> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://waffo.com/docs/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Reserve Accounts > How a fixed and a rolling reserve differ, which account funds the hold, how the holding period is counted, what happens on a negative settlement period, when a hold is released, and where to reconcile every reserve movement in the Merchant Portal. A reserve is money Waffo holds back from your settlements as cover against later refunds and disputes. It is a contract term — if your contract has no reserve, none of this applies to you and you will not see the menus described here. This page is the mechanical detail: how holds are created, counted, topped up and released. For the balance-level picture — what your reserve balance means next to your other balances, and why your withdrawable amount can be lower than your settlement balance — start at [Balances & Account History](/docs/en/support/balance-and-account-history-faq). ## What is the difference between a fixed and a rolling reserve? Both hold funds back; they differ in *how much* and *for how long*. | | Fixed reserve | Rolling reserve | | - | - | - | | Amount held | A set amount from your contract | A **percentage of each settlement's net amount** | | When a hold is created | Once your settlement balance is large enough to cover the contracted amount, in a single deduction | On every settlement, from that settlement's net amount | | Release | The whole held amount is released on its release date | Each individual hold releases on its own release date, so funds release gradually and continuously | | Effect over time | A single block of money set aside | A rolling window — as settlements age past the holding period they release, while newer ones keep being held | Your contract can carry **both**. Where both apply, the amount that must be held at any moment is the sum of the two: ``` Required hold = fixed reserve configured + rolling reserve accumulated ``` The rolling reserve's contract wording is the clearest statement of what you agreed to, and it is reproduced on the Portal as a header note: > Initial Rolling Reserve: \_\_% of Net Settlement Amount to be held for \_\_ Days Your own percentage, number of days and whether those are business or calendar days come from your contract. If you settle in more than one currency, the terms are shown per settlement currency. ## Which of my accounts does the reserve come out of? Your **settlement account** — the balance that has already completed settlement and is otherwise available to withdraw. Not your pending-settlement balance. This is a deliberate choice, and it has a consequence worth understanding: the reserve is taken *after* settlement has been calculated, so **a reserve hold never changes your settlement amount**. Your settlement figures, fees and taxes are exactly what they would be with no reserve; the hold then moves money from your settlement account into your reserve account. What it reduces is your **withdrawable** amount, not your settled amount. ## Is the reserve collected on all my transactions? By default, yes — every transaction on a merchant account with a reserve configured contributes. Collection can also be switched **on or off per payment method**, so your contract may collect the reserve on some payment methods and not others. Where collection is selective, the base for the rolling percentage is the sum of the settlement amounts of only the contributing payment methods, aggregated per settlement batch and then rounded — so one settlement batch produces one reserve calculation, not one per payment method. ## How is the holding period counted? Which holidays affect it? Your contract sets the holding period in one of two ways, and the release date is computed differently for each: | Period basis on your contract | How the release date is computed | | - | - | | **Calendar days** | The hold's creation date plus the contracted number of days. Weekends and holidays do not move it | | **Business days** | Counted forward from the creation date, skipping non-business days on a **fixed business-day calendar** configured for reserves | Where your contract counts business days, note that the reserve calendar is *not* the one that shifts your settlement dates. Settlement dates defer against the contract-driven holiday calendar of your related countries (see [Settlement Cycle & Calendar](/docs/en/support/settlement-cycle-faq)); the reserve calendar is fixed and does not vary by your transaction countries, your settlement countries or your payment methods. Two dates derived from the "same" number of days will therefore not line up, which is the single most common source of confusion about reserve dates. The settlement calendar's **Reserve Release Date** column shows the computed date so you do not have to reproduce it. The countdown works per hold, not per merchant: * Each hold starts with its full contracted period remaining, the day it is created counting as day one. * The remaining count on each hold is decremented daily. * The amount that must stay held today is the sum of every hold that is still within its period. ## When is my reserve hold created, and when is it released? A hold is created on your **actual settlement date** and follows your settlement frequency — a weekly-settling merchant gets a weekly hold, a monthly-settling merchant a monthly one. Each hold carries an **expected release date**, which is its creation date plus its contracted holding period (counted as described above), and that date is what the settlement calendar shows. Release, however, is not automatic on that date. It is evaluated against what still needs to be held: | Situation on the expected release date | What happens | | - | - | | Reserve balance **exceeds** the amount still required to be held | The excess is released — as much as is above the requirement | | Reserve balance is **at or below** the amount still required | **Nothing is released**, and nothing is released on later days either, until the balance recovers above the requirement | The second row is the case that generates tickets. If the reserve was drawn down and could not be topped back up — typically because the merchant had no new transactions to top it up from — then releases stop entirely until the balance recovers. A hold reaching its release date is a necessary condition for release, not a sufficient one. ## What happens when a settlement period nets out negative? **No hold is created that period.