Manage Payment Disputes (Chargebacks)

A dispute (or chargeback) happens when a customer asks their bank to reverse a card payment. With Dispute Management on, SubscriptionFlow receives the dispute from your payment gateway, links it to the original transaction and invoice, and lets you respond without leaving SubscriptionFlow: you can challenge the dispute with evidence or accept it.

Supported gateways: Stripe (including SubscriptionFlow Payments). SubscriptionFlow listens for Stripe's dispute events (charge.dispute.created, updated, closed, funds_withdrawn and funds_reinstated) on the webhook it registers when you connect Stripe, so there is nothing to set up in Stripe.

Step 1: Turn On Dispute Management

1. Click the gear icon to open Settings. Under Customization, click Preferences.

2. Open the Transactions tab, expand Advance Settings and scroll down to Dispute Management.

   1. Set Dispute Management to Enabled. While it is disabled, dispute events from your gateway are ignored and the dispute actions are hidden.
   2. Choose the Action on invoice after dispute is accepted (initially) or lost (after challenge):
      • Void: the invoice is voided and all its charges are reversed with a credit note.
      • Write-Off: the outstanding amount is written off.
      • Keep Open (Due / Overdue): the disputed amount is removed from the invoice's payments and the invoice goes back to Due or Overdue, so you can collect it again.

   Click Save Changes.

Step 2: Find a Disputed Transaction

3. When a customer disputes a payment, the transaction's Status changes to Dispute. Open Transactions to see it in the list, then click the transaction.

4. The transaction page shows:
   1. A banner with the dispute reason and the date to Respond by. After this date the dispute can no longer be challenged.
   2. The Dispute Status: Under Review while the dispute is open, then Won, Lost or Accepted when it closes.

The invoice that the payment was applied to is marked Disputed at the same time (see Step 4).

Step 3: Challenge or Accept the Dispute

5. Click Actions. You have two choices:
   1. Challenge Dispute: send evidence to the bank to fight the dispute.
   2. Accept Dispute: concede the charge.

These options appear only while the dispute is open, the deadline hasn't passed and you have edit permission on transactions.

Challenge a dispute

6. Challenge Dispute opens a form with the dispute Reason, the Disputed Amount and the Respond by date, plus a tip for that reason. Under Recommended documents & fields for this reason, SubscriptionFlow lists the evidence the bank expects for that reason (for example, shipping and tracking details when the customer says the product wasn't received).
   • Fields marked Auto-filled from the original transaction and customer history are already completed, such as the product description, customer name, email and billing address. Check them.
   • Fields marked Missing — please provide are empty. Fill in what you can, and use Choose File to attach documents.

7. At the bottom of the form:
   1. Receipt / invoice: leave Auto-generate and attach the PDF of the linked invoice as the receipt ticked to attach the invoice PDF, or upload your own file instead.
   2. Click Submit Evidence.

Evidence can be submitted only once, so add everything before you submit. The banner then reads "Evidence has been submitted for this dispute and is under review." The bank decides the outcome, and SubscriptionFlow updates the status when the gateway reports it:

• Won: the transaction goes back to Paid and any reversed payment is restored on the invoice.
• Lost: the invoice action you chose in Step 1 is applied.

Accept a dispute

8. Accept Dispute asks you to confirm. Accepting concedes the charge: the disputed amount is removed from the linked invoice(s), the customer keeps the refund, and the invoice action you chose in Step 1 is applied. This can't be undone. Click Accept Dispute to confirm, or Cancel.

Step 4: Track Disputes on the Invoice

9. The linked invoice shows its status as Disputed and a banner listing each disputed payment with its Dispute Status, amount and response date. Click Respond to dispute to go to the transaction (or View dispute once it's closed or if you can't manage disputes).

10. When a dispute closes, the transaction keeps its history. In this example the dispute was accepted: the Dispute Status is Accepted and the invoice was voided, as set in the preference.

You can also open Invoices and choose the Disputed list view to see every invoice with an open dispute. Every dispute event is written to the transaction's and invoice's Timeline.

Step 5: Review the Disputes Report

11. Go to Reports, and under Revenue open Disputes. The report shows the Total Disputes, how many Need Response or are Under Review, the Amount at Risk, Won and Lost totals, your Win Rate and Dispute Rate, a breakdown by reason, and a list of every dispute with its customer, transaction and invoice. Use Filters to change the date range, currency or dispute status, and Export to download the list.

The Disputes report appears only while Dispute Management is enabled. You can also add the Open Disputes widget to your dashboard (on the Dashboard, click Actions › Customize Widgets): it shows the number of open disputes, the amount at risk, how many need a response, and your 12-month win rate.