Receipts and refunds
What a donor gets automatically, and how to refund without breaking your reporting.
Quick answers
6 questions · click to openDo donors get a receipt automatically?
Yes. A receipt goes out when a donation succeeds, using the wording set on the donation page. There is nothing for you to send by hand.
Can I refund from inside Cobber?
Yes. Open the payment and use Confirm refund. It processes through Stripe, so you do not need to go there separately.
What happens to the record after a refund?
The payment stays on the person with a status of refunded, along with when and why. Nothing is deleted, so your history stays honest.
Does a refund change our totals?
Yes, and it should. A refunded payment drops out of every total that counts successful payments, including campaign revenue, so your reporting reflects money you actually kept.
Can I refund part of a donation?
A refund is actioned against the payment as a whole from the payments screen. For anything more complicated, handle it in Stripe and note it against the payment.
Someone wants a receipt again.
Open their payment — the receipt can be sent again from there without taking a new donation.
Receipts go out on their own; refunds need a person. Both leave a trail, which is the point.
What the donor receives
When a donation succeeds, Cobber sends a receipt using the wording configured on the donation page. If your organisation is set up as tax deductible, that setting carries through to the receipt — check your own status rather than assuming.
Receipts are email, so they depend on your sending domain being verified. An unverified domain means no receipts, which is the sort of thing you find out from an annoyed donor.
Refunding
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Find the payment
Open Payments and filter down to the donation — by person, date, amount or campaign.
The payments screen, filtered to find a donation. -
Refund it
Confirm refund processes it through Stripe. You do not need to open Stripe separately, and you should not do both.
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Leave a note
Use the internal note to record why. Six months later, in an audit or a conversation with a treasurer, the reason matters more than the amount.
What a refund does to your numbers
The payment moves to a status of refunded and keeps the date and reason. It then drops out of every total that counts successful payments — donation totals, campaign revenue, the lot.
That’s deliberate. Your reporting should show money you actually kept, and a refunded gift is money you didn’t. The record stays on the person so the history is still there when someone asks.
Refund in Cobber, not in Stripe. Refunding directly in Stripe moves the money but leaves the payment looking successful here, and your totals will be wrong until someone notices.