When a refund leaves you below zero

After you fully refund a card pledge, its net can settle at a small negative number instead of $0.00. That is expected, and this page explains why.

Why it happens

When a backer pays by card, a payment processor (PayPal, for example) takes a processing fee out of the charge. That fee is the processor’s, and the processor keeps it even when you refund the pledge in full. A full refund returns the entire amount the backer paid — but the processor does not hand back its cut. So the money that flowed out (the whole charge, back to the backer) is a little more than the money that came in and stayed (the charge minus the fee the processor already kept). The difference is that retained fee, and it shows up as a small negative net.

For example, a $119.67 pledge that is refunded in full shows a net of −$4.67 — the $4.67 the processor held onto.

It is a real balance, not a bill

A below-zero net is a genuine accounting figure, not an amount you owe. Nobody will invoice you for it. It exists so the books stay honest: the record reflects that slightly more went out than came in, rather than rounding up to zero and pretending the fee never happened.

Where you will see it

• wp-admin Pledges list (Ignition → Pledges): the fully refunded card pledge shows its negative net.
• The pledge itself (click View on that row): the “Where it went” table names the fee, on a Processing (gateway) line. This is where the negative is explained — the list shows the figure, the pledge shows why.
• Creator dashboard export: the same net carries through to the CSV, in a Net to You column, with the fee itself in a Processing Fee column beside it. The exported figures match what the admin screens show.

Offline pledges are different

An offline pledge (cash, check, bank transfer) has no processor fee to keep, so a full refund on an offline pledge nets exactly $0.00. The below-zero result is specific to card payments.

Related

• Refunds — How refunds work, and how they appear across every surface.