Comping a payment vs. issuing a refund

2 min read

All three live on the Payments page, and all three result in a student not actually owing money, but they mean different things and leave a different record behind.

Comp, only offered on a payment that was never actually collected: Pending, Unfulfilled, or Failed. A reason is required.

Comp. Marks a payment as deliberately free, decided by an admin, before or instead of ever charging the student. No money moves through Stripe at all, and a short reason is required.
Refund via Stripe. A real payment already went through, and you're sending some or all of it back through your connected Stripe account, a genuine reversal of money that was actually collected.
Record external refund. For a refund that already happened outside the app, cash back at the front desk, a manual transfer, this just fixes the internal record to match reality without calling Stripe a second time.

Refund via Stripe and Record external refund sit side by side on every Paid payment, two genuinely different actions, not two labels for the same thing.

Use Comp for 'this was always meant to be free,' Refund for 'money already moved and needs to come back'

Reaching for the wrong one muddies your own payment history later, a comp on something that was actually charged and needs reversing won't touch Stripe at all, and a refund on something that was never really charged doesn't make sense to attempt. If real money already moved outside Stripe, Record External Refund is the correct third option, neither Comp nor a live Stripe refund fits that case.