Your first payout is a big milestone. Once funds start arriving, it’s helpful to know what’s expected, what might look unfamiliar at first glance, and how to quickly troubleshoot anything that feels off. This guide walks through the most common questions providers have right after their first deposit.

Once your payout hits your bank account, it’s a good idea to take a quick look inside Playground and make sure everything lines up the way you expect.

Start by heading to Billing tab then the Payouts tab.

At the top of the page, you’ll see summary cards showing things like your next payout date, estimated upcoming payouts, and your all-time volume. This gives you a quick snapshot of where things stand.

From there, click into the specific payout you want to review.

Inside the payout details, you’ll see:

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Below that, you’ll find a breakdown of the payout itself. This includes:

If you want more detail, you can scroll down to the Payments section. Here, you’ll see each student tied to that payout, along with what was paid and when.
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Taking a few minutes to review your payout helps you stay confident that everything processed the way it should. If something doesn’t look right, that’s the time to dig in or reach out for help.

If you were expecting a payout and nothing showed up, there are a few common reasons this can happen and most of them are easy to check.

First, make sure the minimum requirement was met. Payouts only initiate if your available balance is $5 or more by 7:00 PM Eastern on a business day.

If your balance was below $5 at that cutoff time, the payout simply won’t trigger that evening.

Next, head to the Transactions tab and open the Credits tab.

Take a look at:

If a card payment fails, those funds never become available for payout. In that case, there wouldn’t be anything to send to your bank.

It’s also worth checking the calendar. Payouts only initiate on business days. If the cutoff fell on a weekend or a banking holiday, the payout may initiate the next business day instead. Once initiated, standard payouts typically arrive the following business day, but holidays can cause delays in the money arriving to your bank.
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Please also keep in mind for the first payout it tends to take a couple of business days for the funds to arrive to the account. After that first payout is successful from initiation to the deposit of the money, then whenever a payout initiates, you should receive it the next day.

If you’ve checked all of the above and something still doesn’t look right, reach out to Support and we’ll take a closer look with you.

Sometimes you’ll open a payout and notice something that doesn’t quite line up with what you were expecting. Maybe the amount looks smaller than expected. Or maybe there’s a negative number with a status that says “Withdrawn.”

Here’s what that usually means.

If you see a payout with a negative amount and a status of Withdrawn, that’s what we call a negative payout.

This usually happens for one of two reasons:

ACH payments can sometimes take a few hours to a few days to fully process. Because payouts run daily, Playground fronts the funds of those payments so you can receive them quickly. If a payment later fails or a refund is processed after the payout has already gone out, the system has to reconcile that difference.

You might see this show up in two ways:

The details are always inside the payout itself. If you click into it and scroll to the Summary section, you’ll see whether it was a failed payment or a refund, the exact amount, and the student connected to it.

For a full walkthrough with screenshots and deeper explanations, take a look at our Negative Payouts article.

Once your payout lands, it’s completely normal to want to double-check the numbers. The good news is everything you need is right there in your account.

Start by opening the payout from the Payouts tab. At the top, you’ll see the total amount sent to your bank. Scroll down to the Summary and Payments sections to see exactly how that number was built. You can also turn on additional columns, like the Pays for column, to see exactly which item or charge each payment covered. That can be especially helpful if you’re reconciling tuition or reviewing a specific program.
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Here’s what to look for:

If you prefer to compare things another way, you can:

If you need documentation for bookkeeping, you have a few options:

Nothing here should feel hidden. If something looks off, you can trace it back to the exact transaction and student. The goal is that you can confidently reconcile your payout without needing to guess where a number came from.
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