Processing Refunds

To ensure that the ledger remains accurate, Fiscal Host admins are able to process refunds through Open Collective.

Collective admins are able to approve refunds for up to 30 days from the date the donation was made, as long as the payment provider supports the transaction.

After that point, donations can only be refunded by Fiscal Host admins.

Open Collective has a platform wide Refund Policy. Fiscal Host admins should familiarize themselves with this policy before they develop their own.

Set Refund Policy:

All Fiscal Hosts are encouraged to have a public refund policy. You can add a refund policy by:

• Navigating to your Fiscal Host's Dashboard > Settings > Policies

• Adding your Refund Policy or a link to it under Contributions or Expenses Policy sections.

Refund a Donation:

• Go to the Collective page and navigate to the Budget section.

• Click on the Transactions Tab and View all transactions.

• Find the transaction you want to refund on the list and click on View Details.

• You will find a refund button right next to the transaction details.

• Click refund and confirm the operation.

For contributions that were made using a Stripe enabled payment method, the funds should automatically be returned to the contributor. For other payment methods, we recommend inviting the user to submit an expense.

The process for refunding contributions differs slightly depending on what the original payment method used was. If someone made their contribution with Stripe, the refund will be processed automatically after you confirm the operation. If the payment was originally made manually extra steps are needed.