Tender Clearing

A customer pays by card at 9 p.m. The money is not in your bank account — it is with the card processor, and it will arrive tomorrow or the day after, minus a fee, bundled with a hundred other payments. A ledger that posts card sales straight to the bank account says the money is somewhere it isn't — which is exactly why the bank reconciliation never matches at first try.

Tender clearing makes the ledger tell the truth about in-transit money.

Tender clearing and the staff sub-ledger are one mechanism enabled together: clearing accounts absorb the in-transit money, and the staff dimension on every line says whose drawer it sits in.

What changes when it's on#

• Bank-type tenders (cards, wallets, online transfers) post to the bank's clearing account instead of the bank account itself.
• When the settlement actually lands, day-close sweeps and settlement entries move the money from clearing to the real bank account — matching the statement line the bank shows.
• Cash tenders post to the cashier's own custody account when one is set up, otherwise to the Staff Clearing control — and the register close moves the counted cash to the branch's cash-in-hand in one consolidated entry. Your Cash In Hand ledger shows one line per register close, not one line per order.

What you gain#

• Bank reconciliation that works: the bank account in your ledger moves only when the bank statement moves. Clearing accounts absorb the timing gap.
• Visibility of in-transit money: the clearing balance is the money the processors owe you. If it grows day over day, a settlement is late — you see it in the ledger, not in a surprise.

Before you enable it#

• Each bank needs its clearing account mapped; cashier custody accounts need to be set up correctly. Support verifies these mappings as part of enabling — an unmapped bank falls back to its main account.
• Your reconciliation habit changes: you now reconcile the bank account against the statement (it will match), and watch clearing balances for staleness.
• Enable at a period boundary with your accountant on board.

Frequently asked questions#

Does the cashier see anything different? No. Tender selection at the POS is unchanged; this is purely about which ledger account receives the posting.

What if a clearing balance never empties? That's the feature working: it means settlements aren't being recorded (or aren't arriving). Investigate the processor's settlement reports for the gap.