Balances, settlements and withdrawals

Money you collect does not go straight to your bank. It passes through three stages, and the portal has a page for each. Knowing which stage a cedi is in answers almost every “where is my money” question.

customer pays  →  Balance  →  Settlement  →  Withdrawal  →  your bank
                 (yours,      (batched,      (money
                  not yet      approved)      leaving us)
                  payable)

Balances

Money → Balances is what you hold with us right now.

A balance has more than one figure, and the difference between them is the thing worth understanding:

• Available — settled, and withdrawable.
• Pending — collected but not yet cleared. Real money, not yet yours to move.

A collection lands in pending the moment it succeeds. It becomes available when the settlement cycle clears it. So a day of good trading shows a large pending balance and an unchanged available balance, and nothing is wrong.

Balances are held per currency. They are not pooled and not converted automatically.

Settlements

Money → Settlements is the batching step: successful transactions are grouped into a batch, the fees are netted off, and the batch is approved for payout.

A settlement row shows you the gross collected, the fees deducted and the net — and Settlements → a batch → Lines shows the individual transactions inside it. That line view is the one to use when your net does not match your own total: it reconciles transaction by transaction, which guessing at the aggregate never will.

Settlement runs daily by default. Faster cycles are available once your account has a trading history; ask us.

A settlement can be failed, which is usually a problem with the destination account rather than with the money. Check Settings → Settlement, then talk to us.

Withdrawals

Money → Withdrawals is money actually leaving us for your bank or wallet.

Each row carries a status of its own, and a withdrawal in flight is not yet in your account however much the balance has already dropped. Bank credit timing is the bank’s, not ours — a withdrawal we completed at 16:00 can land the next morning.

A withdrawal needs somewhere to go

Without a settlement destination on file, live collections are refused before they start — the API returns settlement_destination_missing. Set it in Settings → Settlement before you go live, not after your first customer tries to pay.

Reconciling, in the order that works

1. Start from Settlements, not from Transactions. A settlement is the unit your bank statement will match.
2. Open the batch’s lines and compare against your own records per transaction.
3. Reconcile against each line’s merchant amount — the net after fees — not against the amount you charged. See Transactions.
4. Only then look at the bank credit, which is the settlement’s net minus nothing, arriving on the bank’s own schedule.

If the batch total is right and your total is wrong, the gap is in your own records. If the batch total is wrong, open the lines and find the transaction that does not belong — that is a real finding and worth telling us about.

The usual questions

“My available balance is lower than today’s sales.” Today’s sales are pending. Available is what has cleared.

“The settlement is less than the transactions in it.” Fees are netted off at settlement. The batch shows the deduction.

“The withdrawal says complete and the bank shows nothing.” It has left us. Bank credit timing is the bank’s; wait one business day before raising it.

“A settlement failed.” Almost always the destination account. Check it, then ask us — we can see why the payout was rejected.