In this article, we’ll explain what reconciliation is and why you should reconcile your Card Payments. You’ll also find information on what to do if you can’t reconcile card payments.
This article is for users of Opayo, Worldpay, Authorize.net and Moneris. If you use Spektrix Payments, read Spektrix Payments Card Reconciliation.
What is Reconciliation?
Reconciling card payments is a key financial process which can help you identify and rectify any discrepancies.
Reconciling card payments involves matching transactions from your Spektrix Reports to the amounts paid into your business bank account. This can also be done by checking a settlement report provided by your Payment Service Provider.
You can get a settlement report by logging into your Payment Service Provider’s portal and checking the daily card transactions. You would then compare this with your Payments and Activities Report.
How often should I reconcile Card Payments?
How often you reconcile your card payments is unique to your organisation’s needs. We’d recommend the following checks:
- Daily for the previous day's sales.
- Daily for the previous date(s) that align with the current day’s payout batch. For example, reconciling payments from a payout on Friday, consisting of sales from Tuesday and Wednesday
- Weekly for transactions in the previous week.
How to reconcile card payments
TIP: To run Reports in Spektrix, you’ll need the Insights & Mailings User Role on your User Account. If you don’t have this, speak to the administrator in your organisation
- Run the Payments & Activities Report for your chosen date range.
- Look at the Merchant Summary. This will show the net card sales (sales minus refunds), split out by Payment Gateway (if there is more than one), and Sales Channel:
- Compare the total in the Merchant Summary with the payout received into your business bank account or the settlement report from your Payment Service Provider for the same date range.
TIP: You can schedule a Payments & Activities Report to be sent directly to an email recipient. Read Report Schedules for more information.
What to do if you cannot reconcile a payment
If there’s a discrepancy between your Spektrix Report and the payout to your business bank, this could be as a result of the following:
- The Payment Service Provider has closed their batch of payments for that day’s sales just after midnight.
For example, a Customer purchases Tickets online for £50 at 00:02. If the Payment Service Provider closes their batch at 00:05, this payment may be batched with that day’s payments.In Spektrix, the Order will show as placed the following morning. Therefore Monday’s Payments and Activities Report will appear to be £50 down and Tuesday’s, £50 up.
- One or more payments may not have settled yet.
All payments should be marked as settled (also known as completed) as soon as the batch is closed. Occasionally payments may take longer to settle.You may notice this if you’re reconciling your payments within 24 hours. If the settled amount shown in your Payment Service Provider’s portal, or payout to your business bank account doesn’t match the Spektrix report you’re running, wait 24 hours. Any unsettled payments can usually settle overnight.
- Manually authorised payments and ambiguous authorisations.
When you take a Chip & Pin/Chip payment, you’ll see an authorised or declined message. If you don’t see either of these messages, it’s likely that there has been an interruption to the payment process and the payment has been manually confirmed or deleted from the Basket/Cart. This is what we call an Ambiguous Authorisation.
Read Ambiguous Authorisations for more information.
This article should give you the information you need to Reconcile Card Payments. To learn more about Payments, visit the Manage Payments section of the Support Centre.