An essential part of processing payments is managing payouts and when your sellers get their funds.
A Settlement is composed of Entries that detail all of the payments and transactions you’ve processed. The approval or rejection of Settlement(s) determines if your sellers receive their payout and get paid their funds.
Once a Settlement is approved, your sellers will receive a payout in their bank account via a Funding Transfer.
The grouping of Settlements and when they are available to be approved depends on the payout schedule you've configured. Settlements, Entries, and Funding Transfers are available for review and approval via Finix's API and your Finix Dashboard.
- For Finix Flex customers, Finix manages and approves Settlements.
- For Finix Core customers, you’ll need to approve and manage your user's Settlements. Your sellers receive funds (or get paid out) when their Settlements are approved.
For example, say one of your sellers has a Settlement that only contains refunds. Once the Settlement is approved, the Funding Transfer will debit funds from the user's bank account.
When Settlements with day-to-day payments and transactions are approved, the Funding Transfer credits the user's bank account with their payout.
Payout Schedule
How often your sellers receive funds and on what day depends on the payout schedule you've chosen. The payout schedule configured determines when Settlements are available for review and approval. Finix offers several different Payouts Schedules to help you manage your Settlements. You can configure the payout schedule for each merchant, so Settlements are available to approve:
- Daily
- Monthly
- Continuous (Manual Schedule)
Finix Flex
Finix Flex only supports the Daily payout schedule. If you need to support a different schedule, please reach out to your Finix point of contact.
Creating Settlements
On a Daily schedule, Finix will automatically create Settlements:
- Monday through Friday on our LITLE_V1 processor.
- Every day using the VANTIV_V1 processor.
Payment Facilitators (Finix Core) Timelines
If you are a payment facilitator, you will need to approve your user's Settlements by 3:30 PM PST. If a Settlement gets approved after 4:00 PM PST, the Funding Transfer is sent to the merchant the following business day.
Managed Settlement Flow (Finix Flex)
If you are on Flex, Finix will automatically review all Settlements and approve them. Settlements can get delayed if Entries or transactions get flagged for review.
Settlements that require further review get held for risk review. Finix's team will reach out to you via a support ticket if further investigation is needed.
Paying Out Transfers
When your sellers create transfers while processing payments, they aren't immediately available to be paid out until Finix receives the funds from the transaction.
Once we have received the funds, the transfer is updated with its ready_to_settle_at being updated with a time stamp. Generally, this means it will be included in the next settlement.
We generate fees for the transfer based on the fee_profile of the merchant used. These fees will be part of the settlement when the transfer is paid out.
We also send a corresponding webhook event with an entity of transfer and a type of updated.
Bank Account for Payouts
When performing Settlement payouts, Finix submits Funding Transfers to the most recently added Payment Instrument for a given Identity user by default.
e.g., A user or sub-merchant has several Payment Instruments associated with its Identity.
- Bank Account A, created on January 6, 2019
- Bank Account B, created on January 16, 2020
Finix will, by default, submit Funding Transfers to Bank Account B because it's the most recent Payment Instrument on the Identity of the sub-merchant.
This is useful for failed payouts or a Notification of Change. All that's needed is to add the new, correct Bank Account to the merchant’s Identity as a Payment Instrument, and Finix will automatically use that bank account for future payouts.
Payout Types
We support two kinds of Payout types:
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
| Net | Fees get deducted from the payouts to your sellers |
| Gross | Fees are billed separately from payouts |
By default, sellers on Finix Flex get set up on Net settled payouts. If you want a different payout arrangement, please reach out to your Finix point of contact.
Negative Payouts
Approved Settlements and their Funding Transfers show what the balance of your account was when the Settlement got created. In some cases, you may have a negative balance.
For example, if you receive 200 USD in payments but refund 300 USD in other transactions, your account balance would be -100 USD. If you don’t receive further payments or process transactions to balance out the negative amount, Finix creates a Funding Transfer that debits your bank account.
Payment Instruments must support both credit and debit transactions so Finix can perform any required payouts.