AHR number. The score is a summary. You act on the violations and metrics underneath it, and Amazon can deactivate regardless of score for certain conduct.
• Checking documents exist, not that they are current.
• Treating invoices as a filing task. The test is whether invoiced quantities in the window cover sales plus stock, ASIN by ASIN.
• No owner, no date. Findings without names attached roll into the next quarter unchanged.
• “Cleaning up” records. Never alter, backdate or recreate a document. A missing document is a gap to explain or close properly. A changed one can end the account.

If you want a team to run this routine with you, our Amazon account health maintenance service is built around the same quarterly checks. For accounts already facing a verification problem, read what to do after a business verification suspension.

Frequently Asked Questions

How often should I audit my Amazon seller account?

Amazon encourages sellers to check the Account Health page regularly. A full eight-area audit each quarter, plus a quick weekly look at Account Health, reviews every 180-day AHR window at least twice.

How many repeat violations can I have?

Amazon says an account may be at immediate risk of deactivation on reaching the maximum repeat violations for one policy in 180 days, which is five for infringement-related policies and two for restricted products policies.

What happens with a critical violation?

Amazon says the AHR turns red with a score of zero, you have a three-day grace period to address it before deactivation, and a specialist may try to call. Keep your emergency notifications phone number current.

How recent must my invoices be?

For appeals, invoices must show an issue date within the 365 days before the performance notification and cover sales and in-stock inventory for each cited ASIN over that period.

Do I need to recertify my information under the INFORM Act?

If you meet the high-volume threshold of 200 or more sales and $5,000 or more in gross revenue in a continuous 12-month period within the past 24 months, Amazon will ask you to certify your information at least once a year.

Is a self-audit enough to avoid suspension?

No audit guarantees an outcome. It reduces the issues that build up unnoticed and means the evidence is ready if Amazon asks.

Get Help With Your Amazon Account Health Audit

If your audit turned up an expired document, a supply chain gap, an IP notice or a metric heading the wrong way, and you want a second set of eyes before it becomes a notice, submit your case or book a consultation with our team.

This article is educational information, not legal advice. Amazon’s policies, thresholds and help pages change. Confirm current requirements in Seller Central and with official government sources before acting. Examples with numbers are hypothetical.

You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.

Sources

• Amazon Seller Central: Account health rating
• Amazon Seller Central: Order Performance program policy
• Amazon Seller Central: Global seller identity, address, and business verification
• Amazon Seller Central: About the INFORM Consumers Act
• Amazon Seller Central: Restricted products
• Amazon Seller Central: Invoice requirements for appealing a policy violation
• Amazon Seller Central: Set and edit user permissions
• Amazon Seller Central: Two-Step Verification
• Federal Trade Commission: Informing Businesses about the INFORM Consumers Act
• IRS: How long should I keep records?
• USPTO: Search our trademark database
• U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission: Recalls
• National Association of Secretaries of State: Corporate registration