Playground Billing simplifies your payment process by directly depositing funds collected through Playground into your bank account. You can customize your payout days to align with your billing cycles, ensuring timely and accurate fund transfers.
When setting up Playground Billing, you'll provide your bank account information so we can deposit the funds collected through Playground directly into your account.
🚨 Your first payout from Playground to your bank account may take 7-14 business days to process due to regulations for new payment accounts. After the initial payout, subsequent payouts will be processed twice a week for balances over $50.00.
Payout Days
Select Payout Days
Playground allows you to select up to two days per week to deposit the balances collected from guardians into your bank account. If preferred, you can also choose a single payout day.
In the Admin Dashboard, navigate to the Settings tab in the lower left corner.
Toggle to the Payments tab.
Click on the drop-down to the right of the Payout Days setting to select the two days per week that you'd like to initiate payouts to your bank account. A checkmark will appear to the left of the days you've selected.
Once completed, click Save at the top of the Payment Settings tab.
💡 Payout days are the days the deposits to your bank account are initiated. It may take up to 24 hours for the money to reach your account. Payouts are initiated at 5 pm local time on the days selected in this setting. Payments aren't processed or initiated on weekends or holidays.
🚨 Payouts are only initiated if above $50.
Weekly Billing Payout Optimization
If you bill on a weekly cadence, selecting the correct payout days can optimize how quickly you get paid.
Set the date payments will be due each week in your Payment Settings tab.
Select your payout date to match the due date and two business days after the due date.
For example, if my weekly charges are due on Mondays, I would set my payout dates to Mondays and Wednesdays. The Monday payout allows all credit card payments to be processed, as these are generally available the same day if paid by 3 pm. The Wednesday payout ensures all ACH payments are processed and cleared before being paid out.
🚨Please note these are just suggestions for receiving your funds as quickly as possible. Payouts and processing times are dependent on many factors, such as:
Timing of ACH settlement from the bank your guardians use to pay
Timing of ACH settlement from the admin bank account
Whether guardians paid with a credit card or ACH bank account
Due date selected
Bank closures, such as Federal holidays
If the payment clears or declines
Monthly Billing Payout
Since the unique day of the month can fall on differing weekdays each month, there is no true way to optimize payout speed for monthly billing.
Processing Times
💡 Stripe, our payment processor, requires pending periods to verify that a transaction has been successfully processed. An example of a payment that did not process or clear is a declined credit card or insufficient funds (NSF) in the bank account used to pay a charge.
Credit Card
Transactions made before 3 pm local time are processed on the same day. If a credit card payment is made before 3 pm on a payout day, it will be included in that day's payout.
ACH
ACH transactions take approximately 1-2 business days to process. You'll notice these payments will be listed in a Processing status until the payment clears. Once the payment clears, it will switch to a Paid status. If a payment does not clear, it will show as Declined.
Playground immediately decreases a guardian's balance by the amount of the payment made, even while it is still processing. If an ACH payment declines, the amount will be added back to the guardian's current balance.
Payouts Dashboard
The Payouts tab allows you to see when your next bank payout will be and how much you can expect in that payout. You can also see how much of the funds paid are still being processed.
Navigate to the Billing tab and click on the Payouts sub-tab on the left-hand side.
At the top of the tab, you'll see:
Next payout date: when to expect your next payout.
Estimated next payout: how much money to expect in that next payout.
Estimated Future Payouts: amount still processing that will not be included in the next payout unless it clears by the next payout date.
All-time volume: total that has been paid out to your bank account.
In the middle of the tab, you'll see a table with the following columns:
Amount: the amount of money you will receive in your bank account for a specific payout to your bank.
Status: if the payout has been paid.
Destination: the bank account where you will receive your payout.
Initiated: the date the payout was initiated to be sent to your bank account.
Arrival date: the date that you received the funds in your bank account. This is typically one day after the initiated date.
Reconciled: see instructions on reconciling below.
Click on one Payout line item to open a specific payout:
The Overview will let you know the payout status, date initiated and date to expect the payout in your account, and how the payout will show up on your bank statement. You'll also see the specific bank information that was set to receive your Playground payouts.
The Summary section will let you know if any payments failed.
At the very bottom of the specific payouts page, you'll see a Transactions section that shows an itemized list of students' payments included in this specific payout.
Mark a Payout as Reconciled
To ensure accuracy, compare your bank statement with your Playground Payouts tab. Mark the payout as deposited once both match up, verifying that funds have been successfully transferred to your account.
From the Admin Dashboard, open the Billing and Payouts tabs on the left-hand side.
Click on the payout line item to open the payout.
Review the payout and compare it to the deposit in your bank account.
Once reconciled, click the Mark as Reconciled button in the top right corner.
The payout will now show reconciled on the current screen and on the general Payouts tab.
