If you've ever had a merchant ask "when will my money show up?" or "why did my batch close at a different time?" — this article is for you. Below we break down two concepts that drive how your merchants get paid: batching (what Adyen calls the Sales Day) and deposits (what Adyen calls sending funds to third parties).

Part 1: Batching — The Sales Day

What Is a Sales Day?

A sales day is simply the window of time Adyen uses to group a merchant's transactions together before sending them off for settlement. Think of it like closing out a cash register at the end of the night — at a set time each day, Adyen "closes" the batch, tallies up everything processed during that period, and moves those funds through the settlement process.

Partners and merchants often refer to this as batching. The time at which this happens is called the sales day closing time.

Why Does It Matter?

The closing time directly affects when your merchants' transactions are settled — and ultimately, when they see money deposited into their bank account. If the closing time doesn't align with a merchant's business hours, they may find that some transactions land in a different batch than expected, which can make reconciliation confusing.

How It Works

Once the sales day closing time is reached, Adyen batches all transactions processed during that window and initiates the settlement process. Any transactions processed after the closing time fall into the next sales day's batch.

Example:
A merchant's sales day is set to close at 11:00 PM ET. A customer makes a purchase at 10:45 PM — that transaction is included in today's batch. Another customer pays at 11:10 PM — that transaction rolls into tomorrow's batch.

Configuration Options

The sales day closing time can be configured at different levels in Adyen — meaning you can set a default for all merchants or customize it per merchant or even per store location:

Company level — Sets a default closing time that applies to all merchant accounts under your ValPay setup unless overridden.
Merchant account level — Overrides the company-level setting for a specific merchant.
Store level — Overrides the merchant-level setting for a specific store location. Useful if a merchant has multiple locations with different operating hours.

Example:
Most of your merchants close at 10:00 PM, so you set a company-wide closing time of 11:00 PM ET. However, one merchant operates a 24-hour diner. You set their individual merchant account closing time to 3:00 AM ET to better align with their slowest period.

Important Things to Know

Closing times are set in UTC on the Adyen side — be mindful of time zone conversions when configuring or explaining this to merchants.
Changing the closing time affects future batches only — it does not retroactively change already-closed sales days.
If a merchant's closing time has never been configured, Adyen applies a system default (typically midnight UTC).

Part 2: Deposits — How Merchants Get Paid

What Is a Deposit?

Once Adyen settles funds from a merchant's transactions into the ValPay platform account, those funds need to be sent out to the merchant's bank account. This is what your merchants know as their deposit. On the Adyen side, this process is called sending funds to third parties (or a payout/transfer).

As a PayFac, ValPay sits in the middle of this flow:

A customer pays at a merchant's store or online.
Adyen processes and settles the funds into the merchants balance account.
ValPay distributes those funds out to the individual merchant's bank account (sweep)— this is the deposit the merchant sees.

How ValPay Merchants Are Funded

The vast majority of ValPay merchant accounts are set up on a daily settlement cycle, funded the next business day. Here's what that means in practice:

Transactions processed during a merchant's sales day are batched and settled daily.
The corresponding deposit hits the merchant's bank account the following business day.
Weekends and bank holidays are excluded — batches that close on a Friday will fund on Monday, and any holiday falling on a business day will push the deposit to the next available business day.

Example: Standard Weekly Funding Flow

Batch Closes	Deposit Arrives
Monday night	Tuesday
Tuesday night	Wednesday
Wednesday night	Thursday
Thursday night	Friday
Friday night	Monday (weekend skipped)
Saturday & Sunday	Monday

Example: Holiday Impact
If a batch closes on the night before a federal bank holiday (e.g., Monday is Memorial Day), the deposit that would normally arrive Tuesday will instead arrive Wednesday.

Other Payout Schedule Options

While daily next-business-day funding is the standard for ValPay merchants, Adyen does support other payout cadences for situations where a different schedule makes more sense:

Weekly payouts — Funds accumulate throughout the week and are sent out on a set day (e.g., every Friday).
Best for: Merchants who prefer fewer transactions on their bank statement or have less urgent cash flow needs.
Monthly payouts — Funds are held and sent out once per month on a set date.
Best for: Businesses with predictable, low-volume transaction patterns or those that prefer consolidated reporting.

If you have a merchant that needs a non-standard payout schedule, contact your ValPay Partner team to discuss options.

What Can Delay a Deposit?

Even on a next-business-day schedule, a few things can push a deposit later than expected:

Weekends and bank holidays — These are not business days and will always shift the deposit forward.
Bank processing times — Once ValPay initiates the transfer, the merchant's bank may take until end of business day to post the funds.
Funding holds or reviews — If a transaction is flagged for review or a chargeback is filed, those funds may be withheld until the matter is resolved.
Invalid or changed bank account — If a merchant's bank account information is outdated or incorrect, the deposit will fail and need to be reprocessed.

The Merchant's Bank Account

For a merchant to receive deposits, they must have a valid bank account (called a transfer instrument in Adyen) linked to their account. This is set up during merchant onboarding. If a merchant's bank account changes, this must be updated before the next payout — otherwise the deposit may fail or be delayed.

Quick Reference Summary

Concept	What It Means	Partner Term
Sales Day Closing Time	The time each day when Adyen closes the transaction batch and initiates settlement	Batch close / End of day
Settlement	Adyen moving funds from the card networks into merchants balance account.	Settlement
Send Funds / Payout	ValPay distributing settled funds out to the merchant's bank account	Deposit
Next Business Day Funding	The deposit arrives the business day after the batch closes (Mon–Fri, excluding holidays)	Next-day deposit
Transfer Instrument	The merchant's linked bank account that receives deposits	Bank account on file