Handling Payment Errors Through Wise

There may be times when an expense that is approved for payment on Open Collective encounters a problem. Here are some factors to consider.

Sometimes an expense is approved by both the Collective and Fiscal Host admins, but does not get paid to the expense submitter.

Many of our Fiscal Hosts use a third-party payment processor called Wise for processing expense payments on Open Collective. This means that your private bank and credit card details are more secure. However, Wise carries out its own checks to ensure it is happy to complete a transaction.

If Wise encounters a problem, it may post a message saying that the expense has not been paid due to a certain error. You should be able to find these messages by checking the Wise dashboard. There are some examples on the Wise website of the types of errors that may appear.

Alternatively, the expense submitter may contact the Fiscal Host independently to inform them that they have not yet received the funds.

Resolving payment errors

The expense may be marked with the status “Error” due to an automated payment error, or it can be given this status manually by a Fiscal Host if they discover it has not been paid.

If the expense submitter informs you independently that the expense has not been paid, you can manually change its status by clicking on the green “Paid” button to the right of the expense in question, and clicking “Mark as Unpaid”.

At this point, the Fiscal Host admin can either: Mark the expense as Incomplete: As a Fiscal Host admin, you may wish to request more information or clarification from the expense submitter based on the error received, or in order to discover why the payment was not completed. You will have the option to add a comment to the expense submitter when you choose this option.

Opt to Re-pay: If you are happy with the information received, or simply wish to try again, you can choose to submit the expense for payment again.

Reject the expense: If the information you have received leads you to believe the expense is no longer suitable for payment, you can choose to reject it. The expense submitter will be informed, and will have to re-submit the expense if they wish it to be paid.

There may be a number of reasons that an expense has not been paid into the expense submitter’s account. We recommend examining the issue on a case-by-case basis, and our support team can also support you where appropriate.