1. The short version
From a camp’s roster in your dashboard, one panel handles all three things a family can ask for: a refund to the card they paid with, a credit toward a future camp, or a cancellation with no money moved. The family gets one email saying exactly what happened. Your dashboard’s Refunds and credits card totals what has gone back, what refunds have cost in card fees, and the credits you still owe.
Moving money is the account owner’s job: an editor on your account can cancel a registration but cannot refund or credit one. Nothing here needs us in the loop, and nothing here can be undone from the dashboard, so the panel names what it is about to do on the button before you press it.
2. Where it is
- Sign in at your camp site’s /manage address and open the camp from your dashboard.
- On the roster, the Action column reads Refund or cancel for a family that paid by card through the site and Cancel for a family holding a reserved spot.
- A player who has already come off the roster is listed beneath it under Players who came off the roster, with Refund or credit beside their name, so a refund can follow a cancellation rather than having to happen in the same sitting.
3. The three outcomes
Refund to the family’s card. Offered when the family paid by card through the site. The amount starts at what the standard policy sends back, which is what they paid less the card processing fee (section 5), and you can type a different one. Stripe normally confirms the refund at once; the money reaches the family’s card in 5 to 10 business days. Occasionally Stripe answers “pending” instead, and the panel and the family’s email both say so until it settles, which the dashboard checks every night.
Credit toward a future camp. Any amount up to what the family paid. The credit is recorded on your dashboard under Credits owed, and you honor it at check-in by taking it off what the family owes. Nothing goes back to the card and nothing is lost in fees. A registration can carry a refund or a credit, not both.
No refund. Records the cancellation. If the family paid, their email says the payment is staying under the policy they accepted; if they had a reserved spot, it says no payment was taken.
In every case a reason is required. It is kept in the camp’s change log for you and is not sent to the family. Keep the player on the roster leaves the spot in place, which is the right setting for a partial refund to a player who is still coming. Email the family is on by default. When a spot is released on a camp that is still ahead, the waitlist is offered it the same way it would be after any other withdrawal.
4. What the family receives
One email, from your camp’s sending address: the amount and whether it has been refunded or only submitted, whether the spot was released, the confirmation number, and where to reply. A credit email tells them to mention the credit before they pay for the next camp. If your site does not have email sending set up, no email goes out and the panel says so, so you can tell the family yourself.
5. What a refund costs
Stripe keeps its processing fee when a payment is refunded. On a card payment that is about 2.9% plus 30 cents; the exact figure is recorded on each payment. A $175 registration refunded in full returns $175 to the family and leaves $5.38 with Stripe. A partial refund keeps a proportional share of the fee.
The panel shows the fee that will be kept before you confirm, and the dashboard totals it as Lost to Stripe fees so the number is never a surprise at the end of the season. A credit costs nothing in fees, which is the practical reason to offer one when your policy allows it.
Our standard policy now passes that fee to the family on a cancellation the family chose: they get back what they paid less the processing fee, so the camp is not out of pocket for a refund it did not ask for. The panel does the arithmetic. On a $175 registration the amount opens at $169.62 and the line beneath it names the $5.38 being kept, so the policy is what happens if you press the button without changing anything. The family’s email says the same thing in the sentence that gives them the amount, so the short refund is explained before they ask.
You can still type more. If the camp itself is canceled, or a family cannot attend for medical reasons, the policy returns the whole $175 and the fee is the camp’s to absorb, so the field accepts it and marks it as above the policy rather than refusing it. Put the why in the reason; it goes to the change log. A credit is unaffected: it costs nothing in fees, so the amount opens at everything the family paid.
6. Your refund policy
Every family accepts your refund policy when they register, and the panel shows you the exact text they accepted and the day they accepted it, so the decision in front of you is made against the terms that family agreed to rather than the ones on the site today.
Your site carries our standard policy until you change it. To change it, open Your Website in your dashboard, find Cancellation & refunds, edit Policy text, and press Save. The new text shows on every camp page and applies to registrations from then on. Reset to standard puts our text back.
7. Things worth asking us
Can I refund a family who reserved a spot and paid at camp? Not from the dashboard. The site never took that money, so it has nothing to send back and offers only Cancel. Money a family handed you in person is yours to return.
Can I put a canceled player back? Not from the dashboard. The family can register again while the camp is open, and if the original spot or price needs restoring, ask us.
What if a family disputes the charge with their bank? Tell us. Disputes come to us as the merchant of record, and Stripe will not refund a charge that is under dispute, so the panel will decline it and say why.
What if we refund a family for you? A refund we make from Stripe on your behalf is recorded on your dashboard as well, so the roster and the totals stay right.