How it works
Processors such as Stripe and marketplaces such as Amazon collect customer payments, hold them, and pay out the balance to the merchant on a schedule. Each payout bundles many transactions: charges, refunds, chargebacks, fees and adjustments. The bank sees only the net deposit, so accounting for a payout means breaking it back into its parts.
Example
A Stripe payout of $4,870 covers 112 charges, three refunds and $151 of fees. The bookkeeper records gross sales, refunds and the fee expense separately, then matches the net figure to the bank deposit.
In integrations
The Unify Payments API is designed to return payouts with the balance transactions inside them, with processor fees as separate lines and links to the invoices they settle when the source provides a reference. The Orders API does the same for marketplace settlements. Unify Int reads payment data; money never moves through it. Payout data is what lets a merchant's books match the bank. Products that post only gross sales or only net deposits leave the bookkeeper to rebuild the difference by hand every month.