Contents
Overview
Settlement reports provide a list of sales transactions, refunds, disputes, and fee adjustments over a daily, weekly, or monthly period. These reports allow you to reconcile your transactions with the deposits made into your bank account. By default, Affirm generates a daily report that captures all of the day's deposits, which can be parsed out as needed based on the value in the deposit_id column. On days with no activity to settle, Affirm will still provide a blank report to ensure you're informed regardless of transaction activity.
We have implemented several significant updates to our settlement process to optimize operations and improve transparency for our merchants. Please note the following key changes:
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Daily settlement reports:
Settlement reports will now be delivered every calendar day, including a blank report for days without deposits, enhancing reliability and visibility for seamless reconciliation.
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Consolidated payout experience:
Originator payments for loans will be consolidated into fewer net settlements each day, streamlining the payout process without affecting customer transactions or originations.
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Integration:
In some cases, adjustments may be needed for accounting or reporting systems due to the switch to fewer disbursements.
If you have any questions regarding these updates, or require further customizations, please contact your Affirm account manager or the Merchant Care team.
For settlements to occur, you need to have a bank account connected in order to receive the ACH transfers/disbursements.
Settlement events timeline
Generally, the process for settling captured funds follows the timeline in the example below:
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Day 1: Fulfill and capture
Partner (eg, your eCommerce platform) initiates fulfillment of order and captures Affirm loan.
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Day 2, 2 am UTC: Disbursement
Affirm initiates batch ACH transfers for charges from the past 24 hours.
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Day 3-5: Clearing
ACH transfer clears in the destination bank 24-72 hours after disbursement.
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Day 30: First payment
Consumer makes the first payment on their loan with Affirm.
With settlements:
- Merchant fees and refunds are automatically deducted from settlement.
- Settlements are performed in bulk, initiated once per calendar day and a report will be received to match each day’s activity.
Detailed disbursement timelines
The process of receiving a deposit from Affirm into your bank account after capturing a charge is known as disbursement. This occurs over days 2-5 on the settlement events timeline (shown above) and closely mirrors the timeline of a credit card payment. Affirm works with multiple lending partners to originate our loans; Affirm will generally provide a single consolidated deposit to your bank each day, although in some circumstances deposits may be provided on a per lending partner basis.
The process runs according to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). In the timeline below, we've included Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) as an example of how the schedule converts to a U.S. timezone.
- One originator disbursement
- One originator delayed disbursement
- Multiple originators disbursement
- Multiple originators delayed disbursement
- At the beginning of the day, at 03:05 UTC (7:05 PDT), we calculate the sum of all the previous day's charges (captures minus refunds) as the settlement total.
- If your total settlement balance is positive, then at 05:30 UTC (9:30 PDT), we mark the settlement payment for disbursement.
- At 21:30 UTC (13:30 PDT), our lending partners initiate an ACH transfer to your bank account for the settlement amount.
- On the following day, by 03:45 UTC (7:45 PDT), we generate and deliver to you the settlement report that contains all of the charge actions (capture, refund, disputed, etc.).
- Within 1 to 3 business days of initiating the ACH payment, your bank will receive the ACH transfer by 21:30 UTC (13:30 PDT) of that day.
Note that the 'charge created date' referenced in your settlement report is the date on which the loan was captured, whereas the settlement 'date' is the date that Affirm initiated the ACH transfer to your bank account. This date will not always correspond with the date that you receive funds in your bank account.