> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.helloclever.co/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Reviewing and Approving Payouts

> Hold payouts in review until an authorised team member approves them, with email notifications, role-based approval rights, and a full audit record.

Payout approvals add a manual review step between creating a payout and sending it for processing. When the feature is enabled for your merchant account, every payout you create, through the API or the Merchant Portal, enters **In Review** and waits until an authorised team member approves or rejects it. This page explains how the review flow works, what happens to your balance while a payout waits, who can make the decision, and what is recorded for audit.

<Note>
  Payout approvals are off by default. With the feature disabled, payouts follow the existing flow described in [Managing payouts](/portal/payouts), and no approval email is sent.
</Note>

## How payout approvals work

<Steps>
  <Step title="A payout is created">
    Someone on your team creates a payout in the Merchant Portal, or your integration creates one through the Payout API.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The payout enters In Review">
    The payout is not submitted for processing. Its amount moves out of your available balance and into your outgoing balance straight away, so the funds are reserved while the decision is pending.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Hello Clever emails your approvers">
    An approval email goes to your account Admin, with every Finance-role user copied. It carries a **Review Payout** link to the payout.
  </Step>

  <Step title="An approver reviews the payout">
    The approver opens the payout in the Merchant Portal, checks the details, and either approves or rejects it.
  </Step>

  <Step title="The decision is applied">
    Approval moves the payout to **Pending** and hands it to the normal processing flow. Rejection moves it to **Rejected**, and it is never processed.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Turning payout approvals on

The feature is controlled per merchant account by Hello Clever, so there is no switch in the Merchant Portal. Contact Hello Clever Support to have payout approvals enabled or disabled for your account.

<Warning>
  Enabling payout approvals changes the behaviour of payouts created through the API as well as those created in the portal. Nothing you submit is sent for processing until it has been approved, so make sure someone with approval rights is watching the queue before you switch the feature on.
</Warning>

## Statuses used by the review flow

| Status        | Meaning                                                                                                     |
| ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **In Review** | The payout is waiting for a decision. It has not been submitted for processing.                             |
| **Pending**   | The payout was approved and is now queued for processing, exactly as an ordinary payout would be.           |
| **Rejected**  | The payout was rejected. This is a terminal status: the payout is never processed and cannot be reinstated. |

<Note>
  **Rejected** and **Failed** are different outcomes. **Rejected** means a person in your team declined the payout before it was ever sent. **Failed** means the payout was processed and the transfer did not complete. See [why payouts fail](/portal/payouts#why-payouts-fail).
</Note>

## What happens to your balance

The review step reserves the funds rather than leaving them spendable, so an approved payout never runs into a balance that has been spent twice.

| Event                       | Effect on your balance                                                                              |
| --------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Payout enters **In Review** | The amount is deducted from your available balance and moved to your outgoing balance.              |
| Payout is approved          | The amount stays in the outgoing balance while the payout goes through the regular processing flow. |
| Payout is rejected          | The amount moves from the outgoing balance back to your available balance.                          |

For how the available, incoming, and outgoing figures fit together, see [managing balances](/portal/balances#balance-summary).

## The approval email

When a payout enters review, Hello Clever emails your account Admin and copies all Finance-role users. The subject line names the amount and the recipient, so approvers can triage without opening the message.

The email includes:

* **Payment breakdown**: transaction amount, fees, and the net amount.
* **Recipient details**: the fields that apply to the payout method used.
* **Details**: Payout ID, Balance ID, External ID, method, created date, and who created it.
* A **Review Payout** button that opens the payout in the Merchant Portal.

<Note>
  The **Review Payout** link requires Merchant Portal authentication. Approving from the email alone is not possible: the link takes you to the payout, and the decision is always made in the portal. Forwarding the email does not pass on the ability to approve.
</Note>

## Reviewing a payout

Open the payout from the approval email, or find it in the Payouts table by filtering on the **In Review** status. The review screen shows the full record so you can check it before deciding:

| Field                         | What to check                                                             |
| ----------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Payout ID**                 | The identifier to quote in your own records and with Support.             |
| **Beneficiary**               | Name and contact details of the recipient.                                |
| **Amount and currency**       | The amount leaving your balance, in the payout currency.                  |
| **Payment method**            | How the funds are being sent, such as a bank transfer or PayID.           |
| **Reference**                 | The reference carried with the payment.                                   |
| **External ID**               | Your own identifier for the payout, where one was supplied.               |
| **Created time**              | When the payout was created, in the display time zone.                    |
| **Created by**                | The portal user who created it, or the API integration that submitted it. |
| **Risk and validation flags** | Any checks Hello Clever raised against the payout.                        |

### Approving

Select **Approve**. The payout moves to **Pending** and is submitted to the normal processing flow once. From that point it behaves like any other payout, including retries and failure handling.

### Rejecting

Select **Reject**. You can add a reason, which is optional but is stored with the audit record and is worth filling in when someone else may need to understand the decision later. The payout moves to **Rejected** and is never sent for processing.

<Warning>
  Both decisions are final. A rejected payout cannot be approved afterwards, and an approved payout cannot be pulled back through this screen. To stop an approved payout, use the cancellation options described in [managing payouts](/portal/payouts).
</Warning>

## Who can approve or reject

| Rule                            | Detail                                                                                                                       |
| ------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Roles                           | Only Admin and Finance users can approve or reject a payout. Other users can view the payout but see no decision buttons.    |
| Payouts created in the portal   | Any Admin or Finance user can decide, except the user who created the payout.                                                |
| Payouts created through the API | Any Admin or Finance user can decide, since there is no portal creator to exclude.                                           |
| Concurrent decisions            | Only the first decision counts. If two approvers act at once, the later attempt is rejected and the outcome does not change. |

<Note>
  The separation between creator and approver is enforced by the portal, so a single user cannot create and release a payout on their own. If your team has only one Admin and no Finance users, that user cannot approve their own portal-created payouts. Invite a second approver before enabling the feature. See [inviting users](/portal/account-settings#inviting-users).
</Note>

## Audit record

Every payout that goes through review keeps a record of the decision:

* Who created the payout.
* The outcome, approved or rejected.
* Who made the decision.
* The timestamp of the decision.
* The rejection reason, where one was given.

This record stays with the payout, so you can evidence the approval chain during a reconciliation or an audit.

## Payouts created through the API

Payout approvals do not change the API request you send. Your integration creates payouts exactly as before, and the response comes back as usual. What changes is what happens next: the payout is held rather than processed, and nothing moves until an approver acts in the portal.

Plan for this in your integration:

* **Expect a delay.** The gap between creating a payout and it being processed is now however long the review takes. Do not treat a created payout as sent.
* **Handle rejection.** A payout can end in **Rejected** without ever having been processed. This is a normal outcome, not an error in your request.
* **Keep your external ID.** It appears in the approval email and on the review screen, which makes it the quickest way for an approver to tie a payout back to the record in your own system.

See the [multi-currency Payout API](/api/v2/payout) for the endpoints themselves.


## Related topics

- [Managing Payouts in the Merchant Portal](/portal/payouts.md)
- [Create KYC for Beneficiary](/api/aud-payout/create-kyc-for-beneficiary.md)
- [Create a Payout](/api/aud-payout/create-a-payout.md)