For any business, liquidity is paramount for effective functioning. Having a steady cash flow ensures that you can meet working capital expenses related to your business, be it paying bills, placing inventory orders, and similar others. An efficient and instant settlement process ensures that the business functions smoothly.
What are settlements?
For online businesses, settlements refer to the process through which the money paid by a customer for a product or service, reflects in their bank account. While the transactions are processed in real-time, the settlement process usually takes a little longer. The settlement process is considered complete only when the funds reach the business account.
Although payment gateways often look like a simple pay-and-go process, the settlements involve a series of steps.
- Money moves through several channels, including the two transacting parties’ bank accounts and the payment gateway, which serves as an intermediary.
- After deducting payment gateway charges, the remaining amount is then transferred to the seller’s account.
- The integrated payment gateway also works in case of refunds and chargebacks to initiate payments to the right destination accounts.
Despite these complexities, reliable payment gateways in India provide the fastest settlement process, have easy reconciliations for businesses, and help with tracking business growth.
How do Paytm Payment Gateway Settlements process work?
At Paytm, we understand how crucial settlement is to your business. This is why Paytm Settlements offer diverse customization options for merchant partners that fit their requirements.
Before going into the options available, let us explain to you how our settlement process works:
Step 1: At a particular point in time, when a merchant wants to settle transactions, our payment system computes the total amount to be paid after adjusting for commissions, chargebacks, or refunds.
Step 2: The system then identifies the right partner for each transaction and initiates the payment request. Depending on the transfer rail (whether the transactions are based on IMPS payments, UPI, NEFT, or other methods), the payout amount is processed and deposited in the registered bank account of the merchant.
Step 3: After the transfer, the reference number and transaction data are shared as MIS reports to the merchant. Paytm Payment Gateway also provides a merchant dashboard where they can track settlements and download reports.
Also Read: A Merchant’s Guide to Payment Gateway Settlements
Now that you understand the Paytm settlement process, it’s time to explore the options we provide.
Settlement Options with Paytm Payment Gateway
For merchant partners, Paytm provides three different settlement frequency options:
Batch settlement
Under this option, all transaction amounts for a merchant are collated in batches of specific periods and then settled in one go. Batches can be:
- A T+n batch, wherein all payments made on T day are processed within n calendar days. For example, for a T+15 day settlement cycle, all payments made on the 1st of a month are settled by the 16th of that month.
- A custom settlement cycle wherein the merchant can define their batch of 24 hours or during a specific period, like between 9 AM and 12 AM.
Same-day settlements
In this case, the payments reflect in the merchant bank account on the same day (the merchant can either transfer the day’s collections to their account with a single click on their Paytm Business dashboard or select automated frequencies for settlements to take place directly during the day)
Real-time settlements
It supports the immediate need for money (the payments are processed and settled directly to the merchant account as and when they are made)
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Available transfer rails and settlement destinations
A transfer rail is a network used to move funds from one source to another. Depending on a set of rules, Paytm offers five different money transfer rails with a dynamic routing protocol to complete the settlement process:
- Unified Payments Interface (UPI)
- Immediate Payment Service (IMPS)
- National Electronic Funds Transfer (NEFT)
- Real-Time Gross Settlement (RTGS)
- Wallet transfer
Paytm also offers all merchant partners four different settlement routes. While bank accounts are the most preferred destination, we also allow merchants to choose from the other three settlement destinations:
- Virtual Account Number (VAN)
- UPI VPA
- Paytm wallet
Key features of Paytm Payment Gateway Settlements
Settlements as a lending tool
Paytm provides merchants with a same-day settlement option on demand, which works like an upfront loan. As our payment system reconciles and processes payments, we transfer the money to the merchant without making them wait for funds to come through from the bank, card system, or other trails. This helps merchants tide over any liquidity issue they may face.
Settlements on holidays and weekends
Paytm provides settlement on all days of the week, including public and bank holidays, for a small additional charge. This feature helps merchants meet immediate cash requirements without any delay.
Settlement reconciliation
Paytm provides several ways to enable easy financial reconciliations for all payments. Merchants can integrate our API to get details like transfer reference numbers, a custom date range for transactions, and detailed settlement reports. Our dashboard view allows merchants to customize their data and download reports, which are also shared on email or SFTP.
Split Settlements
For merchants who offer split settlements, i.e., accepting payment from multiple sources for a single order, Paytm reconciles them into a single payment for easy reconciliation.
Multiple settlement destinations
Apart from accepting split payments, Paytm also offers merchants the facility to transfer the amount to multiple settlement destinations. For instance, you can transfer a part of the collections to your bank account and another part to your Paytm wallet.
Why choose Paytm as your payment partner?
Paytm Settlements support both large and small businesses for easy payments. The flexibility we provide via same-day settlement, real-time settlements, processing on all days of the week, and the convenient settlement reconciliation dashboard make the whole collections process easy.
Why look for any other payment partner when there is Paytm?
Switch to Paytm for Business today!
