Overview
A payout is the core object in Anton Payments. It represents a single money movement from your merchant account to a beneficiary. When you create a payout, Anton handles compliance screening, rail routing, and delivery automatically.
Payout lifecycle
Every payout moves through a defined set of statuses. Transitions are enforced by a state machine — no status can be skipped or set directly.
Statuses
| Status | Description | Terminal? |
|---|
created | Payout accepted, funds reserved from your balance | No |
pending_screening | Undergoing compliance checks (OFAC, PEP, sanctions, velocity rules) | No |
screening_failed | Blocked by compliance — requires manual review by our ops team | No |
pending_approval | High-value or sensitive payout awaiting maker-checker approval | No |
processing | Submitted to the rail provider for delivery | No |
sent | Rail provider confirmed dispatch to the beneficiary’s bank/wallet | No |
completed | Funds delivered successfully | Yes |
failed | Delivery failed (wrong account, bank rejection, etc.) | Yes |
returned | Funds returned after delivery attempt | Yes |
cancelled | Payout cancelled before processing | Yes |
manual_review | Flagged for human review by risk rules | No |
Creating a payout
curl https://api.antonpayments.com/v1/payouts \
-X POST \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ak_test_..." \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"beneficiary_id": "ben_cng3q8s6ek9kc5qg1h1g",
"amount": "1000.00",
"currency": "USD",
"description": "Contractor payment - January",
"reference": "PAY-2026-001"
}'
- Validation — Amount, currency, and beneficiary are validated
- Balance check — Sufficient funds are verified in your account
- Funds reserved — The amount is held from your available balance
- Velocity rules checked — Fraud and compliance rules are evaluated
- Screening — OFAC, PEP, and sanctions checks run automatically
- Routing — The optimal rail provider is selected for the corridor
- Delivery — Funds are dispatched to the beneficiary
Cancelling a payout
Payouts can only be cancelled before they reach processing status:
curl https://api.antonpayments.com/v1/payouts/pay_abc123/cancel \
-X POST \
-H "Authorization: Bearer ak_test_..."
processing, sent, or in any terminal state, it cannot be cancelled. Reserved funds are released back to your balance on cancellation.
Amounts and currencies
Amounts are always strings — never floating-point numbers. Use exact decimal representation like "1000.00", not 1000 or 1000.0. This prevents rounding errors with money.
currency field uses ISO 4217 three-letter codes (e.g., USD, GBP, EUR). The payout amount is in the specified currency — Anton handles FX conversion if needed.
You can attach a reference field to payouts for your own tracking. This appears in webhook payloads and API responses but does not affect processing.
