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Nerve Centre KPIs · Audit Profile · Sentiment Settings PayPal-specific health audit. Answers four questions: (1) is the success rate / decline mix healthy and are soft declines being recovered with alternate funding sources; (2) is Seller Protection coverage rate high (eligible vs partially-eligible vs ineligible) so we’re not exposed when disputes hit; (3) are disputes responding inside PayPal’s 10-day window, with the right evidence pack for Buyer-Protection rules; (4) is the dispute reason mix shifting (INR spike = ops/fulfilment problem, SNAD spike = product/listing problem, UNAUTHORISED spike = fraud wave). Cross-channel area joins INR disputes to commerce-sibling shipment-delay data and decline spikes to checkout funnel drops.

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What this audit checks

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Authentication & access

  • OAuth bearer token refresh succeeds and TTL is healthy
  • Client ID points to live (not sandbox) for production integrations
  • Required scopes granted: reporting/search/read, disputes, payments/payment, subscriptions
  • Webhook ID present and signature validation enabled

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Transaction health

  • Success rate above 92% baseline
  • Decline event-code mix - no single soft-decline reason > 25% of declines
  • Retry success rate > 25% (alternate funding source uptake)
  • On-hold / pending rate (PayPal status T+P) below 3%

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Seller Protection & fraud controls

  • Seller Protection eligible coverage rate ≥ 80% on eligible transaction categories
  • Partially-eligible share < 15%
  • Ineligible-transaction volume not surging > 2σ from baseline
  • Unauthorised dispute rate < 0.5%
  • Denied-by-risk velocity not surging > 50% vsP (rule tightening or attack)

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Disputes & chargebacks

  • Dispute rate below 0.9% on a 90-day window
  • Avg seller response time < 5 days (PayPal default response window is 10)
  • Buyer-Protection win rate at or above 35% industry baseline
  • Dispute reason mix surfaced - INR / SNAD / UNAUTHORISED routed to right team
  • Lifecycle-stage mix - ARBITRATION share < 5% (late escalation = lost cases)

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Settlement & payouts

  • Avg settlement time within PayPal’s expected schedule for the merchant’s country
  • No payout pending > 5 days
  • Payout batch success rate ≥ 99%
  • Pending balance not climbing - rolling reserve ratio in expected range

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Subscription & recurring health

  • Recurring charge failure rate below 12%
  • Subscription churn rate < 5%
  • Dunning recovery rate ≥ 25%

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Cross-channel: revenue protection

  • Decline-driven checkout-funnel drop (sibling = shopify/bigcommerce/adobe.checkout_step_completion_rate falling concurrent with paypal.decline_rate spike)
  • INR-to-fulfilment correlation (sibling = shipbob/commerce.shipment_delayed_orders converting to MERCHANDISE_OR_SERVICE_NOT_RECEIVED disputes joined by invoice_id/custom_field)
  • Recoverable revenue forecast (soft-decline value × sibling.avg_repurchase_rate × alternate-funding success rate)
  • Chargeback forecast (open INQUIRY count × historical INQUIRY→CHARGEBACK rate × avg dispute amount)

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Severity thresholds

SignalWarnCritical
decline_rate68
success_rate92-
dispute_rate0.91.0
payout_age_days35
seller_protection_coverage_rate80-
partial_eligibility_share1525
unauthorised_dispute_rate0.30.5
arbitration_stage_share35
recurring_failure_rate812
on_hold_pending_rate23

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Data sources

  • GET https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/identity/oauth2/userinfo - Auto-detect merchant_id, identity, account capability
  • GET https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/reporting/transactions - Transaction history (max 31-day window per call), decline reasons, protection_eligibility
  • GET https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/reporting/balances - Live + pending balance per currency
  • GET https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/customer/disputes - Dispute list with reason + status + life_cycle_stage + seller_response_due_date
  • GET https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/customer/disputes/{dispute_id} - Single dispute detail incl. outcome, evidence, history
  • GET https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/payments/payouts - Mass-payout batches
  • GET https://api-m.paypal.com/v1/billing/subscriptions - Active / past_due / cancelled subscriptions for churn + failure rate