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Money you have earned sits in more than one place before it reaches your bank account. This page explains each balance, the ledger behind it and the documents you reconcile against. For the settlement cycle itself, see Merchant settlement.

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Which balances does Waffo show, and what does each one mean?

Balances and settlement batches are presented by settlement currency, and FX conversion is finished before funds land in the settlement account — it no longer happens at withdrawal time.

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Why is my withdrawable amount lower than my settlement account balance?

Because the reserve has to stay whole. If the reserve balance covers what is owed, your withdrawable amount equals the settlement account balance; if not, it is the settlement account balance minus the shortfall, and the gap stays held back until the reserve is topped up. When a reserve is drawn down, Waffo replenishes it from your settlement account on a “replace exactly what was used” basis, in the next processing cycle after the deduction — shown in Account History as RESERVE_ADJUSTMENT, remark Debit from settlement account.

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What is in the reserve, and can I refund out of it?

Your contract defines whether a reserve applies and of which type — a fixed reserve (a set amount held for a contracted period) and/or a rolling reserve (a share of each settlement’s net amount held for a contracted holding period). Both can apply, and collection can be switched on or off per payment method. Your Reserve Ratio and Reserve Period are on the Payin contract page in the Merchant Portal.
  • Nothing is refunded out of the reserve. Refunds draw on the pending-settlement balance only, and a negative settlement carries forward rather than being charged to the reserve.
  • A settlement day with a negative net amount produces no hold — it is added on the next settlement day with a positive net amount.
  • Holding periods are counted in business days or calendar days, as your contract states. Where business days apply, they run against a fixed reserve calendar — a different calendar from the one that shifts settlement dates. A hold is released on its expected release date only if the reserve balance exceeds the amount still required that day; at or below that, nothing is released until the balance recovers. Details in Reserve Accounts.
Reserve movements live in a separate Reserve Account module: total reserve balance, Reserve per contract (holds and releases) and Reserve adjustment (deductions and top-ups). The settlement ledger, labelled Settlement Account, no longer mixes them in; the settlement calendar shows a Reserve Release Date.

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What does Account History record, and what are the business types?

Account History is the ledger of movements on your accounts, in all settlement currencies. Which accounts you see depends on where you read it: Each row carries Account No, Account Type, Business Id, Business Type, Direction, Amount / Currency, Balance (the balance right after the movement), Datetime and Description. The business types you can filter on are: FX Conversion rows no longer appear, because conversion now happens ahead of withdrawal rather than at withdrawal time; older rows may still carry that label, so read the list unfiltered when reconciling history. The filter values and the account structure underneath are covered in Settlement Account Structure. It defaults to the last 30 days, newest first, same-timestamp rows sorted by currency A–Z; settlement records default to the last 90 days. Both windows are UTC+8.

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Which balance funds refunds and chargebacks? Can it go negative?

Refunds are netted off the pending-settlement balance. Chargebacks and chargeback fees are attempted in a fixed order: pending-settlement balance → settlement account balance → pending-settlement balance as an overdraft, where it may go negative and is cleared by later incoming funds. Payin merchant accounts are overdraftable by default. If a settlement day’s net amount is negative — refunds and chargebacks outweighing payments — no funds move that day; the negative amount carries forward to the next settlement day with a positive net amount. A settlement that could not run because the pending-settlement balance was short is retried on later settlement days, oldest date first and largest amount first, until even the smallest one cannot be funded.

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How are Statement and Invoice PDFs named, and what is in them?

Dates are YYYYMMDD. All three share one four-block layout: the issuing Waffo entity’s name and address, the document block (date and number), your company name and address, then the business detail table. Total is never a row inside the table — it is stated separately below it. Amounts use a thousands separator and 2 decimals with the currency in front ({Currency} {Amount}), and Country/Region uses ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 codes (USA, CHN, HKG). Settlement Statement columns are Country/Region, Transaction Amount, Fee Amount, Tax Amount, Avg. Forex Rate and Settlement Amount, plus the totals. On the Withdrawal Statement the rate column is named Forex Rate; where no conversion was involved it shows -- rather than being dropped. Reserve holds do not appear in the settlement files or the Statement — they are taken after settlement and are reconciled from the Settlement Batch list and the Reserve Account module; see Reserve Accounts.