Recovery
Recovery playbooks
The money left a connected account and your platform paid for it. These are the step-by-step procedures for getting it back — exact arithmetic, exact API calls, failure modes included — and the operating model that closes findings instead of collecting them.
Core mechanics
How to reverse a Stripe Connect transfer
The transfers.createReversal procedure that pulls refunded money back from a connected account — how to compute an amount Stripe accepts, and the three ways reversals fail.
Reversing a transfer after the seller has been paid out
A post-payout reversal still succeeds — it leaves the connected account negative and your recovery becomes a claim on future volume. Mechanics, odds, netting, and write-offs.
The partial-refund reversal playbook
How to reverse the right amount on partial refunds — the proportional formula, the two-cent rounding tolerance that prevents phantom findings, and recovering partials issued without the flag.
Refunding an application fee after the refund already happened
The standalone fee-refund call for fees left attached to refunded revenue — proportional amounts, the double-refund trap, and how policy should decide before code does.
Clawing back a lost dispute from the seller
When a Connect dispute is lost the platform is debited while the connected account keeps the funds. The clawback playbook: the precise debit, the right amount, the right moment, and gating that keeps it fair.
Idempotency keys for transfer reversals
A retried reversal without an idempotency key reverses twice, and a reversal cannot be reversed. Key scoping, the 24-hour expiry, and the double-guard pattern.
Programmes and policy
Netting recoveries against future transfers
When a hard reversal would blindside a good seller, netting the owed amount off the next transfer recovers the same dollars with a conversation instead of a debit. Mechanics and terms.
When a connected account goes negative
Reversals, disputes and refunds can drive a connected account below zero. What Stripe does next, the three absorption paths, and the honest accounting treatment.
Working a 90-day backlog of unreversed transfers
You ran the audit and found a backlog. Sort by reachable balance, not size — and run the per-finding workflow that closes each item properly.
Telling a seller you are recovering funds
Three message templates — reversal notice, netting notice, write-off closure — plus the terms direction that makes recovery routine instead of adversarial.
Designing who absorbs a refund: the platform policy decision
Destination charges make the platform the default absorber of every refund. Four dials — transfer, fee, disputes, floors — turn the inherited default into a decision.
When to stop chasing: write-offs for dormant accounts
Some findings never recover — churned sellers, dead balances, sub-floor amounts. A triage policy that closes them honestly and keeps the queue truthful.
Designing auto-clawback rules that do not surprise sellers
Automation that moves money out of third-party accounts needs gates: realised losses only, risk scores, bands, notice periods, circuit breakers. The five-gate design.
Edge cases and operations
Reversal failures, decoded
What each reversal error actually means, which ones are recoverable, and the pre-flight checks that prevent them from occurring at all.
Refunds on orders split across multiple connected accounts
One buyer refund, three sellers, three transfers. How split orders break single-charge assumptions, and the per-transfer recovery pattern that fixes them.
Recovering transfers across currencies
A reversal in another currency settles at today’s rate, not the original one. What that does to amounts, who keeps the difference, and recording it honestly.
Fight the dispute or claw back the transfer?
Every dispute is two decisions — whether to fight, and if lost, whether to recover. A framework with the modelled arithmetic of both paths and the evidence pack template.
Fraud disputes: reversing before the outcome
For every dispute type except one, waiting is right. Fraud is the exception — low win rate, eroding balance. When early reversal is defensible and how to gate it.
Recovery on separate charges and transfers
In this model the platform holds funds and moves them by hand — every recovery lever is manual and every mistake is yours. The model-specific playbook.
The spreadsheet recovery: working findings from a CSV export
Not ready to connect a tool? The manual workflow from CSV export to reversed transfers — columns, formulas, tolerances — and where manual recovery honestly breaks.
From finding to resolved: the discrepancy lifecycle
A finding without a workflow becomes wallpaper within a month. The state machine from detection to resolution — states, transitions, evidence rules, and who owns each move.
When to bring Stripe support into a recovery
Deauthorized accounts, closed accounts, genuine platform errors. What support can and cannot do, how to write the case, and honest expectations about outcomes.