Latpay - Understanding your merchant settlements

When you first start with My Appointments, you will be transacting under our group Merchant account. This will mean you will automatically be on weekly deposits. The payment period runs from Wednesday, 6 pm to the following Wednesday, 5:59 pm. Deposits for that period are then made on Thursday into your nominated bank account.  

For those of you who have applied for your own Latpay merchant accounts, the settlement period is different. 

You have the option to choose daily or weekly settlements.  

Daily Settlement - payments made before 6 pm will be settled the following day, except for:

• Payments processed from 6:00 pm Thursday to 5:59 pm Friday will be settled on Monday.
• Payments processed from 6:00 pm Friday to 5:59 pm Monday will be settled on Tuesday.

Weekly Settlement - funds are deposited on Tuesday and will include all transactions processed from 6 pm, Monday to 5:59 pm the following Monday.

The following information relates only to those who have their own Latpay Merchant Login.  

For those of you with your own merchant accounts, you will be given your Latpay login details to manage your transaction fees and settlements. This article will help you navigate your way through your Latpay login.

Dashboard

When you log in, you'll see a graph showing this month’s transactions. You'll also see the chargebacks (when a client disputed a transaction and requested a refund from their bank), and the refunds you have processed. You may also toggle the settings to see last month’s transactions and refine data to view only the chargebacks, refunds, and accepted or rejected transactions.

Statements and Reports

When you hover on the Statements and Reports tab, you'll be presented with three options:

1. Daily Statement - this will show the total daily transactions, fees, and settlements.
   
2. Statement Details Reports - from here, you can download transaction reports as an excel file. This includes the time and date of each transaction in the given timeframe, the transaction amount, the merchant service charge (MSC), the gateway fee, and the type of card. You can then further refine your reports by date, transaction type (refund, chargeback, or void), and status (all or accepted only).
   
3. Transaction Reports - this shows a list of all the individual payments processed, cumulative amounts and can be filtered by date range or transaction type.
   

Settlements Into Your Account

From the Daily Statement tab, you'll see the following fields:

• Settlement Frequency - this is the frequency you have specified for funds to be settled into your chosen bank account - either weekly or daily
• Settlement Defer Period - this is the number of days funds are held before settling into your account. As it can take up to 24 hours for your clients’ bank to settle the funds to Latpay, a deferral period is necessary to ensure that the funds are cleared before it is deposited into your nominated account. In most cases, the deferral period is 1 day
• Debit - the total daily transaction fees charged by Latpay
• Credit - the total daily amount of transactions processed
• Net - the difference between the credit amount and the debit amount
• Settlement - the amount settled into your account
• Balance - the amount owed to you that has not been settled yet

To further drill down into the settlements, click on the settlement amount which is usually displayed in green. From here, you'll see all payments that were included in that settlement period including the 1.5% or 1.7% (depending on your plan and if you use a Latpay tap terminal) merchant service charge (MSC), gateway fee (25￠), clients’ name, and net deposit for each transaction. You'll also see a bank transfer fee of 25￠ which is payable each time a deposit is made into your nominated account.

Transaction Fees

There are three types of transaction fees:

1. Merchant Service Charge - 1.5% per transaction or 1.7% per transaction (depending on your plan or if you use a Latpay terminal). This is the fee charged to cover the card issuer’s costs (Visa & Mastercard) for the use of their cards. Please note that the international transaction fee for Visa & Mastercard is 2.8%.

2. Gateway Fee - 25￠ per transaction. This is the fee charged to cover the cost of receiving and processing the transaction. 

3. Bank Transfer Fee - 25￠ per deposit. This fee is charged only when your funds are settled, either daily or weekly, depending on your chosen settlement period. Please note that the bank transfer fee can only be charged AFTER the funds have been settled into your account. The fee is therefore deducted from your settlement amount of the following week.