Learn / Reconciliation
The holdback in your contract is a promise. The one your bank statement shows may be higher. Here is how to calculate it, step by step.
Your agreement says the funder bought a percentage of your sales, say 12%. But the funder collects a fixed dollar amount, not 12% of whatever you sold that day. When sales drop, the fixed amount stays the same and the percentage it represents climbs. That climbing number is your real holdback.
If your real holdback is higher than the holdback in your contract, you may be debited more than the agreement allows, and reconciliation may apply. If it is at or below, the payment is in line with the contract at today's sales. Either way it is useful to know before you talk to anyone. Do it yourself below, or use the overpayment calculator.
Compare it with the specified percentage in your contract. For the dollar difference, multiply your real sales by the contract percentage; that is what the agreement allows.
In this example, the funder bought 12% of sales on paper, but the fixed debits take 20.0% of the sales the business really had that month.
Now divide the same debits by all $185,000 of deposits instead. The holdback looks like 14.2%, close to the contract's 12%, and the $10,530 a month over shrinks to $4,050. The deposits you take out are the whole difference.
Not every deposit is a sale. A bank statement mixes money from customers with money that only passes through. Take these out before you divide:
Check how your contract defines "receipts" or "receivables." Some definitions are narrower, some broader, and the contract's wording controls. Use the same month for both debits and sales, and look at a few months, not just the worst one.
Manufactured revenue is a deposit that looks like a sale but isn't new money from a customer. It makes a business look busier on paper than it is. It usually shows up in one of these ways:
To spot it, look for a deposit that matches an amount that left your account in the days before, deposits from accounts in your own name, and round-number deposits with no invoice behind them.
Every dollar of it you leave in makes your real holdback look lower than it is, so an overpayment hides. Funders look for it too. A reconciliation request built on padded deposits falls apart the first time a funder reads the statement.
If the statements you gave the funder at signing included any of this, the funder may say the business was misrepresented, and many agreements treat that as an event of default. Talk to a lawyer before you send a reconciliation request.
A FairMCA report sorts your deposits for you. Transfers between your linked accounts, loan and advance money, money that came in from an account we can't see, refunds and large one-off deposits are taken out, and every deposit left out is listed so you can check it.
Each advance has its own holdback, and the total is what leaves your business. Here are three advances on the same $131,000 month of real sales.
| Advance | Payment | Taken per month | Share of real sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advance A | $5,000 weekly | $21,667 | 16.5% |
| Advance B | $700 daily | $14,700 | 11.2% |
| Advance C | $450 daily | $9,450 | 7.2% |
| All three | $45,817 | 35.0% |
Together, they take 35.0% of real sales before rent, payroll, inventory or taxes. That share, not any single holdback, is what you live with. See Stacking and renewals.
This is an estimate from the figures you enter. It is not a promise that a funder will change a payment or return money, and agreements differ.
Connect your bank (read-only) and add your agreements. Your reconciliation report is usually ready the same business day.
Check my MCA →Education only, not legal advice. Agreements differ; your contract's exact wording controls.