When a donation needs to be returned (a duplicate, a mistake, or a donor request), you refund the payment. Refunds are an administrator/staff action, and the money goes back to the card or bank account the donor originally used.
If the gift was cash or a paper check entered directly on a contribution, there is no CoolPay payment to refund. See Recording a refund or returned check on a cash or check gift below.
How to refund
1. Open the payment in Payments.
2. Choose Refund.
3. Refund the full amount, or enter a smaller amount for a partial refund.
4. Optionally choose a reason (duplicate, fraudulent, or customer request) and add a note.
5. Confirm. CoolPay sends the refund to the donor's original payment method and records it on the payment.
Recording a refund or returned check on a cash or check gift
Cash and check gifts entered directly on a contribution are not processed through CoolPay, so you record the refund on the contribution itself. Use these steps when you give money back to a donor for a cash or check gift, or when your bank returns a donor's paper check (for example, for insufficient funds or a closed account).
1. Open the contribution for the cash or check gift.
2. Edit the contribution and go to the Refund Information fields.
3. Check Refunded.
4. Enter the Refund Amount. For a returned check, this is usually the full amount of the check.
5. Enter the Refund Date: the date you gave the money back, or the date your bank told you the check was returned.
6. Add a Refund Reason and a Refund Note. For a returned check, note that the check was returned, the check number, and the reason your bank gave.
7. Save the contribution.
Don't delete the gift or change its amount. Leave the contribution's Amount as it was and record the refund in the Refund Information fields instead. That keeps both the original gift and the refund in the contribution's history.
After you save:
A "Refund Recorded" entry appears on the contribution's timeline with the amount, date, and reason.
The contribution is excluded from new GL batches and can't be added to an existing batch. If it is already in an open GL batch, remove it from the batch by hand. If the batch was already imported into QuickBooks Desktop, make the correction in QuickBooks. See GL Batches.
Recording the refund updates the record only. It does not move any money, so return cash to the donor or handle the bank's returned-check notice outside CoolFocus.
Good to know
Full or partial. You can refund the whole payment or just part of it. You can't refund more than the payment's remaining refundable balance.
Only settled payments can be refunded. A payment has to have actually gone through (succeeded/settled). A payment that failed was never charged, so there's nothing to refund. See Fixing Failed & Missed Payments.
There is no "void." A refund is the way to reverse a payment in CoolPay.
CoolPay refunds run through the payment, not the contribution. For a CoolPay gift, you don't edit the contribution's dollar amount by hand; refunding the payment is what reverses the money.
Refund fields on a CoolPay contribution are read-only. On a contribution's record, the Refund Information fields (Refunded, Refund Amount, Refund Date, Refund Reason, Refund Note) are automatically filled in and locked once that contribution is tied to a CoolPay payment. This keeps the contribution in sync with what actually happened on the payment, instead of letting someone edit the refund details by hand and have them drift out of sync. To change a refund, refund the payment itself as described above.
Manually entered contributions are different. For contributions that were not processed through CoolPay (for example, cash or check gifts entered directly on the contribution), the Refund Information fields stay editable so you can record a refund or returned check by hand. See Recording a refund or returned check on a cash or check gift above.
ACH takes longer. Bank (ACH) refunds settle over a few days, like the original charge.
The contribution's timeline shows the refund. A refund adds a "Refund Recorded" activity to the related contribution, with the amount, date, and reason (if one was given). This appears whether the refund came back from the processor or was recorded manually on the contribution.
Refunded contributions stay out of GL batches. Once a contribution is marked refunded, it's excluded from GL batch creation and from being added to an existing batch, so refunded gifts don't get swept into your QuickBooks export. See GL Batches.
Payment history on the contribution
A contribution's timeline can also show its underlying payment processing history, such as when the payment was processed, failed, or refunded, pulled directly from the payment processor. This gives you a fuller picture of what happened with the money behind a single gift without having to open the payment record separately.