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Refund a Donation

Goal: Reverse a recorded donation when needed — donor request, error, fraud — so books, donor record, and receipt all reflect reality.

When refunds happen​

  • Donor changed their mind
  • Wrong amount was charged
  • Donation was applied to the wrong donor or fund
  • Fraud or chargeback initiated by the cardholder
  • A duplicate gift was processed by mistake

:::tip Refund or delete? A refund is for money that really moved and needs to go back. If a manually recorded gift (check, cash, offline entry) was simply entered by mistake — wrong donor, duplicate typing — don't refund it: delete it instead, which removes the record and unwinds its accounting entirely. See Deleting a gift. Refunding a mistaken entry books a refund for money that never existed. :::

Current refund behavior​

You can refund a donation in full, or refund part of it. A full refund means:

  • The full donation amount is refunded to the original payment method (credit/debit card)
  • The donation record is marked refunded
  • A reverse journal entry posts to the GL, zeroing out the original entry
  • The receipt is voided
  • The donor's lifetime giving, donation count and giving level update

For a partial refund, click Partial Refund in the refund dialog and enter the amount to return. The gift is marked Partially Refunded and stays on the donor's record at the amount you kept.

How a refund changes the donor's lifetime giving​

Lifetime giving changes as soon as the refund is saved, and the donor's giving level can drop with it:

  • A full refund removes the gift from the donor's lifetime giving and donation count.
  • A partial refund keeps the gift, counted at the amount you kept. A $1,000 gift with $300 refunded counts as $700.
  • A register gift reversed by voiding a ReStore sale (or by a full return, if your affiliate refunds gifts on returns) stops counting the same way.

For example, a donor whose only gift is $1,200 is at Silver. Refund $300 and their lifetime giving becomes $900, which moves them to Bronze. See What counts toward lifetime giving.

When the card refund settles​

A card refund takes a few days to reach the donor's card. Ayuna counts it once, when you save it:

  • The refunded amount, the gift's status and the donor's lifetime giving change as soon as you save the refund. When the payment processor later confirms the refund went through, nothing changes again — a $300 refund on a $1,000 gift stays $300 refunded, and the gift keeps counting as $700.
  • If the processor rejects the refund (rare — for example, the card account was closed), Ayuna puts the gift back: the refunded amount drops by what that refund added, the gift returns to Completed (or Partially Refunded, if an earlier refund still stands), and its lifetime-giving credit comes back. The refund's journal entry and the voided receipt are not restored automatically — reverse the entry by hand and issue a new receipt.
  • A refund made directly in the payment processor's dashboard (not from Ayuna) is picked up once, when it settles: the gift is marked Partially Refunded or Refunded with the reason "Refunded at the payment processor". Ayuna does not post a journal entry or void the receipt for a refund it did not make, so record those by hand.
  • A processor refund never brings a gift back into the donor's giving. A gift that is already Refunded stays that way, and so does a card swipe you first categorized as a donation and then recategorized as something else (a store sale, for example) — refunding or returning that sale at the register doesn't touch the cancelled gift.
  • Refund amounts are in whole cents. An amount with more decimal places is rounded to the nearest cent (half a cent rounds up) before it is sent to the processor, and that rounded amount is what the gift records.
  • For a gift where the donor covered the processing fee, a full refund returns everything that was charged — the gift plus the fee.

ACH / bank-transfer refunds are blocked​

Refunds are not supported for ACH / bank-transfer donations. NACHA (the U.S. ACH network) does not provide a way for the originator to reverse a settled debit, so Ayuna will block the refund attempt with the message:

Refunds are not supported for ACH/bank transfer payments. ACH transactions cannot be reversed through the payment gateway.

When a donor needs their ACH gift returned, your team has to handle the money movement outside the system — typically by writing a check or initiating an ACH credit from your bank — and then record an offsetting transaction in your accounting system. The original donation record stays as-is.

If a donor disputes an ACH debit through their bank, that comes back as a dispute / chargeback rather than a refund, and is handled in the disputes flow with Finix.

