Distributions FAQs

A Channel Distribution is the amount of money a Channel receives for one specific order placed against one specific merchant. The Channel Distribution includes information about the commission amount, any fees paid to payment providers, and information about the Bag that it is associated with. If you are a Channel, there can be multiple Channel distributions associated to a single payout based on the number of merchants in the Order.

A Merchant Distribution is the amount of money a Merchant receives for one specific order placed to your ecommerce store by a Channel. If you are a Merchant, this is your payout amount for the Order, and you can match it up to the order available in your ecommerce store. You can also see what the Channel received for your specific order, depending on your commission relationship. You can reconcile these against the payouts to your bank account, using the Payout columns, settlement date, and your Stripe Dashboard or Bank statement. Multiple Distributions are included in a single payout. Merchant Distributions also show the total amount of payment provider fees, if any, paid by the merchant.

You can navigate to your Stripe Dashboard by going to your Violet Payouts Settings page and clicking on “Manage on Stripe”. Here, Stripe will show you all transfers made to your account, and all payouts made to your bank account. If you are a Merchant, one Merchant Distribution will line up to one transfer on your Stripe Dashboard. You can map these by looking at the Order Id on the distribution record. If there are Refunds, they will include the same Order Id but be negative values. If you are a Channel, multi-merchant Orders will result in multiple Channel Distributions for the same order, so the value you see in Stripe is the sum of all of these.

Payouts to your bank account occur automatically through Stripe at different frequencies, depending on your configuration. When a payout occurs on Stripe, the Distribution record is also updated by Violet to include the date that the payout was created. Usually this date is one day before the date shown on your bank account and in your Stripe dashboard, because the payout settlement date is different to the payout created date. Coming soon Violet will begin including payout settlement dates in Distribution records for easier reconciliation against bank data.

If you are a merchant trying to reconcile Distributions to orders in your ecommerce store, you can use the external_order_id value on the Distribution. This is the Order Id in your ecommerce platform.

When a refund is placed by the merchant in their ecommerce store, Violet automatically reverses corresponding payouts and payments. Distribution records are created for these reversals, and include a negative value of the amount that was reversed or refunded. Refunds will have the same Order Id as the original Distribution, however, will be associated to a different payout to your bank.