Understanding Failed Refunds

There are a few reasons why an administrator may receive a "Refund Failed to Process" message. Here is how to identify the most common causes, and what you can do about them.

ACH Payment is Past 90 Days

ACH (automated clearing house) payments have a refund window of 90 days. At that point,The pathway to return those funds to the payer's bank expires at that point.

Identifying ACH Transactions

Payments will specify payment type as ACH with a bank under the description in the registration transaction log:

Refunding ACH Transactions Past 90 Days

After 90 days, ACH payments can only be refunded offline (via cash or check.) You can then log that refund in TeamSnap. 

Partial Refunds with Absorbed Fees

When full refunds are submitted, transaction fees are included with the full refund amount, while partial refunds do not include transaction fees. This means that when an organization chooses to absorb transaction fees rather than pass them along to the payer, any refund submitted for an amount less than the total must be less than the total payment made minus the transaction fee amount or it will fail.

For example, an organization that absorbs transaction fees collects a payment of $500.00. $10.00 of that payment goes to the transaction fees. That organization can later refund any partial amount less than $490 or a full refund of $500, but any attempted refund amount from $491-$499 will fail.