A chargeback is not just a refund wearing a scarier outfit.
When a customer raises a chargeback, money can disappear from your account before you have even finished saying, “Hang on, what happened there?”
If you sell through Shopify, Amazon, Etsy or another ecommerce platform, chargebacks need to be tracked properly because there can be more than one transaction involved.
You may have:
💷 The original sale
🏦 The amount taken back
💸 A chargeback fee
📦 Stock that may or may not have been returned
↩️ Money returned to you if you win the dispute
That means simply deleting the original sale from your bookkeeping can make the numbers harder to follow.
Instead, keep a clear record of what happened so you can see the original income, the disputed amount, any fees and the final outcome.
It is also worth reviewing chargebacks regularly.
One occasional dispute is part of doing business.
A growing pile of them could be telling you something useful about delivery issues, product descriptions, customer expectations or even fraud.
And if your bookkeeping system contains a mysterious payment called “ADJUSTMENT 74629”, do not just stare at it until it goes away.
Sadly, that is not a recognised reconciliation technique.
At The Bookkeeper Superhero, I help ecommerce business owners make sense of the awkward transactions that sit behind Etsy, Shopify and Amazon sales.
If chargebacks, disputes and unexplained deductions are making your accounts messy, send me a message. I can help you get everything recorded clearly and correctly.
