First payment, negative balance, no dispute

Hi @jnascarb,

Thank you for reaching out to WooCommerce support. I understand that you’re seeing a negative balance in your Pending Funds after your first sale, even though there’s no dispute showing. I’m here to help you figure out what’s going on.

Firstly, it’s important to note that the Pending Funds balance can sometimes show as negative due to various reasons such as refunds, chargebacks, or payment gateway issues. However, since you mentioned that there’s no dispute showing and the customer hasn’t raised any issue, it’s possible that this could be due to a temporary issue with the payment gateway. To better assist you, could you please provide some additional information:

1. Have you received any email notifications from your payment gateway about this transaction?
2. Can you check the order status in your WooCommerce dashboard? Is it marked as ‘Completed’, ‘Processing’, or ‘On Hold’?

Once we have more information, we’ll be able to provide more specific guidance.

Sorry for the delay in writing back, I didn’t see (but I’ve found) an email (and didn’t expect such a prompt response, thank you).
I have the confirmation of sale email but nothing else from woocommerce. I’ve only enabled WooPayments->credit/debit, apple/google pay. I clicked basic risk level and enabled multi-currency which will be involved here.
The order status is ‘processing’ and it was from Mastercard debit on 29 Feb.

Hi @jnascarb,

No problem, welcome back! Thank you for the additional details. One of my following questions was going to be about which payment gateway plugin you’re using. It’s great you’ve already mentioned WooPayments, and I understand it was paid via debit card.

Can you send us a screenshot of the entire order notes, please? As well as a screenshot where you see the pending funds in negative? (feel free to censor the amount and any sensitive information).

Thanks!
-OP

As requested

Hi @jnascarb,

Thank you so much for the additional details. I’ve reviewed this, and I can confirm the happy news! The payment hasn’t been canceled and is on its way to you! The balance itself is not negative; it’s listed as Available funds. The pending is negative because Stripe has created the deposit of ￡122.48 already. It’s due to be deposited tomorrow, the 13th.

Basically, the deposit is scheduled in advance so that’s removed from the pending balance. The pending balance may be negative for some period even though the merchant’s overall balance is not.

You see, when a transaction first takes place on your site via WooPayments, the funds take some time to process before they are available to be deposited. During this time, they are considered?Pending funds, and they will not be available to be deposited until they move to your account’s?Available funds?balance, which is covered?here.

You can learn more here: https://woo.com/document/woopayments/deposits/deposit-schedule/#pending-funds.

In summary, all is good! And the funds should be released tomorrow. As you can see on your own screenshot, the dispatch date is March 13th. You may proceed with the order processing!

Cheers!
-OP

Super, thank-you. Perhaps the link we click to find out more might need a bit of a tweak if you’re in touch with that team.

I mean, I see that the funds are coming, but the bit about “WooPayments may claw it back” made me think I couldn’t spend it until some unspecified future.

Hi there @jnascarb ??

I mean, I see that the funds are coming, but the bit about “WooPayments may claw it back” made me think I couldn’t spend it until some unspecified future.

Feedback is important to us. Could you please elaborate further on what bit made you think like that?

Feel free to share a screenshot, or a link to it.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

I mean, I didn’t even think about whether I’d connected by bank or whatever, it’s entirely reasonable that woo would claw that back if there was a dispute, it was not knowing why it was showing negative that meant this is all unknown. It might resolve, it might not, there’s no timeline, I don’t know if I need to do something or not. It’s unfinished business that just sits around in your head. So .. improvement suggestion: clarity about the special circumstance of first sale in the help, and perhaps something on the page giving the reason why and not to worry.

Hi there?@jnascarb???

Thanks for providing this feedback!

Just a quick-update, as it has been shared internally with our development team.

Thanks again for taking the time to leave feedback!