When a donor's bank returns an ACH gift​

Sometimes the donor's bank sends a bank-transfer payment back after it looked complete — the account had insufficient funds, was closed, or the donor told their bank the debit wasn't authorized. This is an ACH return. Your team doesn't start it, and Ayuna records it on its own as soon as the payment processor reports it:

  • The gift's status changes to Returned (a red badge on the donor's giving history and the campaign's donations list). A returned gift can't be refunded — the money is already back with the donor.
  • It stops counting toward the donor's lifetime giving, donation count and giving level, and toward the campaign, event and peer-to-peer totals it was part of.
  • If the gift had already been booked to your general ledger, a reversing journal entry is posted automatically, linked to the gift.
  • The gift's tax receipt is voided, so the donor can no longer use it. No corrected receipt is issued, and the void sends no email of its own: the return notice below covers it.
  • On a recurring gift, the payment shows as Returned in the schedule's payment history.
  • The donor gets the ACH payment return notice email. You can change its wording under Administration → System Emails (Donations & receipts).
  • If the payment was a pledge installment, the installment goes back to Pending (or Partial, if another payment on it still stands) with a note saying the bank returned it, and the pledge's paid amount and balance are restored by the returned amount. A pledge that the payment had completed goes back to Active. If Generate Entries had already booked the installment, that entry is voided, and whatever of it other payments on the installment still cover is booked again. An entry already synced to your accounting system is left alone: reverse it there by hand.
  • A sponsorship installment goes back to Pending too, and the sponsorship's total paid drops by that amount, along with the goal of a campaign or event that counts sponsorships. If the installment had been booked to your general ledger, a reversing journal entry is posted for it automatically, and its receipt is voided.
  • A paid event registration is marked refunded and comes off the event's attendee count and goal. Its journal entry is not reversed automatically — reverse the registration revenue by hand in your accounting system.
  • In Payment Search, a returned gift is listed under Failed.

A returned payment stays returned. If the donor wants to try again, they make a new gift (or pay the reopened installment).

Initiating a refund​

From the donation record:

  1. Open the donation
  2. Click Refund
  3. Confirm the reason from the predefined list (donor request, fraud, error, duplicate, other)
  4. Confirm

The system processes the refund through Finix for card-present and online card transactions. For check, cash, or ACH, the refund is recorded in Ayuna but you handle the actual money movement (issuing a check, sending a wire, etc.) outside the system. ACH-specific guidance is above.

What happens behind the scenes​

  • For Finix-processed transactions: the refund is sent to Finix and the transfer state tracks SUCCEEDED
  • For check/cash: just a record update; no external processing
  • The donor sees the refunded gift in their giving history with status Refunded

Refunds and recurring donations​

Refunding a single charge from a recurring schedule does not cancel the schedule. The next scheduled charge still attempts to process. If the donor wants to stop:

  1. Cancel the recurring donation first (preserves history)
  2. Then refund the most recent charge if requested

Doing it in the other order risks the next charge processing before the cancellation goes through.

Refunds and pledges​

Refunding a pledge payment is more involved:

  1. Refund the donation as usual
  2. Reverse the pledge installment marking — the installment goes back to "due" or the prior status

Ayuna handles step 1 cleanly; step 2 may require staff to confirm the pledge installment status afterward.

Tax implications​

When a refund happens after the donor has received a tax receipt for that gift:

  • The voided receipt is the record that the gift was reversed
  • If the donor has already filed their tax return claiming the deduction, they're responsible for filing an amendment
  • Annual statements at year-end reflect net giving (gifts minus refunds)

Audit trail​

Every refund is logged with:

  • Who initiated it
  • When
  • The reason
  • The Finix transfer ID for traceback

The audit trail is preserved permanently — refunds don't erase history.

When NOT to refund​

  • A correction to fund or campaign — use Reclassify instead, no money moves
  • A donor wanting to change which campaign, event, or homeowner project benefits — Reclassify the donation

Use Refund only when money needs to come back.

Refund vs. dispute / chargeback​

A refund is something your team initiates — the donor asked, or you agreed it was the right move. A dispute (also called a chargeback) is initiated by the donor's bank: the cardholder told their bank they didn't authorize the charge, and the bank pulled the funds back. The two are tracked separately.

Disputes flow into Ayuna automatically through the Finix integration and appear under Payments → Disputes in the admin app. From there your team can:

  • View the dispute amount, reason code, and response deadline
  • Upload evidence (the original receipt, donor communications, fulfillment proof)
  • Submit the evidence packet back to Finix for the issuing bank to review
  • Trigger a manual sync if you suspect Finix has updated state that hasn't reached us yet

Don't issue a refund on a transaction that's already in dispute — let the dispute play out. If you refund first and lose the dispute, you can be charged twice. If a dispute turns up on a sponsorship payment or a pledge installment, the same evidence-and-respond flow applies; the underlying record is updated when the dispute resolves.