Operations
- Daily (5-15 min): Auth rate, fraud queue, chargeback queue, deposits
- Weekly (30-45 min): CB ratio trend, win rate, processor emails, reconciliation
- Monthly (1-2 hr): Statement review, effective rate, rule performance
- Oh shit: An unusual approval drop or dispute spike, or a processor review email, needs prompt investigation. Set alerts from your own baseline and counts
- Scale the monitoring to your volume, risk and deadlines. Even a small business needs to check deposits and respond to disputes
The unglamorous work that keeps the money moving and the losses small. Most weeks it's 15 minutes a day. Times and volume tiers below are planning starting points. Tune them to your own workload, risk and case deadlines.
Matching a deposit? Use the payout walkthrough. Recording a dispute? Use Booking a Chargeback. Comparing a tax form? Start with the 1099-K guide. Paying affiliates or contractors? Collect the tax form first. Money held? Follow the steps in order.
Pick Your Mode
- Check your chargeback ratio (disputes divided by transactions) against your processor's written limit
- Respond to any disputes due in the next 7 days
- Verify yesterday's deposits hit your bank
- Scan for processor emails you've missed
The full checklist has the daily, weekly and monthly routines.
Under $100K/month: Check your chargeback count weekly, verify deposits hit your bank, and respond to disputes by their deadlines. Scale up if your risk or workload calls for it. Skip the Sandbox Training section below unless someone needs training.
$100K-$1M/month: Add weekly chargeback ratio tracking, monthly statement reviews and a basic representment process. That's 30-60 minutes a week.
Over $1M/month: You'll want real-time monitoring, a dedicated dispute workflow, and someone who owns payment operations by name. See Who Owns What.
Over $10M/month: Full-time ops team, multi-processor monitoring, incident response playbooks, quarterly vendor reviews. See Scaling Milestones.
| Task | Frequency | Time | Who | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Check fraud queue | Daily | 5 min | Fraud/Ops | Checklist |
| Review new disputes | Daily | 5 min | Ops | Representment |
| Verify deposits | Daily | 2 min | Finance | Reading Statements |
| CB ratio monitoring | Weekly | 10 min | Ops | Metrics |
| Processor emails | Daily | 5 min | Ops | Processor Mgmt |
| Statement review / reconciliation | Monthly | 30 min | Finance | Reading Statements |
| Rule performance | Monthly | 20 min | Fraud | Checklist |
Sandbox Training for Operators (onboarding new team members with test environments)
Nobody should touch production until they've done it once somewhere safe.
Why Sandbox Matters
| Scenario | Production Risk | Sandbox Solution |
|---|---|---|
| New employee onboarding | Process real customer cards wrong | Learn workflows without risk |
| Testing new rules | Block legitimate customers | Validate before deploying |
| Incident response drills | Scramble during actual attack | Practice until it's muscle memory |
| Process changes | Break live checkout | Verify before rollout |
Training Checklist by Week
- Log into processor dashboard
- Find transaction search
- Locate chargeback notifications
- Generate basic reports
- Process test transaction end-to-end
- Process a test refund
- Void a test transaction
- Respond to a test chargeback
- Investigate a test decline
- Batch close procedure
- Set up test alerts
- Review test chargeback ratio report
- Identify a test fraud pattern
- Generate reconciliation export
- Compare settlement to expected
- Run through fraud attack drill
- Practice emergency rule deployment
- Test backup payment path
- Document learnings
Test Card Numbers (Common)
| Network | Test Number | Use For |
|---|---|---|
| Visa | 4242 4242 4242 4242 | Stripe test-mode success |
| Visa | 4000 0000 0000 0002 | Stripe test-mode generic decline |
| Mastercard | 5555 5555 5555 4444 | Stripe test-mode success |
| Mastercard prepaid | 5105 1051 0510 5100 | Stripe test-mode success |
Note: These are Stripe test cards, checked 22 October 2026. Use test keys, never live mode. Other processors publish their own test values and outcomes.
Next Steps
- Operations Checklist - Daily/weekly routines
- Processor Management - Working with processor
- Reading Statements - Understand fees
- Representment Workflow - Step-by-step
- Chargebacks Overview - Full guide
- Time Frames - Don't miss deadlines
Start with The Guide, Pathway 4: Running Payments Daily. It's a 19-minute walkthrough of daily tasks, reading statements and when to get help. This page is the deep dive.
See Also
- Network Programs - VAMP, ECM thresholds
- Fraud Metrics - Measuring fraud performance
- Chargeback Metrics - Tracking dispute rates
- Payments Metrics - Transaction health
- Benchmarks - Industry comparisons
- Time Frames - Response deadlines
- 3D Secure - Authentication setup
- Buying Payments - Processor selection