Balance

Balance is the prepaid money held in your account on a panel, charged when an order is accepted and credited back when an order is cancelled or ends partial.

You deposit first and order afterwards. The charge is taken when the panel accepts the order, not when delivery starts and not when it finishes, and an add request is refused outright if the balance does not cover the cost. Through the API, the balance action returns the funds on the account and the currency they are held in. Reseller software checks it before forwarding orders, because an upstream account that has run dry stalls orders quietly rather than producing an error a customer would understand.

Everything a panel gives back on an order lands here. A cancelled order returns its whole charge; a partial order returns the cost of the undelivered part at the rate you paid. Refill never touches the balance, because it replaces engagement rather than money, which is why a completed order that later dropped is not a balance question at all.

Getting money back out is a separate matter and the panel's terms decide it. Some panels do not offer withdrawal, some restrict it to funds that were never spent, and some treat a payment dispute raised with your bank as grounds to suspend the account along with whatever sits in it. Read that section before depositing more than you plan to spend, and if you resell, keep the upstream account funded above what your open orders will cost rather than topping it up one order at a time.

Credit with one panel

Money on a panel is credit with that panel: it does not move out freely, and no payment service is holding it for you. It is credit with one panel, spendable there, and worth what it is only for as long as that panel keeps trading.