You can estimate your balance from the information available in the Financial Status page in the Merchant Interface. You need to carry out the activities in the order detailed in Main activities in this procedure below. The main activities in this procedure involve getting a total for authorised and captured payments and estimating transaction charges for these payments. The total for authorised and captured payments (including transaction charges) is then added to the total amount of payments due for transfer. From this figure, any deposit shortfall needs to be deducted or any deposit surplus added and then a deduction made for monthly charges.
1. Login to the Merchant Interface using your username and password.
2. Select the Financial Status option from the left-hand menu to open the Financial Status page. (Note if you have more than one account, and have not yet selected a merchant code, you will be asked to do so on accessing this page.)
Estimating your balance can be divided into the following activities, which are detailed below:.
The Pending Authorisation, Authorisation and Capture Summary (at the top of the Financial Status page) displays totals for authorised and captured payments currently held on the system for the relevant merchant code. Refer to Authorisation and capture summary for further details.
1. Take the aggregated amount of authorised and captured payments on the system from the Total Open Pending Authorisation, Authorised and Captured field. Add to your calculation for estimating your balance.
2. Estimate the transaction charges for the total amount of authorised and captured payments. To obtain a 'ballpark figure' estimate 5% of the total amount for authorised and captured payments. Note that this estimate is required because the total amount displayed by the system for authorised and captured payments does not include transaction-level charges (Transaction Service Charges and Guarantee Service Charges, if applicable) as they are applied at settlement. It is, therefore, not possible to get a true breakdown of the total transaction charges for authorised and captured payments at this point.
3. Estimate the transaction charges for the total amount of authorised and captured payments. To obtain a 'ballpark figure' estimate 5% of the total amount for authorised and captured payments.
4. Deduct the estimate of transaction charges from the figure displayed in the Total Open Pending Authorisation, Authorised and Captured field. Add the sum of this calculation as a subtotal for estimating your balance.
Figure: Estimate for authorised and captured payments
The Transfer Summary in the Financial Status page provides you with an estimate of what is to be transferred to you. Refer to the Transfer Summary page for further details about this summary.
Using the Total to be Transferred field, obtain the total of all transfer funds due to you then add to your calculation. (The amount displayed in the Total to be Transferred field is net of transaction-level charges, so there is no need to calculate transaction charges.)
Figure: Total to be transferred added to estimate
The Deposit section in the Financial Status page displays the status of your deposit at last transfer. The Surplus/Shortfall field in the Deposit section shows if you owe any funds to our payment service or vice versa. You will need to take this into account when estimating your balance.
Locate the Surplus/Shortfall field in the Deposit section. If there is a shortfall, you will need to deduct this from your overall balance calculation. If there is a surplus, this should be added to your balance calculation.
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If there have been any changes to your reserves since last transfer - for example, if you have been notified of a dispute and our payment service has reserved an amount to cover any potential chargebacks - you will need to amend your calculations accordingly. |
In this example, a deposit surplus figure has been added to the calculation.
Figure: Deposit surplus added to estimate
To complete estimating your balance, you must include charges that are levied by our payment service on a monthly basis and for which you have not yet been billed.
1. The amount billed monthly by our payment service can be viewed beforehand for a particular time period in the Open Invoice Amount field in the Invoices section in the Financial Status page. If an amount is displayed, deduct this amount from the estimate of your balance. Now make the final calculation.
2. If the Amount field in the Invoices section is zero, you will need to calculate the charges. You can roughly estimate your likely monthly charges by calculating the following:
Monthly Service Charge - you can obtain this from previous monthly invoices.
Monthly Guarantee Fee - only applicable to UK merchants with the Merchant Guarantee. You can obtain from previous monthly invoices.
Risk Management service Transaction Charges - you need to calculate how many transactions have been processed since your last monthly invoice. Calculate the number of authorised and refused payments by running the Get Statement report (available from the Reports menu) and then multiply the number of transactions by the Risk Management service transaction charge (3 pence or the equivalent in relevant transfer currency).
3. Add monthly invoice charges to your balance calculation. In the example below, no charges were shown in the Open Invoice Amount field and so a manual calculation of the monthly charges was undertaken. You can then make the final calculation to get an estimate.
Figure: Final calculation for estimating your balance
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