Disputes and chargebacks
What happens when a client's bank disputes a card payment: who is told, what the invoice shows, where the money goes while it is open, and what winning or losing costs.
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A dispute — a chargeback — is a cardholder asking their bank to take a payment back. Stripe takes the disputed amount and a $15 dispute fee out of the balance while it is open, starts an evidence clock, and waits for you to respond. FieldQuo tells you the moment it happens, marks the invoice Disputed, and moves the amounts so that it is your balance, not FieldQuo's, that carries them.
Before FieldQuo's notification feed existed, a chargeback told nobody: the contractor found out whenever they next opened the Stripe dashboard, often after the deadline. That is the reason the feed was built.
Overview
Every homeowner payment is a Stripe charge created on FieldQuo's platform and transferred to your account. When the cardholder disputes it, Stripe debits the platform for the disputed amount and the $15 fee. FieldQuo reverses both out of the transfer it made to you — in two separate movements, so they stay separately readable on the payment row — and the invoice shows “Dispute — $2,260.00 held, $15.00 fee”.
You respond in your Stripe dashboard with evidence. The signed quote, photos of the finished work, the completion checklist and the email trail are the things that win disputes; FieldQuo has all of them on the job and the quote.
What you see in FieldQuo
- A notification, marked critical, to owners and administrators (see who is told, below): “Money taken back on invoice INV-1042 — Jane Tremblay”, tagged Chargeback — Stripe has a deadline.
- The invoice's status becomes Disputed — it outranks Paid, because a bank mid-decision is a different fact from either.
- A banner on the invoice: “A client's bank has disputed a payment on this invoice — the money is on hold until it's resolved.”
- The payment row: Dispute — $2,260.00 held, $15.00 fee while it is open; then either Dispute won — $2,260.00 returned. Stripe does not refund the $15.00 dispute fee. or Dispute lost — $2,260.00 taken back, $15.00 fee.
What happens to the money
| Stage | The disputed amount | The $15 fee |
|---|---|---|
| Open | Reversed out of your transfer and held | Reversed out of your transfer |
| Won | Transferred back to you | Not returned — Stripe keeps it |
| Lost | Gone; folded into the invoice's refunded total | Not returned |
A reversal can only take back what the transfer gave you. The transfer on a $2,260 card payment was $2,191.90 — the net after the processing fee — so a full-amount dispute plus the fee exceeds it by $83.10. The hold is taken first, the fee from what remains, and any shortfall is recorded as such rather than silently absorbed. In practice a dispute is usually smaller than the transfer and the shortfall is at most the fee.
Stripe does not issue a refund when a dispute is lost — the charge simply stays reversed. FieldQuo folds a lost dispute into the invoice's refunded total once, so the invoice reads Refunded or Partially refunded afterwards instead of Disputed forever.
How to respond
- Open the notification, or the invoice — the payment row shows the held amount and the fee.
- Gather the evidence from FieldQuo: the accepted quote with the client's approval, the job's photos and completion checklist, the invoice email trail.
- Open Settings → Payments → Manage in Stripe, find the dispute, and submit the evidence before Stripe's deadline.
- Wait for the card network's decision. The invoice updates on its own when Stripe reports it closed.
The deadline is Stripe's, not FieldQuo's, and it is short — typically days, not weeks. A dispute with no response is lost by default. Treat the notification as urgent.
The dispute fee
Stripe charges $15 per dispute, in CAD or USD, and does not return it when you win. FieldQuo passes it through at cost, and the invoice says so in as many words when a dispute is won. There is no FieldQuo fee on top.
Who is told
The notification goes to owners and administrators, and to any member on a Custom access whose grid carries the payments toggle — someone an owner has deliberately handed payment collection to. The Manager level holds the toggle but is deliberately left out, along with Dispatcher, so that the company's revenue is not pushed at people the owner thinks of as running crews; Crew and Estimator hold the toggle off and never see it. No email is sent: the feed row is the record, plus a push notification on any phone or browser where the person turned those on.
Часті запитання
Can I refund the client instead of fighting the dispute?
Not once it is open — Stripe has already taken the amount. Accept the dispute in your Stripe dashboard if you do not want to contest it; the outcome is the same as losing, including the $15 fee.
Does a dispute stop the client's other invoices?
No. Only the disputed invoice changes status. The client's other invoices and their portal are unaffected.
Where does the $15 come from if my balance is empty?
Stripe recovers a negative balance from your next payments before paying anything out. Nothing is written off silently.
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