Refunding an Online Gift

A donor gave twice by mistake, typed an extra zero, or simply asked for their money back. For a gift that came in through your giving page, the refund is one button in GoodBooks: it sends the money back through your connected payment account and fixes the books at the same time.

Where: open the donation (Donations, then the gift) and click Refund at the top. Requires ledger editing permission.

What the button does

The dialog asks for an amount (the full gift is pre-filled; enter less for a partial refund) and a short reason for the record. Confirm, and GoodBooks:

1. Refunds the donor's card or bank account through your connected Stripe account. The donor sees the credit in a few business days.
2. Marks the donation Refunded (or Partially Refunded, with the amount refunded to date shown on the gift). Refunded gifts drop out of campaign totals, giving statements, and the donor's giving tiles.
3. Posts a reversing entry in your books: cash goes down by the gross amount, contribution revenue goes down by the net gift, and the processing fees you originally paid are booked as an expense. Refunds don't return the fees, so the expense is real, and the fund that received the gift is the one that bears it.
4. Writes a line in the activity feed: "Refunded $X to the donor's card."

Before you click

• Refunds can't be undone. A refunded gift can't be reinstated; the donor would have to give again.
• The gift must have cleared. A bank-account gift still showing ACH Processing can't be refunded until it completes.
• Only online gifts. A check or cash gift recorded by hand has no card to refund; correct those by voiding the deposit entry (see Fixing Mistakes in the Register) and writing the donor a check.
• Membership and invoice payments are refunded from your Stripe dashboard, then corrected in the books by hand; the button only appears on donations.

After the refund

If the original gift had already settled into a deposit batch, the reversing entry is a separate line in your register dated today, so the bank reconciliation still ties: the original deposit cleared on its date, and the refund clears as its own withdrawal.

The donor's original receipt was for the full gift. For a partial refund, most organizations send a short note rather than a new receipt; for a full refund, no acknowledgment is needed since no contribution remains.

Good to know

• Duplicate online gifts are the most common reason for refunds. Donors who double-click the pay button are protected by the payment form, so a true duplicate usually means they came back and gave again on purpose; ask before refunding.
• Refunds show up on the Refunds panel of the donation page, with the date, amount, and who processed it.