Asking Where It Is
The question of where a payment is has one useful addressee, and it is not your own bank.
Still yours, and statedTaken, never statedUnit changes; scale restarts
Five steps from instruction to arrival. One step carries no figure: the hatching marks where the money leaves and is not drawn to scale, because there is no figure to draw. Nothing here adds them up, since an amount you cannot see is not an amount you can subtract. Bars here are days remaining, not money: the one that took longest has no stated duration at all.
The order to ask in, and what each step can actually establish
Was an instruction given at all, and on what date?
Who can answer it
The payer, from their own records
What you actually get
A confirmation document, or the discovery that nothing was ever sent
Obliged to answerTakes: Minutes, and it should always be the first question asked
Has the money left their account?
Who can answer it
The payer, by looking at their own statement
What you actually get
A debit entry with a date, which converts speculation into a timeline
Obliged to answerTakes: Minutes
Where is it in the chain now?
Who can answer it
The sender's bank, on the sender's instruction, using the tracking reference
What you actually get
A status, a last known institution and sometimes a fee breakdown
Usually will, if askedTakes: One to two working days once they actually ask
Did it reach my bank and get held?
Who can answer it
Your own bank, which either received it or did not
What you actually get
Confirmation of receipt, with no explanation attached if it is being reviewed
Usually will, if askedTakes: One call, to the international payments team rather than general enquiries
Was it returned to the sender?
Who can answer it
The payer, by checking for a re-credit
What you actually get
A clean answer that rules out half of the remaining possibilities
Usually will, if askedTakes: Minutes
Six steps, and five of them start with the payer rather than with a bank. The last line names nobody and the sign will not print it. One person's own sequence, arrived at after doing it in the wrong order twice; what any institution will tell whom differs by country and by service.
The first call about a missing payment should be to the payer, not to your bank. Your bank can only tell you whether something arrived, and the payer holds the reference that everything else depends on.
The practical point in “Asking Where It Is” is that a landed payment should be supported by a record somebody can explain. Used for getting teams to meet deadlines, see the corresponding product information can add transparent time and project context when collection is proportionate, people can correct mistakes and financial records remain separate.
Getting the order right saves days, and most people get it wrong the first time.
The questions in “Asking Where It Is” can also be checked against FINTRAC guidance. Use the outside resource to identify what evidence to request rather than assuming one provider sees the whole payment chain.
The order that works
Five steps, in this sequence, each ruling something out:
- Confirm an instruction exists.
- Confirm the money left their account.
- Ask them to trace it.
- Ask your own bank whether it arrived.
- Ask them to check for a return.
Why the payer comes first
Because a surprising share of missing payments were never sent. An invoice not approved, a run that failed, a payment queued for a signature nobody gave.
Checking the chain before checking that there is a chain is the commonest wasted week in this subject.
It also damages the relationship slightly, because a trace request sent to a payer who has not actually paid reads as an accusation and arrives as an embarrassment.
What to ask them for
The confirmation document and the tracking reference. Both exist from the moment the instruction is accepted.
Ask for the document rather than for reassurance. A payer saying the payment went out is reporting an intention; the document is a fact.
Asking them to trace
Only the sender can. The request is a short call to their own bank quoting the reference.
Write the request so they can forward it unaltered. A payer who has to compose something will delay; a payer who can paste will not.
Asking your own bank
Narrowly. "Have you received a payment from this sender, for this amount, since this date." That question they can answer.
"Where is my money" is the question they cannot, and asking it first sets the wrong tone for the whole call.
Reaching the right team
The international payments desk or the business line, not general enquiries. The difference in the quality of the answer is substantial.
Ask to be transferred at the start rather than explaining the whole situation to somebody who will transfer you anyway.
Have the date, the amount, the sender's name and the currency ready before calling. Those four facts are what they need to look, and assembling them during the call wastes the part of it that matters.
Reading the silence
A bank that says it has not received anything is usually telling the truth. A bank that will neither confirm nor deny has probably received it and is prohibited from saying so.
That distinction is covered in the note on holds and it is the single most useful thing to be able to recognise.
It also changes what you do next: a payment not received means chasing upstream, and a payment held means waiting and planning.
Keeping the record as you go
Five lines in a note, written as you go rather than reconstructed afterwards: the party, the date, the question put and the answer given.
It also stops you asking the same person the same question twice, which happens and does not help.
How often to chase
Once per step, with a working day between. Chasing daily produces worse answers, because the people answering have nothing new and begin to manage you rather than the problem.
Set a date to come back to it and say so.
Saying it out loud also commits you to stopping in between, which is harder than it sounds when money is missing and is the difference between a managed fortnight and a consumed one.
Escalating
Written, citing dates and amounts, through the payer to their bank and through your own bank's complaints process if it has arrived and stalled.
Escalation works best when it arrives after the ordinary route has been exhausted and can be shown to have been.
Telling the people who depend on it
Early. A payment stuck for a fortnight is not something you can hurry and is something you can communicate about.
The difference between a difficult month and a damaged relationship is usually whether somebody was told in week one or week three.
What asking cannot produce
A reason. The chain will tell you where the money is and nothing in it is obliged to say why it is there, how long it will stay, or who decided.
Every question in this note is about location rather than explanation, because location is what is available. Accepting that early is what distinguishes an efficient fortnight from an exhausting one, and the explanation, when it eventually arrives, is usually that nothing unusual happened at all.
Knowing that in advance also keeps the chasing proportionate. Five questions asked properly over a fortnight is a reasonable response; the same five asked daily is not.