A net figure is not a statement

Ask a merchant what their payments cost them and most will do the same calculation out loud: well, I charged this much, and this much arrived, so…

That subtraction is not accounting. It is an estimate dressed as a fact, and it cannot be filed, recovered or disputed.

What a net figure hides

A single net settlement amount hides at least three different things: what the provider kept, what the platform kept, and what tax was charged on the platform’s fee.

Those three are not interchangeable. One may be negotiable. One may be recoverable. One belongs on a tax return. Collapsed into a single deduction, none of them can be acted on, and your accountant ends up reverse-engineering a figure they will probably get wrong.

Separate lines

A BitriPay statement shows the provider fee, the platform fee and the tax on that fee as separate lines.

And where the money settled in a different currency from the one it was collected in, the conversion is disclosed too — the rate, the mid rate behind it, and the margin. The thing most likely to quietly cost you the most is the thing stated most explicitly.

Numbered and hashed

Statements are numbered in sequence and hashed.

The numbering means a missing statement is obvious. The hash means you can show a statement has not been altered since it was issued. Both matter during an audit, and neither is something you can add afterwards if the platform did not do it at the time.

The same figures produce JSON, CSV or PDF — one for your system, one for your spreadsheet, one for the person who wants a document.

Your cadence, not ours

A settlement profile is set per currency and per rail: the schedule — same day, next day, two days, weekly or manual — the cut-off hour, the destination, and a minimum below which it waits.

A busy shop settling daily and a project settling weekly are different businesses, and should not be forced onto the same calendar.

Preview before it closes

A profile can be previewed. Before the cycle closes you can see what the next settlement will contain: the collection-currency totals, the fee lines, and the conversion if there is one.

Surprises in settlement are almost always unpleasant, and almost always avoidable.

Paying out

Closing a cycle creates an obligation. Paying it goes through the payout workflow with its own approvals — the same controls as any other movement of money out of the platform.

What it costs

Settlement is not charged separately. The fees on the statement are the fees on the payments it covers, and now you can see them.

What you can check

These are facts about the running platform, not adjectives. Each one is visible in the product, in the API reference or in the ledger.

• Statements are numbered in sequence and hashed, and are produced as JSON, CSV or PDF from the same figures.
• The provider fee, the platform fee and the tax on that fee are separate lines, not one net deduction.
• Where the settlement currency differs from the collection currency, the conversion is disclosed with its rate, mid rate and margin.
• A cycle can be previewed before it closes, so a merchant can see what the next settlement will contain.
• Schedules run per profile — same day, next day, two days, weekly or manual — rather than one cadence for everybody.

What it costs

Settlement itself is not charged separately; the fees shown on the statement are the fees on the payments it covers.

Is it switched on?

Whether this is available depends on the authorisations in place and on what the administrator of a given deployment has switched on. That changes, and an article does not — so the live answer lives on the feature page, which reads it from the platform itself: Settlement and statements on the features page.

Read next

• The ledger — Books that cannot be quietly edited.
• Withdrawals and payouts — Held, executed, or returned. Never lost in between.
• Refunds and disputes — A promise you can actually keep.