Ticket money reaches your bank quickly, which is good until a refund or dispute comes in after the payout has gone out. A reserve is money you choose to leave in your Stripe account to cover those moments.
What a reserve covers
- Refunds. They're paid from your available Stripe balance. If it's too low, the app asks you to add funds first.
- Disputes. When a buyer disputes a charge, the amount paid out to you is usually held back from this balance. See Disputes and chargebacks.
- Dispute fees. TokTix takes these from your available balance when it can cover them.
A dispute can take your balance negative if more is held back than you have. New sales refill it.
How much to keep
Keep enough to cover a typical refund request or two, and more if you've just had a big event or you're already seeing disputes.
Keep it in place for about 120 days after your last big event. Buyers can generally dispute a ticket for about that long, so disputes can keep arriving well after the night itself.
Set it in Stripe
- Open your Stripe Dashboard.
- Go to Settings, then Payouts.
- Set a minimum balance for the amount you want to keep.
Stripe then pays out everything above that amount. A new reserve fills from your next sales, so it can take time to build. To cover something right away, add funds in Stripe.
It stays your money, in your own Stripe account, and you can change it at any time.
Is this the same as a TokTix reserve?
No. This one is yours to set. Separately, the Terms of Service (section 10D, "Refunds, Disputes, and Taxes") allow TokTix to hold back a reserve from payouts when the risk of amounts owed is high.