🏦 Settlements & Payouts
Understand how Africa Conglomerate calculates your earnings from marketplace sales, how settlement batches are created, how payouts are initiated and tracked, and how to manage refunds — all from the Settlements section.
- Your company must be approved and operational (see Account Setup)
- For commission-model sellers: payout onboarding must be completed on your rail — Stripe Connect Express (Stripe-supported countries) or Flutterwave payout details (supported African countries). The rail is chosen from your company country (see Billing & Plans)
- At least one completed, paid order must exist before settlement lines are generated
- You must have a role with financial view access (e.g. Finance or Admin) — the Finance menu, including Settlements and Vendor Payouts, is hidden otherwise
Part 1 — How Settlements Work
When a buyer pays for an order, the platform records a Settlement Line for that payment. Lines are held for a configurable number of days (the hold period) to allow time for disputes or refunds. Once the hold period passes, the line becomes eligible and can be included in a settlement batch. Settlement batches are then approved and paid out to your bank account or mobile money wallet.
Open the Settlements Dashboard
Go to Finance → Settlements. The dashboard shows:
- Unsettled Balance — everything accrued and not yet paid out
- Eligible Now — lines whose hold window has passed and that are ready to batch
- On Hold — earnings still within the hold period ("Within N-day dispute window")
- Total Settled (Lifetime) — everything ever paid out to you
- Recent Settlements and Recent Payouts — the last few batches and disbursements, with a View All link on each
Understand Settlement Line States
Each sale recorded by the platform moves through these states:
- On Hold — hold period not yet expired; funds are protected
- Eligible — hold period passed; line can be batched into a settlement
- Batched — attached to a settlement (Pending Review → Approved → Processing)
- Paid — the settlement's payout was confirmed by the provider and your balance was reduced
Part 2 — Settlement Batches
Settlement batches group eligible lines together into a single payout unit. You create a batch yourself: click Generate Settlement on the dashboard (or the settlements list), choose the period start and end dates (the form defaults to the last full calendar month) and submit. Every eligible, unbatched line dated inside that period is pulled into one settlement. If nothing is eligible you will see "No eligible, unbatched settlement lines found for that period" — lines may still be inside their hold window.
View Your Settlement List
Go to Finance → Settlements and click View All
next to Recent Settlements (/settlements/settlements/). Use the
status filter buttons (All, Pending, Approved, Paid, Failed) to view settlements by:
- Pending ("Pending Review" on the detail page) — batch created, awaiting approval
- Approved — approved, ready for payout
- Processing — payout initiated, waiting for the provider to confirm
- Paid — payout confirmed by the provider
- Failed — the provider rejected or failed the payout (your balance was not reduced)
View a Settlement Detail
Click any settlement reference to open the detail page. The page shows:
- Header — reference number, period, status, and totals
- Gross Amount — sum of all payment amounts included
- Platform Commission — the commission deducted by Africa Conglomerate
- You Receive — gross minus commission — the settlement amount
- Line Items — table of individual orders included in this batch
Approve a Settlement (Admin)
Every new settlement starts in Pending Review and must be approved before it can be paid. On the settlement detail page, click Approve Settlement and confirm. The status moves to Approved, the approver and date are recorded beneath the actions, and a Process Payout button appears (see Step 6) — approval does not trigger the payout by itself.
Part 3 — Payouts
A payout is the actual disbursement of an approved settlement to your bank account or mobile money wallet.
Trigger a Payout
On an Approved settlement, click Process Payout and confirm the browser prompt ("Process payout of … to your account?"). The platform initiates a transfer to the destination on file — the bank account or mobile money number in your Payout Account Settings, or, for Flutterwave-routed sellers once Flutterwave payouts are switched on, the payout details you saved under Billing.
A provider accepting the transfer is not the same as the money
arriving. You will see "Payout PAY-OUT-… initiated — awaiting confirmation
from the provider", the payout and settlement sit in Processing, and
your Unsettled Balance is not reduced yet. They move to
Paid only when the provider confirms — via the Flutterwave
transfer.disburse webhook, or by the platform's payout
reconciler which re-checks in-flight payouts every 15 minutes. If the
provider reports a failure the payout becomes Failed and your balance
is untouched.
- Manual / Cheque — recording the payout is the confirmation; it is marked Paid immediately
- Bank Transfer — no API call is made; it stays Processing until the platform confirms the transfer
- Mobile Money and Flutterwave — Processing until the provider confirms
Monitor Payout Status
Go to Finance → Vendor Payouts (/settlements/payouts/)
to see all payout records. Each row shows the reference, settlement, method,
amount, status, and date. Payout statuses are:
- Pending — record created, transfer not yet dispatched
- Processing — accepted by the provider, waiting for confirmation that the money landed
- Paid — confirmed by the provider; your balance has been reduced
- Failed — the provider rejected or failed the transfer; your balance was never reduced
- Cancelled — withdrawn by platform staff
Part 4 — Vendor Account Settings
Your vendor account holds the payout destination details and controls the minimum balance before a payout is triggered.
Configure Your Payout Account
Go to Finance → Settlements and click
Payout Account Settings (/settlements/account/). Set up:
- Schedule — Manual, Weekly or Monthly (a recorded preference; payouts are currently triggered by clicking Process Payout)
- Method — Bank Transfer, Mobile Money, or Manual / Cheque
- Min. Threshold — minimum balance (default 10.00 in your vendor currency) recorded for payout planning
- Bank details — Bank Name, Account Name, Account Number, Routing / Sort Code, SWIFT / BIC
- Mobile money details — Provider (MTN Mobile Money, Airtel Money, Vodafone Cash, M-Pesa) and Phone Number
The vendor currency is fixed from your organisation's default currency when the account is first created, and the hold period is set by the platform — neither is editable here.
Part 5 — Managing Refunds
When a buyer requests a refund, you can initiate it directly from the Finance section. Refunds deduct from the associated settlement line, reducing your net settlement amount for that period.
Initiate a Refund
Find the payment's ID under Finance → Payments, then open
/settlements/refunds/initiate/<payment id>/. Only payments in
paid status that belong to your organisation's orders can be refunded,
and the form shows how much is still refundable after earlier refunds.
- Amount — partial or full; must be between 0.01 and the remaining refundable amount
- Reason — pick a reason code and optionally add a note
The refund is submitted to the payment provider and you are taken to its detail page ("Refund of … initiated (ref: RF-…)"). How quickly the buyer sees the money depends on the provider and their bank.
Track Refund Status
All refunds appear in the Refunds list — click
View Refunds on the Settlements dashboard
(/settlements/refunds/). Each refund shows:
- Reference — the refund reference and the original payment it was raised against
- Amount — the refunded value
- Status — Pending, Processing, Succeeded, or Failed
- Reason and Initiated By — recorded at the time of initiation
