How Stripe Transfers Work

Stripe is the online payment processor that enables cloud-based card payments through Bbot such as Apple Pay and Google Pay. When connecting Stripe to your bank account through Bbot's Owner Panel, you set up a Stripe Connect Express account that maintains a small bank account for you. Bbot transfers money into this account as soon as the funds are available, and then funds are paid out to your bank account via ACH transfer based on your payout schedule. 

The amount of time between the initial transaction and funds reaching your bank account is usually between 4-6 business days. 

Each night, Bbot's accounting system processes credit card charges and batches them into transfers based on when the card charges will clear. The Accounting & Transfers Report shows the components of each transfer, as well as the scheduled date. 

The 'Transfer Date' listed on the Accounting & Transfers report is when the credit card charges will clear and Bbot transfers funds to your Stripe account. This is typically 2-3 business days from the initial transaction, depending on the card. Most U.S. cards take 2 business days and most European cards take 3 business days. Our accounting software automatically pushes available funds to your Stripe account as soon as they are available, so because charges from different types of cards on the same day of business may clear on different days, you may see two separate transfers for that single day of business in your Accounting & Transfers Report.

One Daily Stripe Transfer

If you'd like all of the charges from a given day to be included in a single payout, you can enable the setting shown in the image below. This can be found in the 'Payouts and Billing' page under the 'Stripe Payout Settings' page. When the nightly accounting batch runs, it will produce one Stripe transfer and payout grouping all executed transfers that were created on the SAME DATE (as opposed to just all executed transfers)

You are also able to change the frequency of the payouts, either every day or once per week on a specific day. To change when the payouts occur, click the dropdown and select which option you would like. 

If you select 'Once Per Week', you'll be presented with another drop-down menu to select which day you would like the payouts to occur on. Once you've chosen which day you would like payouts to be sent, click 'Submit' to save your choice. After the funds clear, Stripe automatically triggers a payout via ACH transfer from your Stripe account to your connected external bank account.  The ACH payouts only happen Monday thru Friday and they include all available funds. So, even without a single day's revenue being split, some ACH payouts will always include multiple days of sales (e.g. Saturday and Sunday's revenue typically gets transferred on the same weekday).

Refunded Transactions & Stripe Transfers

  • If a charge is refunded to a guest the same day that the transaction was completed, this charge will not be included in the Stripe transfer amount. 
  • If a charge is refunded to a guest on the third day after the transaction was made, the refund will appear on the transfer for the day that the original transaction was completed. 

By default Stripe executes daily payouts, but this can be changed to weekly (choose a day, Monday - Friday). You are also able to choose monthly transfers (chose a date, 1st - 31st) however to have that turned on you would need to send a support request to Bbot. Most banks take 2-3 business days to process an ACH transfer.

Combine Customers' Payouts

If you have multiple Bbot accounts are connected to the same Stripe account, you'll be able to adjust Payout Settings for all the connected customers. You will also be able to combine customers' payouts. By selecting this setting, a single ACH payout covering all restaurants with the shared Stripe account will be sent to your bank account instead of one payout per connected customer. Note that the managing customer for the Stripe Account will be able to adjust the Settings on the account. To change the 'managing customer', you'll need to contact your Bbot CSM or reach out via support@bbot.menu.

Technical Details: Tracking the flow of funds

If you're interested, here's how you can see funds traveling through the system at each step.

Customer Card → Bbot Stripe account → Restaurant Stripe account → Restaurant Bank Account

1) Card charge made

The instant that a guest makes a purchase, the funds appear on the Sales by Category report, as well as the other sale & tip reports (available on the Reports page of the Bbot owner portal).

2) Stripe transfer planned

Every night (roughly 4 am local time), the Bbot accounting system adds up the day's credits & debits, and schedules Stripe transfers from Bbot to the restaurant Stripe account (the restaurant's account within Stripe, not the external bank account). These Stripe transfers are scheduled to happen on the date when the credit card charges will clear. These future Stripe transfers, as well as past Stripe transfers, are visible on the Accounting and Transfers report discussed above. ( Note that the Accounting Report doesn't show transfers until they're planned by the night's accounting batch. This is in contrast to the Sales by Category report, which shows sales in real time.)

3) Stripe transfer executed

On the transfer date (the day card charges clear), Bbot executes a Stripe transfer to your Stripe account. At that point, the funds are visible as part of the available balance on the restaurant's Stripe Dashboard. 

You can view your Stripe dashboard from the Bbot Owner Portal's left menu -> Account Settings -> Connect Stripe -> View/Edit Dashboard.   

In the Stripe dashboard, you can see your current Stripe account's balance. The balance is money that has been transferred from Bbot and will be paid out in the next scheduled ACH payout. It does not include planned future transfers.

4) External Payout initiated

The available balance of the restaurant's Stripe account is sent based on their payout schedule, via ACH, to your external bank account. (This is called a "Payout" in Stripe. Note that it's different from the intra-Stripe "Transfers" discussed above.) These ACH Payouts are shown on the Stripe Dashboard, under 'Recent Payouts'. The "Date" listed in the Stripe Dashboard is Stripe's estimated arrival date of the funds to your bank account. When an ACH Payout is initiated, the ACH Payout date and statement descriptor will be shown on the Accounting and Transfers report discussed above.

  • Note on debit card accounts: Stripe has a $3k limit on payouts to debit cards. Thus, payouts greater than $3k will be split into payments of $2999, so that they go through without getting held up by Stripe.
5) External Payout complete

After Stripe makes an ACH payout, the funds will appear in the restaurant's external bank account as an incoming ACH payment. The time for an ACH payment to appear depends on the bank but is typically 2-3 business days.

For information on reconciling your Stripe transfers, please see Reconciling Stripe Transfers.