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Reserve

Make sure that you always have enough funds for refunds, chargebacks, and other operational expenses.

Setting up a reserve helps make sure you always have enough funds for refunds, chargebacks, and other operational expenses.

For example, when you refund a payment, the funds are deducted from your in-process funds. If you have insufficient in-process funds to process the refund, the refund amount is deducted from the reserve. If you haven't set up a reserve, or if the reserve does not have enough funds for the refund either, the refund will fail.

Adyen does not automatically retry refund requests that failed due to insufficient funds. When enough funds are available again, resubmit the failed refund request.

An overview of all refunds that were not processed due to insufficient funds is available in the Modifications not processed report.

Set up a reserve

Setting up a reserve means defining a threshold: the amount that you want to be available in the reserve. The amount needed to fill the reserve up to this value is deducted from your payable balance when the payout batch closes.

To set up a reserve, you need the user role:

  • Merchant financial

To set up a reserve for a merchant account:

  1. Log in to your Customer Area, and switch to the merchant account.
  2. Go to Finance > Balances (Merchant).
  3. Go to Balance > Reserve and select Edit threshold.
  4. Go to Change reserve threshold.
  5. Enter the amount that you want to be available in the reserve and select Save.

Get notifications about your reserve

We can send you a Customer Area notification when the reserve balance drops below a certain percentage of the reserve threshold. For example, if you set the percentage to 30% and the reserve threshold is EUR 1200, you get a notification when the reserve balance drops below EUR 360.

To receive notifications when the reserve balance drops below a certain value:

  1. Log in to your Customer Area, and switch to the merchant account.
  2. Go to Finance > Balances (Merchant).
  3. Go to Balance > Reserve and select Edit threshold.
  4. In the pane that opens, go to Low reserve balance alert (%).
  5. Enable Customer Area notifications by selecting the toggle.
  6. Select Save.

Add funds to your reserve

You have the following options to add funds to your reserve:

  • Increase the threshold: the amount needed to fill the reserve is deducted from the payable balance.
  • Set up auto-funding: the amount needed to fill the reserve is debited from your bank account.
  • Top up your Adyen account: for payments made in EUR or USD, the funds are added to your reserve within two business days. For most other currencies, the funds are added to your reserve within three business days.
  • Transfer balance from another merchant account: the amount needed to fill the reserve is transferred from your other merchant account that has more funds available.

Change the reserve threshold

This is what happens when you change the reserve threshold:

  • If you increase the threshold, the amount needed to fill the reserve up to the new threshold is deducted from your payable balance when the payout batch closes.
  • If you lower the threshold, the amount above the new threshold is added to your payable balance when the payout batch closes.

For example, if you start with a threshold of EUR 7000 and increase it to EUR 9000, we move EUR 2000 from the payable to fill the reserve. If you lower the threshold of EUR 7000 to EUR 4000, we move EUR 3000 from the reserve to your payable.

To change the reserve threshold, you need the user role:

  • Merchant financial

To change the reserve threshold for a merchant account:

  1. Log in to your Customer Area, and switch to the merchant account.
  2. Go to Finance > Balances (Merchant).
  3. Select Control your balances.
  4. Under Reserve balance, select Change threshold.
  5. Enter the new threshold and select Save.

Set up auto-funding

With auto-funding, we initiate a direct debit payment when a certain percentage of the reserve has been used. For example, if you set the percentage to 30% and the reserve threshold is EUR 1200, automatic funding is triggered when the Reserve balance drops below EUR 840. We then initiate a direct debit payment to fill the reserve up to the threshold value of EUR 1200.

The amount needed to fill the reserve is debited from the bank account where you receive the payouts for this merchant account. You can only use auto-funding for payout bank accounts in EUR, GBP, or USD.

To set up auto-funding, you need both the user roles:

  • Merchant financial
  • Merchant admin

To set up auto-funding for a merchant account:

  1. Log in to your Customer Area, and switch to the merchant account.
  2. Go to Finance > Balances (Merchant).
  3. Select Control your balances.
  4. Under Auto-funding, select Request.
  5. In the Request auto-funding box, enter a number to indicate a percentage of the reserve threshold. For example, enter 30 to trigger automatic funding when 30% of the reserve threshold has been used.
  6. Select Submit.

Top up your Adyen account

The fastest way of transferring funds to your account is to generate a top-up payment. When we receive the top-up payment, we add the funds to your reserve. This can take up to four business days. Any amount above the reserve threshold is transferred back to you with the next payout. Therefore, you may need to change the reserve threshold.

For some currencies, for example ZAR, you need to use specific details for your bank transfer.

To generate a top-up payment, you need the user role:

  • Merchant financial

To transfer funds into your Adyen account:

  1. Log in to your Customer Area, and switch to the merchant account.
  2. Go to Finance > Balances (Merchant).
  3. Select Control your balances.
  4. Under Reserve balance, select Top up.
  5. Select the currency and the reason for your top-up payment.
  6. Enter the amount that you want to add to the reserve.
  7. Select Generate payment details. This generates a payment link.
  8. Select the Payment link.
  9. In the new window that opens, complete the payment with a payment method of your choice.

For payments made in EUR or USD, the funds are added to your reserve within two business days. For most other currencies, the funds are added to your reserve within three business days.

If you fund your account in a currency different from your reserve currency, this will credit your payable instead of your reserve. This is done to offset any negative payable amounts in that particular currency.

Transfer balance from another merchant account

Use an API to transfer balance

Automate the process or build your own implementation with the /balanceTransfer endpoint.

You can transfer balance between two merchant accounts under the same company account and legal entity. For this to work, these two merchant accounts must have at least one common processing currency. This currency is used to transfer balance.

To transfer balance, you need the user role:

  • Merchant financial

To transfer balance from one merchant account to another:

  1. Log in to your Customer Area, and switch to the merchant account which you want to transfer the balances from.
  2. Go to Finance > Balances (Merchant).
  3. Select Control your balances.
  4. Under Reserve balance, select Transfer balance.
  5. Under Transfer currency, select the currency you want to use for this transfer.
  6. Under Destination, select the merchant account to transfer the balance to.
  7. Enter the amount you want to transfer.
  8. Optional: Deselect Reconfigure reserve if necessary, if you do not want to change the configured reserve threshold of the destination account.

  9. Select Move.

The transfer begins immediately. However, it can take up to one hour for the funds to become visible on the target merchant account.

See also