The ledger of a payment business
Every payment, refund, payout, fee and reserve movement writes to the ledger per merchant and currency. Balances are exact, in minor units, with the currency on every line; exchange rates are used only for the totals that dashboards show in one currency. Every entry carries the payment, the rule and the author behind it, so an auditor can follow every balance back to the payments that made it.
Fees that match the contracts
Commission rules live per merchant, method and terminal: a percentage, a fixed part, minimums, and separate rules for pay-ins, payouts, refunds and chargebacks. A rule can differ by card scheme, by country of the card or by amount band, so the client’s price list to a merchant and the acquirer’s price list to the client are both expressed as rules, and the margin per payment is visible in the journal.
Reserves, deposits and limits
A rolling reserve holds a share of each merchant’s turnover for a period before it is released; the ledger shows the held and released amounts day by day, and a payout or a settlement cannot touch the reserve. Deposits a merchant places as security are tracked the same way. Limits per merchant and per day, per method and per terminal are enforced before a provider is called and reported after.
Settlements without spreadsheets
A merchant requests a settlement from its cabinet or on a schedule; the back office shows what is available after fees, reserves and limits; an approver confirms; the request becomes an instruction for the client’s finance team, and the ledger closes it when paid. The instruction carries the merchant’s bank details, the amount by currency and the list of payments it covers, so the client’s bank transfer and its accounting match.
| Movement | Written when | Visible to |
|---|---|---|
| Payment | The provider confirms success | Merchant and client |
| Fee | With the payment, by the rule that applied | Client; the merchant sees its own fee |
| Reserve held | With the payment, by the merchant’s reserve rule | Merchant and client |
| Reserve released | When the period ends, daily | Merchant and client |
| Refund, chargeback | When the provider reports it | Merchant and client |
| Payout | When the provider accepts it; returned when the provider reports a return | Merchant and client |
| Settlement | When the request is approved and when the client marks it paid | Merchant and client |
Reports and analytics
Dashboards by day, method, provider, country and merchant; approval rates and cascade saves; reports generated as jobs and downloaded as XLSX or CSV, in the account’s language and time zone, with the columns machines and people need. The exports by provider and period are what the finance team compares with the providers’ statements. The numbers on the dashboards and in the reports come from the same ledger, so finance, operations and the merchant look at one truth.