Payment Issues and Refunds

Payment issues let you review and record money movement after a payment has gone wrong or needs adjustment. Use them for refunds, manual reversals, forfeits, store credit, and Stripe disputes that need an auditable trail.

TL;DR

• Web and mobile provide Needs attention, Pending, and History views.
• Start from a booking, order, transaction, or customer. Search is available when you do not have that context; operators do not need to enter raw IDs.
• Owners and Managers can prepare a case. Only the exact venue Owner can execute a Stripe refund; authorised support needs recorded venue approval.
• A submitted Stripe request remains pending until Stripe confirms success. Failed, cancelled, or uncertain requests stay open for reconciliation.

What is a payment issue?

A payment issue is a venue-scoped record that stores the source payment, requested amount, reason, allocation outcome, status, and timeline. The web Payment issues panel describes the surface as "Refunds, manual reversals, forfeits, store credit, and Stripe disputes."

Each issue has:

Field	What it records
Status	Draft, needs approval, approved, processing, manual reconciliation needed, recorded, credited, forfeited, disputed, won, lost, closed, or cancelled
Type	Refund, deposit refund, manual reversal, dispute, or void review
Amount	The requested amount in the venue currency
Reason	Client request, service issue, booking cancelled, duplicate charge, wrong amount, payment error, fraud or dispute, goodwill, policy forfeit, staff error, or other
Allocations	The outcome, tender, status, and amount for each money movement
Timeline	Created, approved, refund, credit, forfeit, dispute, reconciliation, and closed events

How to create a payment issue

Owners and Managers can create a payment issue on web or mobile. The safest path is Report payment issue from the related booking, order, transaction, customer, or payment timeline.

1. Go to Payments.
2. Find Payment issues.
3. Click New issue.
4. Choose the contextual source, or search by customer, appointment, payment, or reference.
5. Review the customer, appointment, service, original payment, provider/card, refundable amount, prior refunds and credits.
6. Select the original tender and intended destination.
7. Choose a Reason.
8. Choose an Outcome.
9. Enter the Amount.
10. Add an External reference when recording an external card refund.
11. Add a Note if the approval trail needs more context.
12. Click Create issue. Managers can then request Owner approval.

The amount must be greater than zero. For paid orders and booking deposits, the amount cannot exceed the remaining refundable amount for the selected tender or deposit.

Outcomes

Payment issue outcomes define what OpenChair does when the issue is approved.

Outcome	What happens
Refund through Stripe	OpenChair creates a Stripe refund against the original Stripe PaymentIntent when the venue has a connected Stripe account and the source payment can be refunded by OpenChair.
External card refund recorded	OpenChair records that the refund was handled by another card provider. It does not move money through Stripe.
Cash returned	OpenChair records a cash refund in the ledger.
Store credit issued	OpenChair creates store credit for the linked customer. Store credit needs a customer email, phone, or customer record.
Forfeit/write-off	OpenChair records that the amount was kept or written off without a refund.

Approving and executing

Approving a payment issue runs the selected allocation outcome and updates the timeline.

Before approval, web and mobile show the customer, appointment, service, original and refundable amounts, prior refunds or credits, provider state, destination, consequence, evidence, and named actors. The action describes the exact outcome, for example Refund A$12.50 to Visa •••• 1234 or Issue A$12.50 store credit. The operator must acknowledge that consequence.

Only the exact venue Owner can execute an eligible Stripe refund. Managers can prepare the case and request approval. Store credit is not a card refund: the customer remains charged and receives value to use later.

Owners can confirm their own payment issues; another approver is not required. Review the amount and destination, acknowledge the consequence, then select the refund or recording action. For external card payments, recording a refund does not send money through the external provider.

A Stripe submission may return Pending or Requires action. OpenChair does not finalise the refund ledger, booking refund amount, or issue until Stripe reports Succeeded.

If automatic processing fails, OpenChair marks the issue as manual reconciliation needed and sends a Refund needs reconciliation Activity alert. Review the original provider, Stripe, and ledger rows before retrying or closing the case.

Stripe disputes

Stripe disputes are recorded as payment issues when Stripe sends dispute webhooks for a connected venue account. OpenChair stores the Stripe dispute ID, charge ID, PaymentIntent ID, status, reason, amount, and evidence deadline when those fields are available.

Dispute alerts are operational review records. OpenChair sends Dispute opened and dispute outcome alerts, links them to the payment issue, and updates the issue when Stripe reports won or lost. OpenChair does not submit chargeback evidence automatically.

Accounting exports

Payment issue outcomes are included in the accounting export. The export contains refunds_voids_forfeits.csv, and Stripe settlement evidence can include charges, refunds, adjustments, disputes, fees, and payout movement where Stripe exposes that data.

Use the accounting export when your accountant needs a period-level record of refunds, voids, forfeits, dispute movement, and payment clearing.

Who can use this

Role	Access
Owner	Can view, create, edit, cancel, correct, approve, and execute eligible outcomes on web and mobile.
Manager	Can view, create, edit, cancel, and request approval on web and mobile, but cannot execute irreversible money movement.
Team	Cannot approve or execute payment issues. May report an issue where an authorised venue flow exposes that action.
Authorised support	Can execute an exact eligible case only after fresh preflight and recorded venue approval; support is shown as the actor.

Platform differences

Feature	Web	Mobile
View issue list	Needs attention, Pending, History	Needs attention, Pending, History
Create from paid order	Yes	Yes
Create from booking deposit	Yes	Yes
Create customer/manual reversal	Yes	Yes
Execute Stripe refund	Exact Owner	Exact Owner
Record cash or external refund	Yes	Yes, where eligible
Issue store credit	Yes	Yes, where eligible
Inspect Stripe disputes	Yes	Review-only

Common mistakes

Payment issues fail most often when the source or outcome does not match the payment that was originally taken.

Mistake	What to do instead
Trying to refund more than the remaining tender amount	Load the order tenders and use the amount shown as remaining for that original tender.
Choosing Refund through Stripe for a payment OpenChair cannot refund	Use External card refund recorded if the refund is handled outside OpenChair.
Creating store credit without a linked customer	Link the issue to a booking, order, or customer record with an email, phone, or customer ID.
Trying to handle a Stripe dispute on mobile	Open the payment issue on web and review the related Stripe dispute details there.

Troubleshooting

Issue	Solution
Create issue is disabled	Enter an amount greater than zero and load the required paid order tender or booking deposit first.
Stripe refund cannot be selected or submitted	Confirm the original payment was taken through OpenChair Stripe payments and the venue still has an active connected Stripe account.
Issue says manual reconciliation is needed	Review Stripe and the ledger before retrying. The automatic refund path failed and OpenChair has preserved the issue for operator review.
Mobile says an update is required	Install the coordinated v2 mobile release. Older clients may view cases but cannot perform unsafe financial mutations.

Related Articles

• Checkout
• Deposits
• Customer Credits
• Accounting Export