When the money actually arrives, and what decides it.
Settlement is not one event. Your batch closes, your processor submits, and your bank credits the account. Each step has its own clock, and almost every late deposit is explained by one of them rather than by anything going wrong.
What this page settles.
Three questions, in the order most people ask them.
The three steps
Money does not arrive in one movement. Three things happen in sequence, and understanding them tells you which step is responsible when something looks wrong.
One: your batch closes. The day’s authorizations are bundled and submitted for settlement. Most terminals do this automatically at a set time. This is the only step you control. Batch timing in detail.
Two: your processor submits it. If your batch closed before their cut-off, it goes into that night’s cycle. After the cut-off, it waits for the next one — which costs you a whole day, every day, if your auto-batch is set the wrong side of it.
Three: your bank credits the account. The funds arrive via ACH and your bank posts them on its own schedule. Some banks credit in the morning, some in the afternoon, some hold until the following business day.
With a daily batch before the cut-off, most merchants see money one to two business days after the sale. That is the normal shape, and anything consistently outside it has an explanation worth finding.
Why weekends matter more than you expect
The banking system does not settle at weekends or on bank holidays. Neither does the ACH network that actually moves your money.
So a Friday evening batch does not start moving until Monday, and typically credits Monday or Tuesday. A sale on the Friday before a long weekend can be four or five calendar days from your account.
Two consequences worth planning around:
Your biggest trading days are frequently your slowest to fund. For hospitality and retail, Friday and Saturday are both the busiest and the furthest from the bank.
Holiday periods stack. A run of closures can put nearly a week between a sale and the deposit, and it catches businesses out every year.
None of that is a fault. It is the calendar.
What makes a deposit late
In rough order of how often it is the cause.
The batch did not close. A terminal that was unplugged, offline, or whose auto-batch silently failed. The sales are authorized and not captured, and the symptom is a missing deposit. This is the most common cause by a distance.
The batch closed after the cut-off. Everything shifts a day.
A weekend or holiday. See above.
Your bank’s posting schedule. Some banks are simply slower, and nothing about your processing changes that.
A review or hold. If your processor has flagged something — an unusual transaction, a volume spike, a risk review — funding can stop while it is looked at. You should be told, and if you were not, ask.
A reserve. If your account carries one, part of each settlement is held by design. What reserves are.
The quickest diagnostic: compare the batch total to the deposit. If the batch is there and the deposit is not, it is timing or a hold. If the batch is not there, the problem is at your terminal.
Faster funding, and what it costs
Several providers offer next-day or same-day funding, usually for a fee or a slightly higher rate, and sometimes with conditions about batch times and account type.
Worth paying for when a day genuinely changes something — payroll timing, supplier terms, a thin cash position. Not worth paying for because faster sounds better. The comparison in detail.
One honest caution: accelerated funding is the provider advancing you money before settlement completes, which means they are carrying risk. Expect the terms to reflect that, and read what happens if a batch is later reversed.
When to actually worry
A deposit missing with a batch that closed, two business days past the expected date, and nobody has contacted you. Call. The usual answers are a bank detail problem, a hold, or a batch that did not submit.
Deposits that stop entirely. That is a hold or a review, and it needs a conversation today rather than tomorrow.
A deposit that does not match the batch and is not explained by fees, refunds or chargebacks. The separate page on that.
What is not worth worrying about: a one-day variation across a weekend, or a deposit arriving in the afternoon rather than the morning. Those are your bank, not your processor.
What we charge
Interchange + 0.50% + 10¢ in person, interchange + 0.75% + 25¢ keyed, with no contract and no monthly fee.
We will tell you your cut-off time and what your funding timetable should look like, in writing, at the start — rather than leaving you to work it out from deposits that arrive when they arrive.
While we are on the subject
Why did I get paid on Tuesday for Friday's sales?
Because the banking system does not settle at weekends. A Friday batch typically starts moving on Monday and credits on Monday or Tuesday depending on your bank.
Is next-day funding worth paying for?
If your cash flow is tight, often yes. If it is not, you are paying for a day. The honest test is whether a day earlier would change a decision you make.
My deposit is smaller than my sales. Is that a delay?
Usually not. It is more likely fees netted out, a refund, or a chargeback. The separate page on that is linked below.
Does the card type affect speed?
Generally not for Visa and Mastercard. American Express has historically settled on its own timetable depending on how you are set up, so check if you take a lot of it.