A Slate Payments deposit account is a custom Stripe Connect account on the Slate Payments platform that holds your funds until they are available to be transferred to your external bank account.
Account details and balances
To access a Slate Payments Deposit Account, go to Database → Slate Payments and select an account from the list. You will see the account details page with balance information at the bottom, detailing the total balance, the estimated upcoming payout amount, and the expected arrival of that payout.
Balance and availability
Your total balance might differ from the next estimated payout amount, because some incoming funds may not yet have cleared. Available funds can be paid out to your external bank account, or will be used for refunds and chargebacks. Pending incoming funds are not yet available for refunds, chargebacks, or to pay out. The charged amount, less any Stripe fees, is initially reflected in a pending balance, and generally becomes available on a rolling, two-business-day basis for credit card payments. Timing can vary by payment method, country, and account. See the Payout article for more details.
Handling negative balances
Refunds, chargebacks, and other adjustments can create negative transactions in a Stripe account. If your deposit account has sufficient available funds when a refund is initiated, those funds are used immediately.
For US-based accounts, if there are insufficient available funds, the refund will generally still be initiated and the account balance will become negative. When this happens, Stripe temporarily uses a portion of a Technolutions reserve fund to allow the transaction to proceed. Those reserve funds are released automatically after additional incoming funds clear into your account.
If a new refund would cause the negative balance to exceed the account's negative balance limit, Slate will display an alert and you will not be able to initiate additional refunds until sufficient funds are available.
Planning ahead for expected refund activity
Negative balances can occur as part of normal payment activity, particularly when refunds or chargebacks occur after funds have already been paid out to your bank account. If you know that a period of higher refund activity is approaching, you can reduce the likelihood of a large negative balance by temporarily keeping more funds in your deposit account.
For example, institutions with highly seasonal payment activity—such as summer programs, reunion events, or other activities with a predictable refund period—may want to change their automatic payout schedule or temporarily pause payouts. This allows incoming funds to accumulate in the account and provides a balance that can be used for anticipated refunds.
This can be particularly helpful if you normally use daily payouts, or if institutional restrictions prevent you from enabling the recommended two-way payout configuration. Once the higher-refund period has passed, you can resume your normal payout schedule and the remaining available balance will be paid out.
When your account has a negative balance
When an account balance is negative at the payout cut-off time, regularly scheduled automatic payouts are suspended until the balance becomes positive again.
How the negative balance is replenished depends in part on how the deposit account was configured before the negative balance occurred. We recommend enabling two-way payouts in advance for all eligible deposit accounts. This allows Stripe to debit the linked bank account when a negative balance occurs.
Enabling two-way payouts only after an account has already become negative does not, by itself, trigger a debit for the existing negative balance. If there is no subsequent account activity that initiates the debit process, another method may be needed to replenish the account.
There are two options for resolving a negative balance, depending on your account configuration:
Option 1: Two-way payouts (recommended)
When you enable two-way payouts for a Slate Payment Deposit account and its associated external bank account, Stripe can automatically and directly debit your external bank account to cover a negative balance. You will want to set up this option before you expect to issue refunds.
How it works
When your Stripe deposit account is set to auto-debit and refunds or chargebacks leave it with a negative balance, Stripe will attempt to debit your bank account within two business days to cover the negative balance, regardless of your regularly set automatic payout schedule.
A negative payout will be recorded in Slate. Individual transactions associated with the payout appear in your payment history view.
Enabling two-way payouts
🔔 Important!Do not enable two-way payouts unless your external bank account is already configured to allow direct debits or withdrawals (See steps 1-3 below). If an attempted negative payout (that is, a direct debit) fails, Stripe halts all payouts for the account until the bank account information or the configuration is updated. Payouts must then generally be retried manually, which requires a Support ticket.
To enable two-way payouts:
Contact your bank, either directly or through your Finance department.
Inform your bank that they should allow Stripe to debit your bank account via ACH/direct bank debit.
Provide your bank with the Stripe ACH company ID numbers:
1800948598 - Stripe Payments Company
4270465600 - Stripe Payments Company
Go to Database → Slate Payments.
On the Deposit Accounts page, select an account.
Click “Edit Payout Details” in the top right menu.
In the pop-up window, check the Two-way Payouts checkbox.
Select Save.
📝 Note
This functionality is available for immediate configuration with banks located in the US and Canada. For custom Connect accounts in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Europe (SEPA countries) this functionality is currently listed as Beta (Preview); please reach out to us if you are interested. Stripe at present can’t correct a negative Stripe account balance using banks located in other countries.
Option 2: Invoice
If, due to institutional limitations, you cannot enable two-way payouts, we can arrange for payment via invoice. Your ability to initiate large numbers of refunds will be limited. If your negative balance is large enough, we will reach out to you proactively and invoice to arrange payment.
If your balance remains negative for 180 days, Stripe automatically and permanently drafts Technolutions reserve funds into your account to restore the balance to zero. This is called a connect collection transfer. We will invoice you for that amount; we will generally reach out to you much sooner.
For non-US accounts, our ability to manually transfer funds into your account is very limited. If you expect to run a negative balance for any length of time, you must enable two-way payouts where available!