# Clear settled payments and reconcile totals

A payment becomes available for disbursement only after the applicable clearing rules are satisfied. Begin with the receipt and the external settlement evidence. In Payment Report, select the Company and narrow the search to the client and payment. Our fictitious example is Casey Training's two-hundred-dollar money order. Its payment ID is shown in the filter and the returned row. Before clearing, the payment is Pending even though a Clear Date is already displayed.

Confirm the amount, deposit or bank reference, and the actual settlement result against your organization's procedure. Do not clear a pending ACH merely because a file was generated or its hold date arrived. This demonstration assumes settlement for a fictitious receipt; it does not represent real client funds. If the evidence is missing or inconsistent, leave the payment unresolved and assign the research. When the evidence supports clearing, select only the matching payment row.

Read the selected count and total one more time, then use Clear Selected Payments. Re-run the filter and inspect the saved result. Casey's payment now shows Cleared, and the two-hundred-dollar amount is unchanged. Check the Bank, payment type, and clear date as part of reconciliation. If an error appears, investigate the result before repeating the action. A successful save is useful evidence, but it must agree with the external receipt you used to authorize clearing.

Finally, open the client's Accounting view and compare the available balance. For this non-first-payment example, cleared payments are two hundred dollars, disbursements are zero, and the balance is two hundred dollars. That balance is an input to the later disbursement workflow; clearing did not create a creditor payment. Reconcile your daily totals and retain the source reference. Keep first payments, fees, failed items, and other exceptions within their own applicable rules instead of treating every receipt alike.