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Understand double or pending charges on your bank or credit card account

by Intuit• Updated 2 months ago

Learn about double or pending charges on your bank or credit card account from QuickBooks Payments.

Double or pending charges don't always mean merchants charge you twice. Banks can sometimes affect the processing of transactions. Find out how this impacts your payments and avoid any potential issues.

Learn about the payment process

When you pay your merchants, their card processors validate the customer's account and funds until the payment clears. During this process, you may see transactions that look double or pending.

Note: If you use a credit card to pay, there are fees, requirements, and terms to consider.

Here's how the payment process goes:

Payment processing stage	Description
Authorization hold	This is the bank's process of holding funds until the merchant clears the transaction or the hold "falls off." This is to make sure the account is correct and that debit or credit card payments are real. Once the hold is released, the balance becomes available again. For debit cards: depending on the bank’s policy, holds can “fall off” 1 to 5 days after the transaction date. For credit cards: depending on the issuing bank and credit limit availability, holds can take as long as 30 days.
Settlement	Settlement is when merchants finalize or clear transactions and send them by batch to the bank every end-of-day. Banks reserve the customer’s funds without sending them to merchants yet. Note: The actual balance isn't reduced until the merchants submit the batch of transactions and the bank transfers the funds.
Funding	Banks transfer the available funds which show as pending until they clear. Depending on their bank, funds may take up to 3 business days to appear in the merchant's account. You can find out when QuickBooks Payments deposits customer payments.

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