🇺🇸 CashFlow Transaction and Payout Details - USA

Introduction 

With CashFlow, you only pay when you get paid. There is no cost to signing up, and no recurring fees. 

This article provides a guide to the payment method rates and related charges that may apply to payouts for US pros using CashFlow.

These fees are detailed in the CashFlow Pricing Agreement, which was accepted as part of your CashFlow application. Once your organization is approved for CashFlow, you can refer to the Pricing Agreement on the CashFlow Documents page for details.

Table of Contents

Transaction Details by US Payment Method

Payment Method Details

Surcharging 

Payout Details

Payout Timing

Standard Payout Batches

Other Possible Payout Fees

Payout Information and Questions

Transaction Details by US Payment Method

Payment Method Details

Transaction rates vary by payment method. With CashFlow, you can choose which payment methods to offer to your customers on a per-milestone basis. Learn more about CashFlow milestone configuration.

To view your organization’s specific rates, please refer to the “(i) Payments” section of the Pricing Agreement on your CashFlow Documents page (accessible to admins).

Surcharging

You can choose to enable or disable smart surcharging for credit payment methods. When this is enabled on a payment method and the project’s region allows surcharging, the maximum allowable card fee is added onto the invoice amount for the customer to pay. If surcharging is not applied to a payment method, the payment method fee is deducted from the original invoice amount upon payout. 

Learn more about smart surcharging. 

Payout Details

Payout Timing

Transactions are paid out to your bank account 2 business days after approval. 

For card payments, this is generally 2 business days after the payment is made. ACH payments are usually approved in 3 business days, indicating that the bank has approved the payment; they are paid out 2 business days after that. 

You can refer to the invoice status to check on a payment’s progress: 

1. After the customer authorizes a payment, the invoice status will show “Pending.” 

2. Once this payment is approved by the bank, the status will update to “Approved.” This means the funds have cleared and are on their way to your account

3. Once paid out and funds have been delivered to your account, the invoice status updates to “Paid,” and the Invoices tab will show a “Paid Date” for the invoice. 

Standard Payout Batches

When multiple transactions are scheduled to be sent out to your bank account on the same date, they are considered one payout “batch.” You will receive these transactions together as one payment to your bank account, and any fees will be applied to this batch. 

Each payout batch incurs one $0.50 transfer fee. This fee is applied per batch, rather than per transaction. 

Examples:

• A payout batch containing one $100 payment would appear in your bank account as a $99.50 payout
• A payout batch containing 10 payments of $100 each would appear in your bank account as a $999.50 payout

This is also documented in the “(iv) Settlement & Implementation” section of the Pricing Agreement on your CashFlow Documents page.

Other Possible Payout Fees

Some attempted transactions can incur charges when the customer’s payment is not able to be approved and paid out. When these occur, they are applied to the next eligible payout batch. 

Uncaptured Card Authorizations

When a customer attempts to pay by card but the authorization fails (e.g., the card was declined), a $0.10 charge is incurred. This helps us to manage card authorization attempts, which in turn helps us provide quick decisions and maintain robust fraud detection. 

This fee is documented as “Uncaptured authorizations” within the “(i) Payments” section of the Pricing Agreement on your CashFlow Documents page.

ACH Direct Debit Validation

When you accept an ACH payment from a customer that has not paid you by ACH before, you will be charged a $1.50 account validation fee. Nacha, the US governing body for the ACH payment network, requires businesses to validate the bank account details of any consumer that sends them ACH payments. This validation fee is generally incurred by a customer’s first CashFlow ACH payment; future CashFlow ACH payments from that customer would not incur the fee.  

ACH validation fees are generally charged to one payout batch per month.

This fee is documented as “US Direct Debit Account Validation” within the “(ii) Chargeback Management Options” section of the Pricing Agreement on your CashFlow Documents page.

ACH Direct Debit Reversals

When an ACH payment is reversed after authorization, a $15 charge is incurred. This can be incurred by failed, cancelled, or disputed direct debit transactions. 

This type of charge usually results from customer error. For example, if the customer provides bank information for an account with insufficient funds to pay the invoice, the bank will decline the transaction. 

This reversal charge is very rare. We built in multiple layers of verification to check that the account information looks valid and minimize the risk of decline. 

When a reversal does occur, the invoice status will change from “Pending” to "Payment Failed.” On that project’s Payments page, you will see a reason for the failure listed within the “Recent Activity” updates.  

This fee is documented as “Direct Debit / Bank Transfer Reversals” within the “(ii) Chargeback Management Options” section of the Pricing Agreement on your CashFlow Documents page.

Chargebacks and Other Services

The Pricing Agreement on your CashFlow Documents page lists fees related to chargeback management, including representment, prevention, and resolution, and other optional functionality. 

If a customer files a chargeback against you for a payment made through CashFlow, we’ll help you determine the best path forward, and provide support throughout. The Pricing Agreement reflects the various options that you will have to manage that chargeback. If you would like to learn more about chargeback management, including potential resources and fees, please let us know. 

Payout Information and Questions

Payout Email

On each day that your organization receives a payout, we send out a payout summary email. This email details each transaction included in the payout batch. To manage the recipients of this email, please refer to the “Payments Processed Daily Digest” settings on your CashFlow Internal Notifications page. 

Invoices Page

The CashFlow Invoices page allows you to check for up-to-date information on all of your organization’s invoices. A few tips:

• Click on “Paid Date” to sort paid invoices by payout date (if there is no date here, the invoice has not yet been paid out to your bank account)
• To filter this list to only view invoices that have been paid out, select “Filter” as indicated below. From the “Invoice Status” dropdown menu that will appear, select “Paid”. 

“Amount Invoiced” refers to the amount charged to the customer (before surcharging, if applicable). “Payment Received” reflects the amount paid out to your bank account, before any payout fees.

Payout Questions

If you have any questions about a payout you received, please submit a ticket for support.

Additional Resources:

• CashFlow Payment Milestone Configuration
• OpenSolar CashFlow Overview for Finance and Accounting Teams