Payment Not in Your Bank Account

Your customer paid, GetCost shows the invoice as paid, but the money has not landed in your bank yet. Almost always this is the payout schedule rather than a lost payment.

How the money moves

A card payment does not go straight to your bank. It travels in two separate steps, and they happen days apart:

  1. The customer's card is charged

    This is instant. GetCost marks the invoice as paid the moment it succeeds, and the money arrives in your Stripe balance.

  2. Stripe pays out to your bank

    On a schedule that Stripe sets, not GetCost. This is the step people are waiting on when the invoice says paid but the bank account looks unchanged.

Note: a paid invoice in GetCost means the card was charged successfully. It does not mean Stripe has transferred the money to your bank yet.

The first payout takes about a week

This is the single most common reason a payment appears to be missing. For security, Stripe holds the first payout on a new account for roughly one week after the first successful payment. Nothing is wrong, and nothing needs to be done - the money is sitting in your Stripe balance, waiting for that window to pass.

Once the first payout has gone through, later payouts settle far faster - generally 1 to 3 days after each payment.

Watch for this: the waiting period applies to a new Stripe account, not to your time with GetCost. If you connected a brand new Stripe account recently - for example after changing your business name - the clock started again with that account.

Stripe's own explanation of the first payout waiting period →

What to check

  1. Look at the Stripe card on your dashboard

    It shows your next payout - how much Stripe is sending and the day it should arrive - along with your available balance and anything still pending. If a payout is listed with a date, the money is on its way and the date is your answer.

  2. Check your account status in Settings

    Open Settings | Payment | Stripe. If Stripe is waiting on information from you, the status is shown here along with exactly what it needs and the deadline. Stripe pauses payouts when required details go unanswered, so this is worth ruling out.

  3. Confirm the bank account on file with Stripe

    Payouts go to the bank account held in your Stripe account, which GetCost does not control. Open your Stripe dashboard and check that the account and routing details there are the ones you expect.

  4. Allow for weekends and bank holidays

    Payout dates are business days. A payout due Friday can land the following Monday or Tuesday without anything being wrong.

Who can see this: the Stripe card and account status are visible to the business owner, admins, and the accountant. Other team members will not see them.

If it is still missing

If the payout window has passed, your account status is healthy, and the money is still not in your bank, the next thing to establish is whether the payment reached your Stripe balance at all.

Can you see the payment in Stripe?

If the payment is in your Stripe balance, this is a payout question and Stripe support can trace it from their side. If you cannot find the payment in Stripe either, that is usually a different problem - see Payment Not Showing in Stripe.

Tip: when contacting support about a specific payment, have the invoice number and the payment date ready. Both appear on the payment record in GetCost.