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Sales and settlement control

Ecommerce payout reconciliation starts with clean clearing accounts

A bank payout is usually net of fees, refunds and timing differences. ClearCommerce prepares the sales-side accounting and payment-clearing structure so those differences can be reconciled without hiding them inside revenue.

Discuss your payout workflowPayment clearing accounts

Gross ecommerce activity is not the bank deposit

An ecommerce store records customer sales at gross value. A gateway may later deduct processing fees, include refunds, hold reserves, combine several days or settle in a different period. Posting the net bank receipt directly to sales can hide all of those components.

Reconciliation equation: gross customer payments − refunds − gateway fees ± adjustments = net bank payout.

The role of ClearCommerce

ClearCommerce creates controlled sales summaries and maps payment-method totals to the Xero clearing accounts chosen for the store. That provides a clean starting balance for later settlement reconciliation and preserves source references, preview and export history.

Current product boundary

ClearCommerce does not currently claim automated payout-feed matching for every gateway or marketplace. The live focus is accurate source-order treatment and mapped Xero posting. This page explains the wider reconciliation workflow without presenting roadmap automation as complete.

Accounting workflow

Four records that should remain understandable

Sales summary

Gross sales, tax, shipping and discounts are recorded from eligible ecommerce orders.

Customer payments

Payment-method totals move into the clearing account associated with the gateway.

Gateway adjustments

Fees, refunds, reserves and other deductions explain changes in the clearing balance.

Bank settlement

The net payout transfers from the clearing account to the bank when it is received.

Why payment methods must not be hardcoded

Two stores can use the same checkout label but require different Xero treatment. ClearCommerce stores payment methods as source data and lets each store map them to its own clearing account or unpaid-invoice behaviour.

Manual methods need a different rule

BACS and account-term orders should not receive an automatic gateway payment merely because the ecommerce order exists. They may need an individual Xero invoice left unpaid until the bank transaction is received and reconciled.

Audit trail and duplicate prevention

Sales-side exports retain stable source references and Xero identifiers. Failed jobs can be corrected and retried without recreating the same summary, giving accountants confidence in the records behind the clearing balance.

Questions people ask

Ecommerce payout reconciliation FAQs

What is the difference between sales posting and payout reconciliation?

Sales posting records the gross ecommerce activity, tax, shipping, discounts and refunds. Payout reconciliation explains how gross payment balances become the net amount deposited into the bank after fees, refunds, reserves and timing differences.

Does ClearCommerce automatically import every gateway payout?

Not currently. ClearCommerce provides mapped sales summaries and payment-clearing entries that create the accounting structure needed for reconciliation. Automated payout-feed matching should not be assumed.

Why use a separate clearing account for each payment method?

Different gateways settle on different schedules and deduct different adjustments. Separate clearing accounts make an unexplained balance easier to investigate.

Common payout mismatches

Four reasons a payout total never equals a day of sales

Rolling settlement

Most processors batch captures over a multi-day cycle rather than settling same-day.

Fee deduction

Processing fees are subtracted before the transfer, not recorded as a separate expense line.

Refund netting

Refunds issued after the sale often reduce a later payout instead of the original deposit.

Reserves and holds

Some processors withhold a percentage of funds temporarily, creating a residual clearing balance.

Build the reconciliation on clean source totals

We will show how store payments map into Xero clearing accounts and where later settlement work begins.

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