In this guide 6 sections
Payouts miss the statement because the partner nets fees and refunds first, bundles many sales into one credit and closes its day at another hour. Match each credit against the partner’s settlement report, which lists every order, fee, refund and reserve behind it, rather than against the lone credit on the statement. Most of the gap then clears.
The credit on the statement is not the sale you recorded
Your ledger records gross sales. The bank records what arrived. In between sits a partner that deducts its charge, holds back a reserve, subtracts refunds and then pays everything as one lump.
One settlement figure may stand for hundreds of orders, a dozen refunds and a fee line, and eyeballing the statement will not rebuild last week’s invoices.
Accept that the match is many-to-one. One bank line pairs with one settlement batch, and the batch pairs with hundreds of order lines, refund lines and fee lines from the partner’s report.
- Gross sale amount per order
- Partner fee and tax on the fee
- Refunds and chargebacks deducted
- Reserve held or released
Netted fees and the missing small differences
Fees are often deducted per transaction and rounded to the smallest currency unit, so a batch of five hundred rounded fees can drift from the partner’s stated total. That looks like a fault. It is only arithmetic.
Ask for the settlement report in CSV or XLSX, with one row per transaction and the fee for each, and add the rows up. Compare that total with the credit. If the two agree, the partner paid correctly and the problem sits in your own records, usually a missed refund or an invoice booked in the wrong month.
A small, steady difference earns a tolerance rule, with the gap posted to a rounding account that the finance head reviews each quarter. Large or new means exception.
Bundled settlements and the timing cut
Partners settle on a cycle. Some pay daily, some weekly. A sale made late on Friday may fall in Monday’s batch and reach the account on Tuesday, after the bank has cleared the weekend queue.
Time zones add confusion. The partner may close its day in UTC while your books close in local time, so a sale at eleven at night lands on different days.
Match on the identifier, not the date. Partners often reissue a failed payout under a new date but the same batch, so the date alone can point you at the wrong credit. Dates tell you when to expect money. The identifier tells you what the money was for, which is what a reviewer needs when one credit covers a fortnight of card, wallet and bank transfer sales.
- Settlement batch ID from the partner report
- Payout date versus transaction date
- Weekend and bank holiday gaps
- Time zone of the cut-off
Matching rules that clear most lines
Write rules in a fixed order. First comes an exact match on reference number and amount, second a batch match where report rows sum to the credit, and third a tolerance match for rounding. Everything left goes to a queue.
Each rule should leave a trace showing who or what matched the line, which rule fired and when, so reviewers spend their hours on genuine exceptions. That is the real saving.
Give each partner a clearing account. Gross sales go in. The matched payout comes out. What remains is exactly what you cannot yet explain, whether that is a held reserve, a double payout or a timing gap that has not closed yet.
- Exact match on reference and amount
- Batch match on settlement ID
- Tolerance rule for rounding
- Exception queue with reviewer and reason
What stays unmatched, and what to do with it
Some lines will not clear. A chargeback arrives weeks after the sale, a partner pays twice by mistake, or a fee changes without notice and nobody on your side hears of it. Each needs a dated note.
Age the unmatched items. Anything older than the partner’s dispute window is hard to recover, so review the oldest first and raise a query with the partner’s support desk before it closes. Attach the settlement report and the bank line, and note the ticket number beside the item in your exception queue.
This week, take one partner and one settlement report, and match it by hand once, writing down every rule you used. That list is your rule order.
Payout matching worksheet
The sheet opens with a header block for partner, settlement ID and credit date, followed by columns for gross sales, fees, refunds and net expected. Bank credit and difference follow. A last block names the cause of any gap, the person who will chase it with the partner, and the date by which the partner’s dispute window closes.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
Why does my partner’s payout never equal my sales total?
The partner deducts fees, refunds and reserves before paying and may group days into one credit, so compare with its settlement report instead of raw sales. That report lists every deduction.
What is a clearing account in reconciliation?
A ledger account per partner. Gross sales are debited and matched payouts are credited, so the balance left shows what the partner still owes you or what you have not yet explained.
How do I handle rounding differences?
Set a small tolerance, post the gap to a rounding account, and send anything above it to a person with the settlement report beside it.
Should reconciliation run daily?
Run it on each settlement. Leaving it to month-end makes old items hard to trace and may miss the partner’s dispute window, especially for a chargeback that surfaced three weeks after the sale.