Introducing Multiple Transaction Splits

We're excited to announce Multiple Transaction Splits, a new feature which helps you automatically split your incoming payments into two or more bank accounts or mobile money accounts.

It was previously possible to split incoming transactions into one other payout account, but Multiple Splits lets you split into an unlimited number of bank accounts or mobile money accounts.

There are several interesting ways to use this feature, but here's a look at some of the more popular implementations.

A school using Multiple Transaction Splits

Let's take a fictional school, Blue Skies Academy, for example. They provide the following paid services and products to their students:

• Transportation to and from school
• School uniforms
• Textbooks
• Extracurricular activities, such as dance and swimming classes

Blue Skies Academy may decide to use the Multiple Transaction Splits feature to automatically split each student's school fees to all the units providing services to the student — the transportation unit, the tailors, the book publishers, and external swimming and dance instructors.

It keeps things super simple, and everyone instantly receives the money they need to provide services to each student.

An ecommerce marketplace using Multiple Transaction Splits

Let's take a fictional ecommerce marketplace, Bloom. Many vendors sell on Bloom's platform and customers can choose to place one order while buying from as many vendors as they like. Using Multiple Transaction Splits, Bloom automatically splits each order payment with all the vendors the customer bought from.

So, say a customer buys from two vendors on Bloom and checks out. Each vendor would immediately receive their share of the payment, and Bloom will also get to keep their cut.

A housing estate using Multiple Transaction Splits

In many cities, it's common to find housing estates where tenants pay a basic rent as well as monthly charges for services such as security guards, electricity, water, cleaning, and maintenance of shared spaces.

Using Transaction Splits, Estate Managers can automatically split service charges to all the units that provide services to the tenants.

Types of splits

There are two types of splits — the Percentage Split and the Flat Split. Here's a breakdown of how each works:

The Percentage Split

The Percentage Split automatically splits your incoming payments into multiple bank accounts in pre-determined percentages.

So, say Blue Skies Academy decides to split every payment they receive with two other parties — Arise Book Publishers (their textbook suppliers) and GoodStitch School Uniforms (their tailors). Using Percentage Splits, they could do this type of split:

So, for every school fee received, Arise Book Publishers will receive 10% of the payment, GoodStitch School Uniforms will receive 5%, and Blue Skies Academy keeps the remaining 85%.

The Flat Split

The Flat Split option helps you split specific amounts into multiple bank accounts when you receive payments.

Say Sunshine Housing Estate decides to collect a service charge of 20,000 Naira per month. Using the Flat Split option, they could split fixed amounts for services such as electricity (10,000 Naira) and water (5,000 Naira), while they receive the remaining 5,000 Naira. Here's what it would look like:

You can set up complex split logic for all kinds of use cases

The flat split and percentage split options available via the Paystack Dashboard work best in a situation where every customer pays the same amount, but you can leverage the Paystack API to set up more complicated split logic.

Static Transaction Splits

For transactions where every customer pays exactly the same amount, you know exactly how much to expect, and you can use the flat or percentage splits to share the payments into multiple bank accounts. These are static transaction splits, and in such situations, you can quickly set up the splits through the Paystack Dashboard.

Dynamic Transaction Splits

There are situations, however, where you may not know how much the customer will pay until they're about to checkout. For example, think about an ecommerce marketplace which has multiple vendors and collects 10% of all payments made on the platform.

For these type of payments, the marketplace can leverage the Paystack API to give Paystack more specific instructions such as these:

• If a customer buys from just one vendor, Vendor A, split the payments this way: 90% to Vendor A and 10% to the marketplace.
• If a customer buys an apple from Vendor A, and a ball from Vendor B, split the payment this way:
  • 90% of the cost of the apple should go to Vendor A, while 10% of the cost of the apple goes to the marketplace
  • 90% of the cost of the ball should go to Vendor B, while 10% of the cost of the ball goes to the marketplace

In such situations, the marketplace could use the Transaction Split API to seamlessly handle the slightly more complicated logic.

Common Questions

Is Multiple Transaction Splits enabled for my business?

Multiple Transaction Splits is enabled for all Paystack merchants in Ghana and Nigeria by default. To get started, simply login to your Paystack Dashboard, and click on the Transaction Splits menu. Here's a detailed explainer on how to set up splits for your transactions.

What types of transactions are transaction splits enabled for?

Transactions accepted via the following channels can all be split:

• Paystack Invoices
• Paystack Payment Pages
• Your custom integrations (eg. website or mobile app) using the Paystack API

Who gets charged when a transaction is split?

Depending on your preference, the transaction fee may be deducted from you (the business owner), any single member of the other parties you're splitting the payment with, or it could be split among everyone who's receiving the payment.

Here's what the transaction fee deduction setting would look like for Blue Skies Academy:

Find out more about transaction fee deductions for transaction splits in this Help Centre article.

Can I create and manage Transaction Splits via the Paystack API?

Yes, you can create and manage transaction splits via the Paystack API. Get started with the Transaction Splits API documentation.

Can I split into multiple currencies at a time?

No, you can't. You may only split into one currency at a time — NGN, GHS, or USD.

Is there a maximum number of bank accounts or mobile money accounts I can split into?

No, there's no maximum at all. You can split payments into as many bank accounts as you like — two, ten, fifty — it's all up to you :)

Need any help?

If you have any questions about Multiple Transaction Splits, kindly reach out to us here. We're happy to help ❤️