What are reserves?
What are reserves & why does Gigs use them?
A reserve is a temporary hold on a portion of a business's funds for a predetermined period of time. Reserves are intended to cover any anticipated losses that may result from a business' processing activity.
Reserves are a common industry practice used by payment processors, such as Stripe and other financial institutions, to ensure that businesses are able to cover disputes and refunds from their customers. Funds held in reserve will be paid out once the reserve term has ended (minus any customer refunds or disputes that may have been covered by the reserve).
Gigs will hold 10% of any payout to cover any potential disputes or refunds requested by end users so you don't need to worry. This is held so we have cash on hand to immediately refund end users and avoid your company accruing a negative balance.
How much of my payout will be held in reserve?
10% of each payout will be held by Gigs.
How long is the reserve held by Gigs?
As long as you are using Gigs Payments, Gigs will hold on to reserves to cover end user disputes and refunds.
Any amount of that balance that is not needed for refunds/disputes will always be returned to you as part of your next payout. As payouts are scheduled for the 1st and 16th of each month, this means we will never hold on to any amount for longer than about 2 weeks.
If there are no refunds/disputes in the period, the entire 10% will be returned to you.
This is industry standard and a policy set by Stripe to avoid a negative balance.
For more information, please see Stripe's support page on Reserves.