Reconciliation (payments)

Reconciliation is the process of matching the records that different systems keep about the same payments, such as orders, processor transactions, bank payouts, on-chain transfers and the accounting ledger, and explaining every difference between them.

Why records disagree. Each system sees a payment at a different moment and in a different shape. A processor pays out in batches, so one bank deposit covers many sales, minus fees and refunds. Refunds can fail days later and return money to the merchant; Stripe notes this can take up to 30 days. Chargebacks move funds after settlement. None of this shows up in the order system unless someone matches it.

How it works with a processor. Stripe’s documentation is a concrete example. Every movement of funds in or out of the account creates a balance transaction with a type such as charge, refund, stripe_fee or payout, linked to its source object. For automatic payouts, Stripe can list the transactions inside each payout, through the dashboard, a payout reconciliation report or the API. For manual payouts, Stripe cannot tell which transactions a payout covers, so the business is responsible for matching them.

On chain. A blockchain transfer has a public transaction hash, but the order system still has to link that hash to an order. x402 builds a reconciliation step into its failure handling: if a facilitator broadcast a settlement but could not confirm it, it may return settlement_pending with the transaction hash, so the caller can check the chain before retrying instead of paying twice.

Across agents. An agent-to-agent purchase adds more identifiers to join: the A2A task ID, the mandate, the processor’s charge ID or chain transaction hash, and any receipts. AP2 notes that the Payment Mandate’s transaction_id could serve as the key for retrieving the matching Checkout Mandate. When one shared reference travels through every step, each party can find the matching records directly.

Emissar. Emissar’s Ledger module proposes a signed receipt for each completed task that both sides can retrieve, which gives each party the same record to reconcile against. Status: Spec in progress.

Neighbouring terms. Settlement is what reconciliation confirms. An audit trail keeps the history that explains each match.