When refunding a payment through the 1CONNECT portal, you may encounter the following error message:
"Refund failed. Your building's account doesn’t have sufficient funds to process the refund. Please try again later, or contact your accounting team."
This occurs when your Stripe account (the payment processor used by 1VALET) does not have enough funds to cover the refund amount.
How This Happens
Consider an example where a resident makes a $100 amenity payment.
From this $100:
1VALET deducts a service fee (e.g., $2)
Stripe deducts a transaction fee (e.g., 2.99%)
Check your 1VALET contract for the specific service fees for your building. In this example, the net amount deposited into your building's Stripe account would be $95.01.
If you try to refund the resident immediately, but your Stripe balance only has this $95.01 (because previous funds have been paid out to your business bank account), there isn’t enough to cover the full $100 refund.
When issuing a refund through 1VALET:
The 1VALET service fee is refunded back to you (e.g., $2)
The Stripe transaction fee is not refunded (e.g., 2.99%)
This means your Stripe account must have enough funds to cover the refund amount minus the Stripe fees. In this example, you would need $97.01 in your Stripe account. Since the balance is only $95.01, the refund cannot be processed, resulting in the error message.
How to Refund the Resident
Option 1: Wait for another transaction
You will need to wait until another resident payment is processed and adds enough funds to your Stripe balance.
For example, if another resident makes a $100 payment, after fees, $95.01 is added to your account, bringing the total balance to $190.02. This is sufficient to process the $97.01 refund.
Option 2: Add funds to your Stripe account's "refunds and disputes balance". For more information on this process, view this help article
Option 3: Refund outside the 1VALET platform (Not recommended)
If waiting is not feasible, you can refund the resident directly outside the platform, but this is not recommended as our system will not be aware of that refund, and you could risk refunding the resident twice if not careful. In rare cases where no further transactions are expected from your building via 1VALET, please contact 1VALET Support for assistance.
How to Avoid this Issue
Option 1: If your building does not process multiple transactions daily or every few days, you can adjust your payout schedule. Less frequent payouts allow your Stripe account to maintain a balance, reducing the risk of insufficient funds for refunds.
Option 2: Contact 1VALET Support to set a minimum balance of your choosing that will stay in your Stripe account to be held for refunds and disputed charges (rare). Choose a minimum balance that best reflects the size of an average transaction in your building, the transaction volume you typically do on a daily basis, and how many refunds you typically process.
If you have any questions or need further clarification, please do not hesitate to contact our Customer Support Team at support@1valet.com.