Why is the bank payout lower than card sales? Reconcile one settlement

The shop’s report shows card payments of 2,400, but the bank receives 1,902. That does not automatically mean a sale is missing or the bank charged a fee of 498. A payout may include a refund from an earlier sale, a provider fee, a dispute debit and money that remains held.

Build a bridge between three sets of records: sales, movements in the payment-provider balance and the amount credited to the bank. This fictional case uses one currency. Its amounts are not the prices charged by Stripe or any other service.

Choose a payout you can identify

Start with one payout reference in the provider’s report and collect the transactions it includes. We call ours “Payout A”. Its captured transactions are dated 6 October, while the bank credit appears on 8 October. Those different dates alone do not establish a shortfall.

Fix the currency, report timezone and cut-off. Do not use every sale from 8 October merely because that is when the money arrived. As an example of provider reporting, Stripe’s payout-reconciliation guide breaks payouts into transaction categories including payments, refunds and fees. Your provider may use different report names and grouping rules.

Explain the 498 difference line by line

The calculation is 2,400 − 150 − 48 − 100 − 200 = 1,902. The gap is 150 + 48 + 100 + 200 = 498. Recording the entire 498 as “fees” would give different movements the same misleading label.

The held 200 is not an expense merely because it has not reached the bank. In this case it remains a documented provider balance. The dispute debit reduces that balance now but does not, by itself, establish a final loss. Follow the dispute and any later credit before deciding its final accounting treatment.

Use a second check to avoid counting the hold twice

Assume an opening provider balance of zero and no other transactions. Its closing balance follows the amounts that actually entered and left:

0 + 2,400 − 150 − 48 − 100 − 1,902 = 200.

That is the same 200 still held. Do not deduct the hold again in this equation: the actual bank payout of 1,902 has already been deducted. The first calculation explains the payout; the second explains what remains with the provider. Together they account for the whole 2,400.

A payout is not another sale

If a sale and its payment method are already recorded, receiving its payout does not create a second sale. Keep a clearing record connecting payment-method balances with their bank transfers, either in your bookkeeping tool or a supporting worksheet. Do not assume every app automatically makes that connection.

Similarly, a refund included in a later payout should not cause the original sale to disappear from its history. Retain the sale reference, refund reference and both dates. This worksheet reconciles money movements; it does not determine every revenue or tax entry by itself.

What to check when a difference remains

• Payment status: an authorised-only amount of 600 is not automatically a captured payment in this batch. Check its capture status with the provider.
• Report period: a transaction after the cut-off may belong to another payout.
• Currency: do not match different currencies without the actual conversion and fee details.
• Refunds and disputes: search by transaction reference, not amount alone; several customers may have paid the same amount.
• Bank records: if the provider shows 1,902 and the bank shows 1,900, investigate the bank entry and any documented charges. Do not label the difference of 2 a fee without evidence.
• Duplicate imports: renaming a report does not turn it into a new settlement.

A support enquiry about one payout should not require sending an entire customer statement without a reason. Start through the provider’s authorised support channel with the payout reference, date, currency and amount, and provide only the further information needed.

Keep open items visible

For each payout, record its reference, currency, gross payments, refunds, fees, adjustments, held amount, expected payout, bank credit, difference and review status. Link each item to a report or document you can find again.

1. Obtain the provider and bank reports for the relevant period.
2. Match the payout reference, its components and the bank amount.
3. Check opening and closing provider balances to identify money not yet paid out.
4. Explain known differences and assign a follow-up date to unresolved ones.
5. When an item is resolved later, link the resolution to the original worksheet.

Open the printable card-payout reconciliation worksheet for this example and blank rows for your own case. Calculations are manual so the references and assumptions remain visible.