** There is no negative amount to take a percentage of, and nothing is charged against the reserve to make up the shortfall. The hold is not skipped permanently, though — it is **added on the next settlement period with a positive net amount**, which then carries both its own hold and the deferred one. See [Settlement Calculation Explained](/docs/en/support/settlement-calculation-explained) for what happens to the negative settlement amount itself. ## Can Waffo take money out of my reserve automatically? **No.** The reserve is not an automatic debit facility. Its purpose is to cover **penalties and charges applied by manual action** — Waffo staff raising a deduction against a specific, documented case. There is no process that automatically draws on the reserve for routine events. In particular, a negative settlement period does not touch it (see above). Every deduction from the reserve is therefore traceable to a manual voucher, and you see it as a movement in your Reserve Account with a reference number, an amount, the time it was approved and the free-text description entered when the deduction was raised. ## If the reserve is used, do I have to put it back? Yes, but not by any action of yours — it is replenished automatically from your settlement account. | Rule | Detail | | - | - | | How much | Exactly what was used. Not a proportion, not a re-based calculation — used 500, replenish 500. | | From where | Your settlement account | | When | On the next processing cycle after the deduction — near-real-time, not on your next settlement date | | If the settlement account is short | It takes what is available and keeps trying; the outstanding part is replenished as further funds settle | The replenishment movement appears in Account History as business type `RESERVE_ADJUSTMENT` with the remark *Debit from settlement account*, so you can tie a reduction in your settlement balance to a specific reserve top-up. The interaction with release is worth spelling out, because it is where merchants lose track: when a hold reaches its release date while the reserve is still short, the released amount goes to closing the shortfall first. So a release can appear in your reserve movements without a corresponding increase in your withdrawable balance. ## How much can I withdraw when a reserve applies? | Reserve state | Withdrawable amount | | - | - | | The reserve balance covers what is required to be held | Your full settlement account balance | | The reserve balance is short of what is required | Your settlement account balance **minus the shortfall** | The shortfall is held back — not deducted — and becomes withdrawable again once the reserve is whole. ## Where do I reconcile reserve movements in the Portal? Reserve movements are kept **out of** your settlement ledger, in a dedicated **Reserve Account** area with three views: | View | What it shows | | - | - | | **Reserve balance** | Your total reserve balance, stated as `Reserve balance = Reserve per contract + Reserve adjustment` | | **Reserve per Contract** | The holds and releases made under your contract terms, and that account's balance | | **Reserve adjustment** | Manual deductions and the automatic top-ups that follow them, and that account's balance | Two related changes elsewhere in the Portal: * The settlement ledger is now labelled **Settlement Account**, and **Account History no longer mixes reserve holds and releases into it**. If you built a reconciliation against Account History expecting to find reserve holds there, they are in *Reserve per Contract* instead. The one reserve-related row that does remain in Account History is the `RESERVE_ADJUSTMENT` top-up, because that is genuinely a debit from your settlement account. * The **Settlement Batch** list adds, for merchants with a rolling reserve, the settlement amount that the reserve percentage was calculated on, the reserve order identifier and the reserve amount — so you can verify a hold against the batch that produced it. Merchants without a rolling reserve see the list unchanged. ## Does the reserve show up in my settlement files? **No.** The Settlement Details and Settlement Summary files carry no reserve column, and a reserve hold never changes any figure in them — the reserve is taken from your settlement account *after* settlement has been calculated (see above), so the files describe the settlement exactly as it would be with no reserve. Where the reserve does appear: | Surface | What you see | | - | - | | **Settlement Batch** list | For merchants with a rolling reserve: the settlement amount the percentage was applied to, the reserve order identifier and the reserve amount | | **Reserve Account** module | Every hold, release, deduction and top-up, with balances | | **Account History** | The `RESERVE_WITHHOLDING` / `RESERVE_RELEASING` movements on the reserve account and the `RESERVE_ADJUSTMENT` top-up debit on the settlement account | | **Settlement calendar** | The **Reserve Release Date**, once a rolling reserve is configured and the settlement has completed successfully | If you reconcile settlement files against money received, expect the difference between the file's `Settlement Amount` and your withdrawable increase to be the reserve hold for that batch — read it off the Settlement Batch row. ## My hold does not equal my percentage times my settlement amount. Why? Four things sit between the two figures, and any of them can account for the gap: | Cause | Effect on the hold | | - | - | | **Selective collection** | If the reserve is collected on some payment methods and not others, the base is only the contributing methods' settlement amounts — not your whole settlement | | **Batch-level aggregation** | The percentage is applied once per settlement batch, to the aggregated base, not per transaction. Applying it per transaction and summing gives a different answer | | **Rounding** | The result is rounded once, at the batch level, after aggregation | | **A fixed reserve on top** | If your contract carries both types, the amount required to be held is the fixed amount **plus** the rolling accumulation — a movement you attribute to the rolling percentage may be the fixed component | To reconcile a specific hold, work from the **Settlement Batch** list rather than from your settlement total: it shows the settlement amount the percentage was actually applied to, next to the reserve order identifier and the resulting reserve amount, for exactly that batch. ## Where do I see my reserve terms? On the **Payin contract page** in the Merchant Portal, which shows your reserve ratio and reserve period alongside your other contract terms. The rolling reserve percentage and holding period are also restated as a header note above the Settlement Batch reserve columns, so the terms sit next to the figures they produced. This documentation is built and hosted on [Mintlify](https://mintlify.com), a developer documentation platform.