The following steps will help you create an accurate ledger for disputed transactions in Tripleseat, while correcting the balance and allowing the guest to pay the disputed amount. The steps are for online payment transactions made with Stripe, Fiserv, or Square. If you use our internal payment processing through Tripleseat Payments, see this article regarding the dispute process.
When a guest has disputed an online payment in error and needs to resubmit payment, there are a few steps to take to reconcile the payment in Tripleseat. Importantly, if this occurs, we don’t want to erase the history of the transaction - you’ll want to keep that for accounting purposes. Even so, because this payment was made online, Tripleseat will not allow it to be changed. You can follow the steps below to reconcile the dispute for accounting purposes.
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Edit the original payment and add a note about the dispute.
- On the Payments tab, click the gear icon next to the disputed payment. You can add an Internal Note, as well as a Customer Facing title, indicating that the payment was disputed. Save your changes.
- On the Payments tab, click the gear icon next to the disputed payment. You can add an Internal Note, as well as a Customer Facing title, indicating that the payment was disputed. Save your changes.
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Add a new, negative payment for the disputed amount.
- On the Payments tab, click ‘Add a Payment’. In the Amount field in the pop-up menu, add the amount of the disputed payment as a negative number. (i.e. -$1000). Add another note, such as ‘reconciling disputed payment’, then Save & Pay.
- Choose an in-house payment method, something other than the guest’s payment method. Doing this will add the disputed payment amount as a balance for the guest.
Pro Tip: Consider creating a custom payment method for disputed payments for super-clean accounting! Check out this article for creating custom payment methods in Settings > Dropdowns > Payment Methods.
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Create a new payment, if needed.
- Now that we’ve corrected the balance and have a clear history shown, we need to give the guest a new payment in the guest portal. You can click ‘Add a payment’ again to create a new payment, but leave it as a positive amount. Alternatively, if the balance owed is greater than the disputed payment, and the guest wants to pay the entire remaining balance, you can click ‘Add Payment for $Amount’ to add the entire remaining balance as a payment. Save or Save & Pay as normal.
- Now that we’ve corrected the balance and have a clear history shown, we need to give the guest a new payment in the guest portal. You can click ‘Add a payment’ again to create a new payment, but leave it as a positive amount. Alternatively, if the balance owed is greater than the disputed payment, and the guest wants to pay the entire remaining balance, you can click ‘Add Payment for $Amount’ to add the entire remaining balance as a payment. Save or Save & Pay as normal.
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Communicate with the guest.
- The guest may have questions about why there are now two additional line items or why they need to submit payment again. It wouldn’t hurt to have a well-written Discussion Email Template or a Content Template explaining this!
The goal of this process is to create a precise history of payments and transactions, similar to a bank ledger. Following these steps, you can show that the payment was paid, disputed, the balance corrected, and then paid again. Now you have a detailed accounting of how things happened, in case you need to provide these details somewhere in the future.