The Payouts page gives you a complete view of all payouts across your Cognito Pay accounts. From here, you can monitor payouts to your bank account, review payout details, manage your payout schedule, and generate reconciliation reports.
If your organization has multiple Cognito Pay accounts, use the account switcher at the top of the page to view balances and payouts for a specific account.
Only organization Owners can edit payout settings and manage bank accounts.
Balances
The balances panel appears at the top of the Payouts page and shows a summary of your current Cognito Pay account balance.
From the balances panel, you can:
- View your available and pending balance
- See information about upcoming payouts
- Add funds to your balance when enabled for your account
- Initiate a manual or instant payout when enabled for your account
- Edit your payout schedule
- Manage your connected bank accounts
Available vs. Pending Balance
Your balance is split into two amounts:
- Available – Funds that are ready to be paid out to your bank account.
- Pending – Funds that have been received but are not yet available for payout. Pending funds typically become available within a few business days, depending on your payout schedule and account settings.
Negative Balances
Your balance can become negative when refunds, disputes, or fees exceed your available funds. When this happens, Cognito Pay will notify you by email. Depending on your account settings, Cognito Pay may deduct the negative amount from a future payout or require you to add funds to your balance.
Reserve Holds
Stripe may place a reserve hold on a portion of your balance as a risk management measure. Held funds are unavailable for payout until the reserve is released. Cognito Pay will notify you when a reserve hold is applied to your account.
The Payouts table
The Payouts table displays all payouts for the selected Cognito Pay account. Each row shows the payout date, status, destination, and amount. Clicking a row opens the payout details dialog.
The table is sorted by date descending by default, with the most recent payouts first. Additional records load as you scroll.
Payout statuses
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Paid | Payout successfully completed; funds transferred to your bank account. |
| Pending | Payout created but not yet sent to your bank account. |
| Sent | Payout sent to your bank account; awaiting final confirmation. |
| Canceled | Payout canceled before completion; funds returned to your balance. |
| Failed | Payout attempt failed; funds not delivered and typically returned to your balance. |
Automatic and manual payouts
Automatic payouts
Automatic payouts are initiated by Cognito Pay on a scheduled basis. Your payout schedule determines how frequently funds are paid out to your bank account. You can view and edit your payout schedule from the balances panel or the Account page.
Automatic payouts include a full transaction breakdown in the payout details dialog, showing the payments, refunds, disputes, and other transactions that contributed to the payout amount. You can also generate a payout reconciliation report for any automatic payout in Paid status.
Manual payouts
Manual payouts are initiated by you from the balances panel. Two types of manual payouts are available when enabled for your account:
- Standard manual payout – Funds arrive on a standard timeline, typically within a few business days.
- Instant payout – Funds arrive within minutes. Instant payouts may incur an additional fee.
Transaction details are not available for manual payouts.
Payout details
Clicking a payout opens the payout details dialog. The dialog displays the payout amount, currency, status, destination, payout method, date sent, date arrived, and payout trace ID when available.
Automatic Payout Details
For automatic payouts, the dialog includes a summary table showing the transaction types that contributed to the payout amount. Supported transaction types are:
- Payments – Successful payment funds included in the payout.
- Refunds – Refund amounts deducted from the payout.
- Disputes – Dispute-related deductions or reversals.
- Payouts – Funds moved from your balance to your bank account.
- Adjustments – Balance adjustments not covered by another transaction type.
- Additional Fees – Standalone provider fee entries.
- Reserve Holds – Risk reserve amounts held by Cognito Pay.
- Reserve Releases – Risk reserve amounts released by Cognito Pay.
- Other – Transaction types not mapped to another category.
Each transaction type can be expanded to view the individual records that contributed to it. Clicking a payment row opens the payment details dialog.
Each expanded transaction table can be exported to CSV. Transaction table exports have no row limit and are available to organization owners and global admins only for payouts in Paid status.
Manual payout details
For manual payouts, the dialog displays the payout statement descriptor. Transaction details are not available for manual payouts.
Payout reconciliation reports
A payout reconciliation report can be generated for any automatic payout in Paid status. The report is intended to help you reconcile a payout against your bank statement.
The report includes:
- Payout summary information, including payout ID, destination, date sent, date arrived, and total amount
- A balance summary showing starting balance, payout amount, and ending balance
- A reconciliation summary breaking down the transaction categories that contributed to the payout amount, including count, gross, fees, and net for each category
Reports are generated as a PDF and emailed to you when ready. Report generation is available to organization owners and global admins only.
Filters
- Date – Filter by a start and end date.
- Status – Select one payout status.
- Destination – Filter by a specific payout destination.
- Amount – Filter by equal to, greater than, less than, or between a specified value.
Export
The payouts table can be exported to CSV. Export includes only records matching your currently applied filters and is limited to the first 10,000 payouts. If your filters match more than 10,000 payouts, only the first 10,000 will be exported.
To export, click Export from the bottom of the Payouts page. When the export is ready, the CSV is downloaded directly in your browser and also sent to your email. Export download links are user-specific – only the user who generated the export can download it.
The export includes the following columns: Payout ID, Payout Creation Date, Payout Arrival Date, Status, Destination, Destination Last 4, Currency, Amount, Account, Method, Description, and Payout Trace ID.
Notifications
Cognito Pay sends email notifications to organization Owners and Adminstrators for the following payout events:
- Automatic payout succeeded – Sent when an automatic payout reaches Paid status.
- Automatic payout failed – Sent when an automatic payout fails.
- Manual payout succeeded – Sent when a manual payout reaches Paid status.
- Manual payout failed – Sent when a manual payout fails.
- Negative balance or reserve hold – Sent when your balance becomes negative, or funds are placed in reserve.