Escrow: Seven Steps from “Deal Agreed” to “Money in the Bank”
How the escrow chain holds funds, gates shipping, accepts delivery, and resolves disputes — without anyone trusting anyone.
Every B2B deal has a moment where one side has to go first. Either the seller ships before they’re paid, or the buyer pays before they’ve seen the goods. Without a third party holding the net, somebody is taking a risk they probably shouldn’t take with €45,000 of strangers’ money.
The escrow flow is the third party. It’s not a third-party service — it’s part of the platform — but functionally it does what an escrow agent does: holds the funds on a client-funds account, releases them when the buyer is satisfied, and adjudicates the case when they aren’t.
The seven steps
1. Deal agreed. A Market deal closes (seller closes, buyer confirms) or an auction settles with a winner. The deal transitions to closed-won and the platform creates the escrow row with a numbered ID (ESC-YYYY-NNNNNN). The buyer’s escrow page shows the bank instructions: beneficiary, IBAN, the amount — the agreed sale amount — and the escrow number as the structured reference. Nothing is captured from any bidder deposit; an auction winner wires the full amount like everyone else. The buyer has 7 days.
2. Funds held. The buyer wires the funds. ReVend finance matches the reference on the bank statement, and two platform owners confirm the deposit — one proposes, another approves. Only then does the escrow flip to held and the seller sees that the money is real.
3. Goods shipped. The seller ships. The outbound ship-guard refuses to mark a cross-tenant order as shipped until the escrow is held or both parties have a confirmed mutual waiver — no more “I shipped, then the buyer said they’d pay tomorrow, then they didn’t.”
4. Goods received. The outbound reaches delivered. That starts the inspection clock: the auto-release window from the tenant policy page (3–14 days, default 7), stamped on the escrow and shown to the buyer as a date. A partial shipment does not start the clock — escrow is all-or-nothing at deal level.
5. Inspection. The buyer works through the acceptance checklist — goods arrived, shipment complete, no visible damage, grades match — and accepts, which releases the funds. Or the buyer opens a dispute. There is no reject button: a buyer who is unhappy files a dispute, because a rejection without a claim is just a held escrow with a grudge.
6. Dispute (if raised). A dispute freezes the escrow and pauses the auto-release window. Buyer and seller each add to a party-bound evidence timeline; ReVend compliance reviews and decides: release to seller, refund to buyer, or split. Fees follow the money — computed on the amounts that actually move.
7. Funds released. Whether by acceptance or by resolution, the end state is the same: settlement rows per money movement — seller payout, platform fee shares, buyer refund — written in the same transaction as the status flip, with the fee computed at that moment from the platform-wide fee rule. The escrow ends as released, refunded or split. Both sides move on.
What gets recorded
Every transition appends an immutable event to the escrow’s log — created, deposit confirmed, accepted, dispute opened, resolved, released, refunded, split, cancelled, notes. Updates and deletes are blocked. On acceptance the platform also generates an acceptance evidence package with the checklist answers, the outbound manifest, delivery photos and the buyer’s signature. If the buyer’s compliance officer asks “what happened on this transaction,” the answer is on the escrow page.
When it doesn’t go to plan
No wire within 7 days: the escrow is cancelled, the deal reverts, and an auction buyer collects a strike. Outbound cancelled before anything shipped: the held escrow is refunded automatically, with a buyer-refund settlement row and no fee. Once released, the escrow does not reopen; the policies page carries a dispute window (14–90 days, default 30) that says how long after release a buyer can still bring a formal claim on the deal, which compliance reviews without moving funds.
Mutual waiver
Some deals between long-time partners don’t want escrow. Before close, either party can request a waiver with a reason of at least 20 characters; the counterparty confirms with an explicit acknowledgement that ReVend will not intervene in a money dispute. The platform generates the waiver PDF with both signatures and files it under documents and on the deal. It’s the rare exception — the documentation exists so the escrow flow can stay strict everywhere else.