Understanding Deposit Report Discrepancies

Deposit reports sometimes show transactions that don't match your expectations. Here's how to understand common patterns and investigate discrepancies.

Same-Day Refunds

If you see both a donation and refund for the same amount in a single deposit report, this typically means:

• The donation was processed and marked for deposit
• A refund was issued before Stripe actually deposited the funds
• Stripe "recovered" the refund amount from the pending deposit
• Result: Your bank account received the net amount (donation minus refund)

Example: A $500 donation was refunded $500 before the deposit occurred. Your deposit report shows both transactions, but your bank received $0.

Large Refunds from Previous Periods

Refunds can appear in deposit reports days or weeks after the original gift:

• Stripe processes refunds in the next available payout cycle
• The refund amount is deducted from your current deposit
• This creates negative amounts or unexpectedly large refund totals

Example: A $6,500 refund from last month appears in today's deposit of $800, resulting in a net deposit of -$5,700.

Investigating Discrepancies

1. Filter your donation report by the deposit ID 
2. Match gift IDs between your deposit ID to identify gifts that were deposited earlier and refunded later\\
3. Check individual gift details for payment status and refund history
4. Look for related transactions from different time periods

Finding Specific Information

Small deposit differences: timing, fees, and reconciliation

Small differences between GiveCampus data and bank deposits can occur because of processing timing or fees. If the discrepancy is minor (for example, a few dollars or a single refund’s difference), try these steps:

1. Filter your donation report by deposit date and match each gift to the corresponding bank statement line item.

   • Verify the deposit date (or deposit ID) and compare gift amounts with your bank records. Small timing offsets—where a gift is marked for one payout but settled in the next—are common.

2. Review donor-covered fee calculations and timing differences.

   • Donor-covered fees may create slight disparities that add up over time.

3. Cross-reference gift transaction IDs between GiveCampus and your payment processor.

   • Open the gift detail in GiveCampus to retrieve the transaction ID, then compare it to the transaction or payout records (for example, on Stripe’s dashboard) to confirm whether the gift was included, refunded, or adjusted.

4. Account for timing and rounding quirks.

   • A gift might appear on one deposit report, while the actual bank transfer occurs in the next payout cycle if a previous refund was recovered.
   • Minor rounding differences or fee calculations can result in one- to two‑cent mismatches across many gifts.

If these checks don’t resolve the difference, gather the following information before escalating:

• Deposit ID(s) and deposit date(s)
• Bank statement line items showing the deposit amount
• A list of gift IDs and their amounts from the GiveCampus deposit export
• Any related refund IDs or processor adjustment entries

Tip: Having the deposit ID along with 3–5 gift transaction IDs at hand speeds up the reconciliation process compared to sharing only summary numbers.

In your deposit report:

• Deposit Amount: Net amount transferred to your bank
• Charge Amount: Total of all donations in this deposit
• Refund Amount: Total of all refunds deducted from this deposit
• Number of Refunds: Count of individual refund transactions

Refund Recovery and Deposit Calculations

When Deposit Amounts Don't Match Expected Calculations

Sometimes your deposit total differs slightly from manual calculations of individual gifts minus refunds due to Stripe's refund recovery process:

How refund recovery works:

• When a refund is processed, Stripe first attempts to recover the amount from your current deposit
• If the refund is larger than individual gifts in that deposit, recovery may span multiple transactions
• The final deposit amount reflects all recovery operations, which may not match simple gift-minus-refund math

Example scenario:

• Deposit contains: $500 gift, $50 refund
• Expected calculation: $500 - $50 = $450
• Actual deposit: $450
• Reason: The $50 was deposited at an earlier date so it is only a negative line item, deducting funds from the positive value.