Online Payments: Settlement Files (Reference)

Introduction

The Settlement Files in the Online Payments Feature allow admins to view payments made through the ShulCloud Integrated Gateway and understand when they can expect deposits of these payments into Shul bank accounts.

Autobatching

By clicking Online Payments > Settlement Files you will see the file for the Settlement that was deposited to the Shul's bank indicated by the Status showing as Paid as well as the Settlement that is on it's way indicated by the Status showing as In Transit. This is where the settlement file can be downloaded to compare to the AutoBatch that was created for automatically (if you have turned on AutoBatching for your gateway). Admins may also use this to manually batch a deposit if the AutoBatching did not happen.

Integrated Gateway Settlement

 

Fields	Description
1. Between	Select a date range to display settlement deposits from ShulCloud to a congregation bank account within that period. The system default is the past 90 days.
2. Per Page	Designate the number of settlement deposits to display per page. The default is 50, but can be changed to 500 in increments of 50.
3. Merchant ID	Dropdown allows for the selection of a Merchant ID. If there are multiple unique merchant IDs, each will be available in the dropdown.
4. Frequency	Select from the filter options: Daily: displays each deposit by date Monthly (Shulware Integrated Payments Only): displays the total deposited by month
5. Filter	Select filter to display results based on selections above.
6. Page	Displays the number of pages of results, and the number of exact results in parenthesis.
7. Filter Results	ID: Unique settlement ID. Deposit Date: Date of settlement deposit. Merchant ID: Gateway associated with the bank account the deposit is going to.  Deposit Amount: Amount in settlement deposit. Status: Will display "In Transit" if the deposit is being processed and "Paid" once it has reached the bank account. Failure Message: If a deposit fails, a notification will appear here. Download: Downloads a CSV file containing the details for the specific settlement deposit.

How Settlements Work

1. All payments (including Amex/ACH) made between 12:00 AM EST until 11:59 PM EST will be swept together into a batch.
2. At 6 AM EST: We will initiate a transfer. You may already see this on your bank as pending.
3. At 9 AM-10 AM EST: ShulCloud will receive information about the batch and we will send out an email "Your money is arriving" including any errors that we detected. We will create a daily batch in your Deposits page.
4. In general, the money will be ready to use 24-48 hours later. Some banks may allow use as early as 6 AM the same day.

Credit Card Payments/Settlements

Credit card payments take 2 business days to fully settle and be deposited to a Shul's bank account as long as the payment is made before 8:00 pm EST. Credit card payments are indicated by a pi_ at the beginning of the transaction ID. ACH payments are indicated by a py_ at the at the beginning of the transaction ID.

Below is a chart indicating the flow of a payment from creation to being deposited in a Shul's bank. Using this example: If a payment/charge is created on Monday prior to 8:00pm EST then the funds will be deposited to the bank account on Wednesday. The payment in ShulCloud will also autobatch on Wednesday to correspond with the date that the funds were received.

Automatic payouts for credit card and ACH (after 7/12/2021) transactions (T+2)
Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
	Charge created	Payout created	Monday Funds deposited in bank account
		Charge created	Payout created	Tuesday Funds deposited in bank account
			Charge created	Payout created	Wednesday Funds deposited in bank account
				Charge created
Payout created	Thursday Funds deposited in bank account				Charge created
	Payout created	Friday Funds deposited in bank account				Charge created
Charge created		Payout created	Sat & Sun Funds deposited in bank account

ACH Payments/Settlements (For payments made prior to 7/12/2021)

Prior to 7/12/2021, ACH payments took 6 or 7 business days from the transaction date to settle and transfer. It was 6 business days if the payment is made prior to 6:00pm EST and 7 business days if the payment is made after 6:00pm EST. ACH payments are indicated by a py_ at the beginning of the transaction ID.

Below is a chart indicating the flow of funds for ACH payments made before 6:00pm EST.

Below is a chart indicating the flow of funds for ACH payments made after 6:00pm EST.

How Credit Card Charge-Backs and ACH Issues are Handled

• If a payer disputes a credit card or initiates a charge-back, a reversal will automatically be added against the Payment in the account. ShulCloud will alert admins of this in the daily email. Once notified, ShulCloud recommends admins contact the user and then rerun the payment manually.
• ACH payments will transfer together with Credit Cards and on the same schedule (i.e. they will be sent at 6AM the next day). Occasionally a check could be blocked by the user's bank due to lack of funds or other reasons. A reversal will automatically be added against the Payment in the account. ShulCloud will alert admins of this in the daily email. Once notified, ShulCloud recommends admins contact the payer and then rerun the payment manually.
• These reversals will then be automatically added into the automatic daily batch.

Other Settlement Notes

• Sometimes when refunding a full transaction on the same day it will become a void and other times a refund. Each day contains 3 "settlement windows”. If the request for a refund is before the next window, it will become a void, otherwise a refund. Admins can make unlimited Voids, but Refunds are limited to a daily dollar amount. Admins may request this dollar amount to be raised if needed.
• If a daily batch is negative (the shul performs more refunds than payments), the sweep will not be sent over (removing money from your Bank account). Rather the Gateway will keep the balance and offset future batches unless the money is sitting for ~ 30 days.
• In the rare circumstance that a shul's bank account changes and ShulCloud is not contacted, ShulCloud will contact admins via email that the bank account could not be located and new bank information must be provided.

Related Resources

• Online Payments (Feature Overview)
• SIP Payment Settlement Period