#cb3131-connect-refunds
next glade
meager basalt
Happy new year!
Unfortunately you can't directly debit the connected account's bank account but you can create a transfer reversal to transfer the funds from the connected account's balance https://stripe.com/docs/connect/destination-charges#issuing-refunds
nova cave
Ok. So if we wanted to refund a customer from a connected account, we would create a transfer reversal which pulls from the connected account's balance, and after that we would need to send a wire transfer to top-up the connected account's balance?
meager basalt
AFAIK it can be part of creating the refund. For example in Python we show:
charge='{CHARGE_ID}',
reverse_transfer=True,
)```
Which would tell us to pull the funds back from the connected account with that chargeOk
Is there any way to automate adding funds to the connected account's balance? or is that always done manually via a wire?
meager basalt
Ah I see, I was assuming this was for destination charges, which does something like that https://stripe.com/docs/connect/destination-charges
Can you tell me a bit more about how you are currently charging customers and transferring funds to you connected accounts?
nova cave
Yes definitely! Give me one moment
We are doing a stripe checkout session with the transfer_data destination (in the payment_intent_data object being the connected account)
payment_intent_data={ 'application_fee_amount': $$$, 'transfer_data': { 'destination': <CONNECTED ACCOUNT ID>, }, 'metadata': { ... } }
meager basalt
Gotcha. So the reverse transfer code I pointed to is likely helpful here. Can you clarify a bit more what you mean by "automate adding funds to the connected account's balance"?
Where are you manually moving funds here that you would like to be automated?
nova cave
Currently, if a connected account does a $500 refund, their balance goes negative. So we send a wire to Stripe to get the connected account from a $500 balance to a $0 balance. That's the part that is manual at the moment.
So, we were thinking about ways of automating that step. For example, we could automate an ACH using our payments processor which seems like it could work for our purposes
nova cave
@meager basalt wanted to follow up on this
meager basalt
Thanks for the bump, dropped off this and meant to come back.
I think the flow you describe in the second part could work. I will check to see if there is an automatic way to do that at the moment
nova cave
Thank you!
Also, reading through this documentation: https://stripe.com/docs/api/accounts/object#account_object-settings-payouts-debit_negative_balances
It seems as though you can debit negative balances from an attached bank account on a connected account. That is exactly what we would want to do. Am i understanding this correctly?
specifically the "debit_negative_balances" boolean
nova cave
Ok. We will give that a try!
We are using Stripe to collect security deposits that ultimately get refunded. Do you know if this sort of behavior would cause issues? Are there any limits to refunds or anything like that?
meager basalt
Good question. I would actually write in to our support about your business case here. I'm not immediately thinking of a limit that would cause an error or something when making this call but they may be able to better speak to if there is a better flow for your needs here. https://support.stripe.com/?contact=true
nova cave
Ok thank you for the help!
meager basalt
Of course, glad I could answer some of your questions!