Refunds and disputes

A refund is money you choose to return to a client after a card payment. A dispute, sometimes called a chargeback, is when the client asks their card issuer to reverse a charge instead of coming to you. OneTool tracks both against the payment they belong to, and Stripe handles the card side.

You issue a refund from the Stripe dashboard, not from OneTool. Find the payment, refund all or part of it, and OneTool records what Stripe reports. A notification tells you the amount and which invoice it landed on.

Refunded money stops counting as collected, so the invoice's balance reopens by that amount. An invoice is only Paid when nothing is owed on it, so one that read Paid moves back to Sent.

The refunded installment itself is closed. The portal drops its Pay button rather than ask your client to pay the same money twice, and an invoice with nothing left to collect reads Refunded.

So a refund that reopens a balance needs a new installment before your client can pay it. Open Configure and the panel shows how far the schedule now falls short of the invoice total. Add a row for the difference and the Pay button comes back.

Your client sees the refund on the installment it came from, with the amount that went back to their card. They do not see why, so tell them directly when you issue one.

Disputes are handled in Stripe's own dispute tools, embedded inside OneTool. Open your organization settings, go to the Payments tab, and expand Disputes. From there you respond to a chargeback by submitting evidence, accepting the dispute, or refunding the payment to resolve it.

The panel is Stripe's, so what you submit there goes straight to Stripe and the card networks. Only the organization owner sees it, and it appears as soon as Stripe has your business details, including while your account is restricted.

When a dispute is opened, the owner gets a notification with the evidence deadline, and the invoice's Payment Schedule tab marks the installment as disputed with the same deadline and a Respond in Payments link that opens the Disputes panel. A dispute you lose stays marked on the installment, since the money has gone back to the client.