Escrow Auto-Release: The Inspection Clock the Buyer Can See
How the window is set, when it starts, what pauses it — and why it exists alongside the four-eyes deposit step rather than instead of it.
An escrow held forever is a bad outcome for everyone. The seller did the work, the goods arrived, and the buyer is busy. The auto-release window is the platform’s way of putting a date on “busy”: from the moment of delivery, the buyer sees how long the inspection period runs, and the seller sees the same date. Nobody has to send the awkward email.
The window
The window is a tenant policy on /escrow/policies: between 3 and 14 days, default 7. Organization administrators set it; a tenant that never touched the page runs on the platform default. The window is stamped on each escrow when the clock starts, so a policy change never moves a date already shown to a buyer.
When the clock starts
At delivery — not at shipment. When the linked outbound order reaches delivered, the platform records the delivery prompt, computes the auto-release date as delivery plus the window, and notifies the buyer that the shipment is in and the inspection period is running. The escrow page shows that date to both parties. A shipment that takes eight days to cross Europe does not eat into anyone’s inspection time.
A partial shipment never starts the clock. Escrow is all-or-nothing at deal level; with half the pallets on the dock the buyer cannot judge the whole and is not asked to. The buyer may still choose to accept a partial delivery from the escrow page — the form shows a warning and swaps the “shipment complete” line for an explicit partial-acceptance confirmation. That accepts and releases the full escrow amount, not a per-item share, and it does not mark the outbound as delivered.
What the buyer can do
Two things. Accept: tick every line of the checklist — goods arrived, shipment complete, no visible damage, grades and condition as agreed — add optional notes, and confirm. The escrow releases on that click: settlement rows are written, the fee is computed, the status flips, the seller is notified and the acceptance evidence package is generated. Dispute: file a claim with a type, a description of at least 20 characters and optional evidence. There is no reject button. A buyer who is unhappy files a dispute, because a rejection without a claim gives compliance nothing to decide.
What pauses it
An open dispute. The moment either party files, the escrow moves to in-dispute, the funds stay frozen and the auto-release window stops counting. It stays stopped until compliance resolves the case with a release, a refund or a split; the release path never runs underneath an open dispute.
Distinct from the four-eyes deposit step
The deposit side and the release side are controlled differently on purpose. Confirming that a buyer’s wire arrived takes two ReVend platform owners — one proposes, another approves — because money entering custody is where a single mistake lets goods leave a warehouse unpaid. Releasing needs the buyer’s explicit acceptance, or a compliance decision if there is a dispute; the window is what makes that acceptance a dated obligation rather than an open-ended favour. The deposit gets the human pair. The release gets the buyer and the calendar.