If your merchant balance goes negative, payouts are held until it is positive again — and Lumion now tells you when that happens.
What happens
A negative merchant balance means more money has gone out of the account than has come in — most often through refunds, chargebacks or returned payments landing in a period with little collection activity.
While the balance is negative:
• Payouts are held. Settlements stop being paid out to your bank account.
• Collections keep working. Student payments are still taken as normal — nothing about your students' schedules changes.
• Settlements apply to the negative balance. The money you collect goes toward clearing the shortfall.
• Payouts resume automatically once the balance is positive again. There is no button to press and no request to submit.
The notification
When payouts begin being held, you get an email and a notification in the dashboard. It tells you that payouts are temporarily held because of a negative merchant balance, that settlements continue to apply against that balance, and that payouts restart on their own once the balance turns positive.
The point of the notification is that a missing payout is explained before you go looking for it.
What to do
Usually nothing — normal collections clear the balance and payouts resume by themselves.
It is worth a closer look if:
• The balance went negative sharply. A large refund or a run of chargebacks is worth understanding rather than just waiting out.
• It is not clearing. If collections in the period are small, the shortfall can sit there for a while — your Customer Success Manager can help you look at the timing.
• You have payroll or vendor timing tied to payouts. Tell whoever manages cash flow, since the hold affects when money lands, not how much.