Sometimes you need to give money back: an artist paid an entry fee for a call they couldn't enter, a buyer's artwork order fell through, or a charge went through twice. Crafted Call lets organization admins refund both submission/entry-fee payments and artwork (store) orders directly, and the money is returned to the original payment card through Stripe. This guide walks through how refunds work, where to find the action, and what to expect afterward.
Note: Refunds are a finance action. You need to be an organization Owner or Admin (or hold the Finance role) to issue one. Read-only viewers can't process refunds.
What You Can Refund
Crafted Call supports refunds for two kinds of payments:
Submission / entry-fee payments — the fee an artist paid to submit to a call.
Artwork orders — a purchase a buyer made through your store or an exhibition sale.
Both are refunded back to the original card through Stripe. You can refund the full amount or a partial amount (for example, refunding shipping but keeping the artwork charge, or refunding one item in a multi-item order).
Important: A refund returns money to the buyer's payment method. It does not, on its own, reverse a payout you've already sent to an artist. If you've already paid an artist for a sale you're now refunding, reconcile that separately through your payout records.
Refunding an Entry-Fee / Submission Payment
Go to your organization's payments area and open the Payments list (or open the specific submission and find its payment record).
Find the payment you want to reverse. Only payments with a Completed status can be refunded.
Choose Refund on that payment.
Enter the amount:
Leave it at the full amount for a complete refund, or
Enter a smaller amount for a partial refund.
Pick a reason — Duplicate, Fraudulent, Requested by customer, or Other — and add an optional internal note.
Confirm. Crafted Call sends the refund to Stripe and records it.
If the payment was for a submission, you can also choose to send that submission back to Draft so the artist can correct and resubmit. This is optional and off by default.
Refunding an Artwork Order
Was this article helpful?
Open Orders and select the order you need to refund.
Choose Refund on the order.
Enter the refund amount. Leave it blank or at the order total to refund the full remaining balance, or enter a smaller figure for a partial refund.
Add a reason for your records.
Confirm.
The buyer is emailed an order-status update letting them know a refund has been processed. On a full refund of a digital order, any download access tied to that order is revoked. Partial refunds leave download access in place, since the buyer still paid for the file.
Full vs. Partial Refunds
Full refund — returns the entire remaining balance. The payment's status changes to Refunded and, for orders, the order status changes to Refunded.
Partial refund — returns part of the charge. The payment stays Completed with a recorded refunded amount, so you can issue more than one partial refund over time up to the original total.
You can never refund more than was actually charged. If you've already partially refunded a payment, the system only lets you refund the remaining balance.
Timing — When the Buyer Gets Their Money
Once you confirm, Crafted Call issues the refund through Stripe immediately. From there:
The refund typically lands back on the buyer's card or bank statement within 5 to 10 business days, depending on their bank.
The refund shows in Crafted Call right away, even though the bank may take a few days to post it.
There's nothing extra you need to do after confirming a successful refund — the funds are already on their way back.
What Happens to Your Records
After a successful refund:
The payment or order status updates (Refunded for a full refund; Completed with a refunded amount for a partial one).
The refund is written to your financial records and ledger, so reports and reconciliation stay accurate.
An audit-log entry is created noting who issued the refund, the amount, and the reason.
For order refunds, the buyer receives an email confirmation.
What You Can't Refund
Payments that aren't Completed. A payment that's still pending, already fully refunded, or never settled can't be refunded.
Payments with no Stripe charge on file. If there's no underlying Stripe payment to reverse, there's nothing to refund through the platform — handle those manually through your accounting process.
More than the original amount. The remaining refundable balance is the ceiling.
Troubleshooting
The refund failed.
This usually means Stripe rejected the request — the charge may already be disputed, fully refunded, or otherwise unavailable. The payment is left in its original state so you can retry. Try again in a moment; if it keeps failing, check the charge in your Stripe dashboard before contacting support.
The charge has been disputed (chargeback).
If the buyer has already filed a dispute with their bank, you generally can't also issue a refund for the same charge — that would double-return the money. Resolve the dispute through Stripe instead.
"Refund state changed concurrently."
Two refunds were attempted on the same payment at nearly the same moment. Refresh the page to see the current refunded total, then retry if a balance still remains.
The refund succeeded in Stripe but the record looks off.
Crafted Call reconciles refunds from Stripe automatically, so the record should catch up shortly. If it doesn't, contact support with the payment or order ID and the Stripe refund ID.
Best Practices
Record a reason on every refund so your audit log tells a clear story later.
Refund before paying out when you can — reversing a buyer charge after you've already paid the artist means chasing the money back.
Confirm the amount carefully on partial refunds; you can always refund more later, but you can't un-refund.
Watch for disputes — a buyer who refunds and disputes is a sign to review the order.
