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
Some actions, such as refunds and chargebacks, create negative transactions in a Stripe account. If your holding account has available funds when you initiate a refund, they are used immediately.
For US-based accounts, if there are insufficient funds in the account, the refund will be initiated anyway, and the balance in that account will become negative. Whenever an account’s balance becomes negative, Stripe temporarily claims a portion of a Technolutions reserve fund to ensure that the transaction can proceed. When an account balance is negative at the cut-off time, regularly scheduled payouts are, by default, suspended until the balance is again positive.
By default, our own reserve funds cover any negative balance in your account on a short-term basis. Those funds are released automatically after additional incoming funds clear. If the negative balance is large enough, you will encounter a limit (and alert message in Slate), and you won't be able to initiate additional refunds. It is also possible that some initiated refunds are held in a pending state, like if, for example, your account has been placed under review.
There are two options for handling negative balances:
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.
How it works
When your Stripe account has a negative balance and is set to auto-debit, Stripe attempts 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 if your external bank account is not configured to allow debits or withdrawals. 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 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.
Select an account.
Select Two-way Payouts (debit negative balances).
Select Save.
After that first step is done, in the "Slate Payments Deposit Account" pop-up window, select the checkbox, then 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 permanently drafts our 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.