Payouts

The funds from the payments that you process for your users are held in their balance accounts until you pay them out on their verified bank account (transfer instrument). A reliable payout process ensures that you can support your users' cash flows.

How it works

When a shopper completes a purchase with one of your platform's users, the shopper's funds are first settled to your user's balance account. This means that Adyen received the funds and credited these to your user’s account. Your settlement schedule is the combination of the day on which the transaction takes place and the settlement delay.

From the balance account, the funds can be paid out to an external bank account that is connected to the balance account by your user. This external account must be verified during onboarding.

You can choose between different payout solutions. Managed payouts provide an optimized, hands-off experience with automatic scheduling, clear end-to-end payout ETAs, and built-in execution tracking. Custom payouts give you full control over delay and payout timing through scheduled payouts or on-demand payouts. After a payout is triggered, Adyen sends transfer webhooks to inform you of payout-related events, including an estimated arrival time for the funds to reach your user's bank account.

Payout time and amount

A reliable payout experience is critical to your platform's success. You must set clear expectations about payout times and amounts with your users.

Choose a payout solution

Adyen offers three payout solutions:

• Managed payouts (recommended): Adyen manages the entire payout lifecycle, optimizing the timing between the end of a sales day and the transfer initiation. This is the most stable and resource-efficient solution, with clear end-to-end payout ETAs and minimal integration effort.
• Custom payouts: For platforms that need full control. This includes custom scheduled payouts that automatically trigger transfers at specific times, and on-demand payouts that you trigger through the API.
• Cashout: Provides your users with instant access to pending funds before they are settled.

Fund availability

Payout timing and amounts depend on how funds settle into the balance account:

• Sales day and settlement: Adyen processes payments in 24-hour batches called a sales day. By default, a sales day runs from midnight (00:00) to midnight (23:59) in the balance account's local timezone. You can configure the closing time up to 07:00 if your user's business closes after midnight. For managed payouts, Adyen optimizes this window automatically. For custom payouts, you may need to configure the closing time or a custom settlement delay to make sure funds are available when your schedule triggers.
• Settlement delay: By default, funds are settled with a delay of two business days. You can decrease the payout delay at a premium, depending on your situation and region. The value date indicates when the balance becomes available.
• Transfer priority: Managed payouts automatically select the most efficient priority. For custom payouts, you can specify the transfer priority (Regular, Fast, Instant, or Wire) in your payout transfer request.
• Payout amount: For managed payouts and custom scheduled payouts, Adyen automatically calculates the available payout amount. For on-demand payouts, you specify the amount in your transfer request.

Recommendations

• Use managed payouts to minimize integration complexity. This is the most cost-effective path for both you and your users, with clear end-to-end payout ETAs.
• If you use custom payouts:
  • Set payout initiation times shortly after the end of your users' business days.
  • Make sure the scheduled payout time is after the funds are credited to the balance account and before the cut-off time. Cut-off times vary by location, currency, and transfer priority.
  • Use Regular transfer priority for most regions.
  • For the UK, set the transfer priority to Fast.
  • For the US, use Regular for Eastern Time (ET) and Fast for Pacific Time (PT).
• Communicate estimated payout times and cut-off windows to your users.

Payout reconciliation

Make sure your reconciliation aligns with the expectations of your users. This means providing reporting and reconciliation functionality that let users link their transactions to the payouts they receive and the fees they incur.

Recommendations
Use our user interface components that offer a dashboard view of completed payouts for each user's balance account to help users reconcile their payouts.

• Payouts Overview component
• Payout Details component

Transfer statement descriptions

A transfer statement description is the text that your users see on their bank statements when they receive payouts, which helps them identify the transaction. Adyen passes the description that you provide to the recipient bank.

To allow your users to easily identify your payouts, we recommend that your transfer statement description includes:

• The name of your platform
• Your user's business
• The payout date

With scheduled payouts, you can set placeholders to generate dynamic transfer descriptions.

Missed payouts

Rarely, a missed payout can occur. It is important to identify the cause for the missed payout and to resolve it for your users.

• If payouts are missed for a single user, this may be caused by missing or unverified details in the Know Your Customer (KYC) process. In your Customer Area, you can manage the account holders to support user onboarding.
• If payouts are missed for multiple users, this may be related to an incident at Adyen or the user’s recipient bank. To monitor incidents, check Adyen’s status page.

If you cannot resolve the issue, or cannot identify the reason for a missed payout, submit a support ticket.

See also

• Managing scheduled payouts in the Customer Area
• How to check my account holder's balance