Delayed settlement recovery workflow

01

Objective

Manage customer and finance expectations when confirmation or treasury posting legitimately lags detection—without informal paid shortcuts.

02

Prerequisites

• Async settlement lifecycle documented per rail.
• Customer communication templates aligned to lifecycle states.
• Exception taxonomy includes timing-skew class.

03

Operational signals

• Paid state aging beyond configured SLA internally (your policy—not a public SLA claim).
• Support tickets referencing block explorers instead of payment_id.
• Webhook delivery gaps during rail congestion.

04

Decision points

• Continue fulfillment on Paid versus wait for Confirmed.
• When to open timing-skew exception versus wait.
• Customer refund or re-attempt policy for expired windows.

05

Escalation paths

• Support → operations for stuck lifecycle states.
• Operations → provider support for delayed events.
• Finance → treasury for extended holds.

06

Failure modes

• Manual Confirmed overrides without provider event.
• Promising instant finality in customer chat.

07

Recovery patterns

1. Verify provider event log for payment_id.
2. Apply lifecycle decision tree paths.
3. Close or escalate timing-skew exceptions with evidence.