Refunding Transactions
From time to time, you may be requested to refund a donation. Here's quick look at how to go about doing that.
Keep in mind...
- Refunds are individual transactions that our card processor needs to process, meaning there is a convenience fee associated with refunded transactions. CardConnect (along with all other major card processors) will not allow companies using their services to cover those fees, so you will notice those fees deducted from your church's bank account. For a refund of an ACH gift, this will amount to only $0.25. For refunding credit card gifts, you will cover the 1.9% convenience fee.
How to Refund Transactions
In your Control Center, select the Transactions tab in your main menu. Or click here.
Find the transaction you're looking for. You can do this a number of ways:
1. You can use the search bar to look up the donor's transaction or account ID, or their last four digits of their credit card number.
2. You can use the filter options in the top right to reduce the search results, anything from a particular fund to a certain dollar amount, along with a specific date range.
Once you find the transaction you're looking for, simply click View on the right side of the transaction.
Once inside a specific transaction's details, in the top right corner, you can select the Refund Transaction button.
After you click that button, the donor will receive an email confirming that their gift was refunded, as shown in the email example below 👇
How will refunds display in my Control Center?
In the Transactions Panel
Once you've refunded a transaction, the status will change in the Transactions Panel to say refunded.
In the Transfers Panel (US Only)
Because refunded transactions are new transactions themselves, they will appear in two separate transfers: one for the original transfer where the money first entered your church's bank account, and one for the transfer that includes the record of the amount refunded back to the donor (aka the amount leaving your church's bank account). For the refunded donation, this is how it will appear in the transfer:
In this example, two gifts are showcased: one $20 gift that was deposited to your church's account, and one refunded amount of $150. Since the $150 was withdrawn, there is an overall negative transfer, meaning that there would be a withdrawal in your church's bank statement.
What if I can't refund the transaction?
Depending on when the donation was given, it's quite possible you don't yet have the ability to refund the transaction yet. (The Refund Transaction button will be faded out.) This is simply because you can't refund money you don't have, and you can't cancel a transaction in the middle of it being processed. As soon as the donation has been cleared and is deposited in your bank account, you'll be able to refund the donation.
Depending on how the donation was given (either via credit card or ACH) will determine how long until you'll be able to refund the transaction. To learn more about gift payout schedules, click here.
In summary, all gifts are grouped together in "batches." The cutoff time for batches is at 8:40pm EST. Unless there is a specific issue with a credit card transaction, all credit cards donations should be deposited the next day. All gifts donated via ACH will take between 7-14 days. Click here to learn more about ACH transactions.