NewtReyes-balance-report-error | Stripe Developers | Page 1

frigid river Sep 30, 2021, 7:20 PM

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Do you have a request ID for a payout that failed like this?

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 7:25 PM

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I am trying to create a transfer and it's failing

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Not a payout

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A transfer from the Platform account to a Merchant account

frigid river Sep 30, 2021, 7:26 PM

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Gotcha, my apologies. Request ID for the transfer then?

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 7:26 PM

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Here: 'req_R2LRE0NDSGQ53h'

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Thank you, @frigid river

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Why is the transfer not using the balance that I have in that account?

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Also, I am trying to add more funds to that account using a top up

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But the only option is a Wire Transfer

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No test bank accounts in there.

frigid river Sep 30, 2021, 7:43 PM

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The issue is that the funds need to be available immediately to be able to do this transfer. Your test account currently has a balnce of $0. Where are you expecting the balance to get added from?

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 7:44 PM

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But why is the balance report saying that I have $2k+ as my balance?

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What am I missing

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?

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If my balance is $0, how can I add more balance for testing?

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I thought a topup would help me with that.

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Is there any way I can add balance other than topups?

frigid river Sep 30, 2021, 7:46 PM

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If you use the top two cards here you can have access to those funds immediately https://stripe.com/docs/testing#cards-responses

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 7:47 PM

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Should I create a payment with one of those cards?

frigid river Sep 30, 2021, 7:47 PM

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The topup would also help but that balance can also take time to become available as well

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 7:49 PM

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@onyx obsidian just to clarify: When you charge a card the funds are not available immediately. If you charge on Monday, funds are pending until Wednesday (2 days in the US).
What flow of funds are you trying to emulate? Are you just sending a one-off Transfer to a connected account, or is that transfer of funds associated with a specific payment/Charge?

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Right now your account is on automatic daily payouts so every day the funds that would be available the next day are automatically paid out to your bank account, you're not building out a balance or anything so you have no funds/money to transfer to a connected account

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 7:53 PM

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I am sorry, but I may be missing something here. I don't have any payouts on my platform test account.

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Look:

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Am I missing something?

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 7:56 PM

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you have no balance right now

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like the report you looked at ended in August, you had many transfer reversals and disputes

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I do think you're mixing up many concepts overall

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Taking a step back what are you trying to do? Are you charging a customer for $100 and later sending $90 to a connected account?

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 8:05 PM

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So, I am testing disputes on Stripe connect using destination charges.

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Specifically, disputes which are won by the merchant.

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So, when the dispute is won a transfer for the disputed amount is sent to the merchant account from the platform account.

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That was failing because the system was telling me that the Platform account had no funds.

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 8:07 PM

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ahhhhh

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 8:07 PM

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But I was seeing $2k+ as the Platform balance.

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and you were telling me I had $0.

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What am I missing?

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You also told me I had payouts enabled

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but payouts are not enabled for the platform account.

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Only for the connected account.

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So, please help me understand what concepts I am mixing up.

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 8:09 PM

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Gotcha, thanks for clarifying, that is a pretty advanced flow

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 8:11 PM

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Yeah

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 8:11 PM

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The problem you have at a high level is: to transfer funds to a connected account, your platform needs to have funds available in its balance. To have funds available in the balance, you have to build a balance over time from previous charges and switch to manual payouts to basically accumulate money in Stripe. Once you do, you are able to transfer funds instantly to your connected account with the Transfers API.

Right now, your platform has no balance. You reversed some transfers to pull funds back from a connected account but those funds are help in reserves because those connected accounts don't have a balance yet. This is documented here: https://support.stripe.com/questions/reserves-for-connect-platforms-and-connected-accounts

As a platform you have to be aware of that and handle this build up of balance and keep enough money available to be able to recover

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you have 2 options here
1/ Take the floating of the funds/loss risk, wait for the Dispute to be won/lost before you decide to reverse the Transfer. This ensures you only reverse when you lose the dispute for good and you don't need to transfer anymore
2/ Reverse on dispute creation, what you to today, but switch to manual payouts to accumulate a balance. When you do, you need to make sure your balance stays positive so that you can transfer funds to the right connected account on demand.

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Does that make sense first?

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 8:13 PM

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Yes

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To have funds available in the balance, you have to build a balance over time from previous charges and switch to manual payouts to basically accumulate money in Stripe.

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Now, I have no payouts right now in my Test Platform Balance

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 8:14 PM

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sure but have you looked at your balance?

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https://dashboard.stripe.com/balance/overview

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you have none

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So you need to build a balance first. In Test mode it's easy there are test cards for this: https://stripe.com/docs/testing#cards-responses

4000000000000077 Charge succeeds and funds will be added directly to your available balance (bypassing your pending balance).

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 8:15 PM

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That's my balance right now.

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It never showed $0

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 8:16 PM

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yep you have nothing AFAICT all your balance is on hold

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Also are you on manual payouts?

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what does your code return when you call https://stripe.com/docs/api/balance/balance_retrieve to see your exact balance?

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 8:17 PM

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I think those $2k+ funds were pending as you correctly stated.

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I just recently added that available balance.

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But just so that you know, I have no bank accounts configured. So even with daily payouts, system won't generate a payout without an external bank account, right?

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Now, I am still not getting this

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The balance says that I have 95k+ on hold

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But on the API it says that it's available

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violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 8:27 PM

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Are you on manual payouts?

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Screen_Shot_2021-09-30_at_1.27.51_PM.png

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Screen_Shot_2021-09-30_at_1.27.53_PM.png

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 8:44 PM

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@onyx obsidian ^ does that make sense? I'm curious if that's the issue

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 8:58 PM

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Ok

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Will turn that on

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Done

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Anything else?

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 9:01 PM

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try a transfer now

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 9:02 PM

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Oh, transfers were already working. They started working after I sent a payment using the first 2 cards here: https://stripe.com/docs/testing#cards-responses. That's why now I have available balance:

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Anything else I should do?

violet hedge Sep 30, 2021, 9:04 PM

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I think you're set, you mostly needed to align with us on how all of this works

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and now you know how to handle this in production (you will need manual payouts there too)

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 9:04 PM

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Makes sense

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So, if payouts send money to our bank account automatically, we may end up having this issue in production too.

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better to turn them off.

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Also, pending balance won't help me if I need to make transfers.

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On the other hand, I am still not understanding the difference between what I see in the Balance dashboard and what I retrieve using the Balance API.

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Interesting

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Now it changed:

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it looked differently previously

civic scarab Sep 30, 2021, 9:07 PM

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Hello! I'm taking over for @violet hedge, nice to meet you! The Balance shown in the Dashboard is more of a summary and doesn't show the detail you get from the API. You should use the information you get from the API to determine what funds are available to be transferred.

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 9:07 PM

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civic scarab Sep 30, 2021, 9:07 PM

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It looks different in the Dashboard now because you switched to manual payouts.

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 9:07 PM

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Interesting

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Why did it previously say that I had 95k on hold when the API balance was saying only 2k+ were pending?

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is "on hold" different from "pending"?

civic scarab Sep 30, 2021, 9:10 PM

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Those funds were being held for payout to a bank account.

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On hold is different from pending, yes.

onyx obsidian Sep 30, 2021, 9:10 PM

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oh, ok

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I think that clears it up

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Thank you for taking the time to explain it all in such detail

#NewtReyes-balance-report-error