Settlement and daily reconciliation

Settlement is when the card gateway actually pays out a payment. The Settlement report lists your payments by the day the gateway says they settled, so you can match a bank deposit to the payments inside it. Every day BillingMart also asks the gateway what really happened, and fixes the records when the gateway's answer differs.

Open the Settlement report

Settlement reporting is part of the plans that include it. On other plans you see a message that the feature is not part of the workspace's plan, and nothing else is affected. Any member of the workspace can read the report.

1. Open Payments, then the Settlement tab.
2. Under Period, choose A month or The whole year, then pick the month or type the year. It starts on this month.
3. Select Show settlement.

For each currency you see the total settled. Under it, each day shows its total and a table of the invoice, the method, the gateway transaction and the amount. Where customers paid a card fee, the day also shows the card fees. Currencies are never added together. If nothing settled in the period, the page says so.

Not yet settled lists payments that have no settled date, with their total, whatever period you picked. That includes cash, check and transfer payments you recorded by hand, which never settle, so it is not only money on its way.

The date is the gateway's, not ours. It shows as Settled on the payment's page.

Note: The Settle button on a payment is a different thing. It captures a card payment that was only authorized. Settlement is the gateway paying out.

What the daily check does

BillingMart does not get messages from the gateway when something happens, so it asks. Once a day, early in the morning UTC, it looks at the card and bank payments of the last 30 days for every workspace with a gateway set up. It answers three questions.

• Did it settle? If the gateway has a settled date, BillingMart saves it on the payment.
• Did something we marked failed actually happen? If the gateway holds a payment that BillingMart had marked failed, BillingMart books it and updates the invoice. If the invoice no longer owes that amount, nothing is booked, and nothing in the console shows this case. Check your gateway portal for approved charges the invoice does not owe, and void them there.
• Did something change outside BillingMart? A void or refund made in the gateway's own portal is added to the books as a new entry. Nothing in the ledger is ever edited.

A separate reconciliation report compares the ledger with every invoice and lists any open exceptions. It is available through the API and to connected assistants, and it is part of the plans that include settlement reporting. The console does not show it.

An unconfirmed payment

Sometimes BillingMart sends a charge, a refund, a capture or a void and the gateway never answers. Money may or may not have moved, so BillingMart holds the payment and does not guess. The payment shows Not confirmed, or Refund not confirmed, Capture not confirmed or Void not confirmed. A held charge also holds its invoice, so the customer cannot be charged a second time. Nothing can be refunded, captured or voided on a held payment until it is resolved.

The daily check can book a held refund or void by itself when the gateway shows it. A held charge cannot be looked up that way, so a person has to resolve it.

Only an owner or an admin can resolve it, with a recent sign-in and a second step. An account without a second step is walked through turning one on in a window, and then the action runs.

1. Find the transaction in your gateway portal.
2. In Payments, select Resolve… on the payment.
3. Choose what the portal shows.
   • It was charged. Copy the transaction id into Gateway transaction id. BillingMart asks the gateway about that id and books the payment only if the id, the method and the amount all match. If they do not, you are told and nothing is booked.
   • It was not charged. Write what you checked. The invoice can be paid again, so be sure the portal shows no charge. If it shows only an authorization, void it there first.
   • For a refund, capture or void, the choices are that it went through or did not. If it did not, the hold is lifted and you can try again.
4. Select Record what the gateway shows.