10 Payments Tracking and Reconciliation

Processing payments is a three-step process that occurs over the course of multiple days:

  1. In-person payments or web payment checkout.

  2. Processing and settlement of the payment and calculation of fees.

  3. Payout of the transaction amount minus applicable fees to a bank account.

Reporting and Data Access Options

The status of the payment and its progression through the payment processing steps are visible through Simphony Reporting, exports, or the Business Intelligence API (BI API).

Several reports let you check the current status and help accountants with tracking and reconciling transactions to payouts. These reports are typically used by organizations that do not require integration with a third party ERP or financial reporting system.

The most important reports are:

  • Payment Tracking Summary - This report is particularly useful for organizations with multiple locations, as it groups the payment tracking by account and lets you drill into location details. The report is based on the business date of the POS transactions and shows the tender, settlement, fee, payout amounts, and variances. Variances include those between tender and settlement amounts, and also expected payout and actual payout amounts. All amounts populate as they become available throughout the payment processing.

  • Payment Tracking - This report is a drill-down from the Payment Tracking Summary and can be run by smaller enterprises as a top-level report.

  • Payout Reconciliation - This report is used to reconcile batch payouts to POS transactions. The report is based on the payout date and shows all transactions that are included in a batch payout. POS transactions of multiple Simphony business dates can be included in a single payout.

  • Check Detail - A drill-down report, for example from the Daily Operations report, shows the details of one specific POS transaction, details, and status of the payment transaction for this guest check.

Customers using an external financial reporting system may take advantage of flat file exports or API solutions that let them access the raw payment data for further processing.