Heratio Help Center article. Category: Marketplace.

Marketplace — Admin Operations

Day-to-day operator playbook for the Heratio Marketplace: reviewing listings, verifying sellers, handling disputes, running payouts, and tuning the marketplace settings.

The admin area lives under /admin/marketplace/* and requires a user with the admin role.

Dashboard

/admin/marketplace/dashboard is the at-a-glance view:

Listings under review — needs your action
Sellers pending verification — needs your action
Disputes open — needs your action
Pending payouts (R) — total seller balance ready to pay out
GMV today / this month — financial pulse
Recent transactions — last 10 paid

The numbers under "needs your action" are the SLA you should keep at zero.

Listing review

Sellers publish into under_review when the operator has the strict-review flag enabled. Review queue is at /admin/marketplace/listings, filter to Status: under_review.

For each listing, click into /admin/marketplace/listing-review?id=… to:

Action	Effect
Approve	Listing → `active`, visible to buyers
Request changes	Listing → `needs_changes` with your note; back to seller
Reject	Listing → `rejected` with your reason; locked
Force-publish	Skip review (rare; e.g. trusted seller)

The audit trail records every action with timestamp + admin user.

Seller verification

Pending sellers appear at /admin/marketplace/sellers with a Pending verification filter. Click into one → /admin/marketplace/seller-verify?id=…:

Review the legal name + trading name + KYC documents.
Verify the bank account match (signed bank confirmation).
Verify tax/VAT registration where required by the operator's jurisdiction.
Approve / Reject with reason / Request additional info.

A rejected seller cannot list. They can re-apply after addressing your reason.

Categories & taxonomies

Operator-managed lists at /admin/marketplace/categories:

Sectors (Gallery / Library / Archive / Museum / DAM) are configured at install time.
Categories within each sector are operator-edited — add/rename/disable.
Sub-categories cascade from category.

Per project rule: no enumerated values are hardcoded — categories live in ahg_dropdown via the Dropdown Manager. The marketplace category page is just a friendlier UI over the same data.

Currencies

/admin/marketplace/currencies:

Add/remove currencies the marketplace will accept.
Set the primary (sellers default to it; cross-listing prices on Browse are normalised to it).
Set FX rates — manual or via an FX feed (cron).
Disable a currency to stop new listings choosing it without affecting existing ones.

Transactions

/admin/marketplace/transactions — every transaction across the platform with filters by:

Status (pending_payment / paid / disputed / refunded / cancelled)
Seller / buyer / listing
Date range
Amount range

Click into any row for the full detail: payment trail, ITN log, escrow countdown, payout batch reference.

For disputes, mark the transaction disputed with a reason — that pauses the escrow countdown and tags the seller's payout view. Resolve by either marking paid (no refund) or refunded (refund processed externally; balance does not move to the seller).

Payouts

/admin/marketplace/payouts shows two tabs:

Available to pay

Sellers whose pending balance has cleared escrow. Click Run batch to launch:

POST /admin/marketplace/payouts-batch

That action:

Creates a payout-batch record with a unique reference.
For each seller, creates a marketplace_payout row + flips relevant transactions to paid_out.
Generates a CSV in your operator's bank's import format.
Emails each seller their batch reference + transactions.

Process the CSV through your bank facility, then mark the batch completed in Heratio when the bank confirms. (No automatic bank transfer — Heratio is the system of record, your bank is the system of money.)

Paid

Historical batches with download-CSV per batch.

Reviews

/admin/marketplace/reviews — buyer reviews of sellers, with content-moderation tools:

Approve — visible publicly (default for ★3+).
Hide — kept on record, not shown publicly.
Delete — for clearly abusive content (audited).
Reply on behalf — operator can post a public reply if the seller is non-responsive.

Reports

/admin/marketplace/reports exports the operator KPIs:

Report	Use it for
GMV by month	Board reporting
Commission earned	Revenue recognition
Top sellers	Strategic accounts
Top categories	Where the demand is
Disputes / refunds	Quality + risk
Average time to ship	Seller SLA
Buyer cohort retention	Loyalty

Each as CSV. Plug into your BI tool or accountant's spreadsheet.

Settings

/admin/marketplace/settings is the bulk configuration page. The values that change behaviour day-to-day:

Setting	What it does
`commission_rate`	Operator's % cut per transaction
`escrow_days`	Days from `paid` to payout-eligible
`dispute_window_days`	Days a buyer has to dispute
`auction.anti_snipe_minutes`	Auction extension trigger window
`auction.payment_window_hours`	Time a winner has to pay
`reservation_hours`	Hold duration
`reservation_max_active`	Buyer cap on concurrent holds
`payfast_merchant_id`, `_key`, `_passphrase`	PayFast credentials
`strict_review`	Listings need admin approval before going live
`email_from`	Marketplace transactional sender

Changes take effect immediately. Audit log records every change with admin user.

Common tasks — cookbook

Task	Steps
A seller hasn't replied to enquiries for 14 days	Sellers → filter inactive → email warning → after 30 days, mark `inactive` (hides their listings)
A buyer reports the item never arrived	Open transaction → mark disputed → review seller's evidence → either resolve (mark `paid`) or refund
A category is filling with mis-classified listings	Categories → rename or split → bulk re-classify in listings filter
The site's ZAR-USD rate is stale	Currencies → edit USD → update rate → save
Operator wants to pause new sellers temporarily	Settings → `seller_registration_open` = 0

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