We refer to these situations as negative deposits, which can occur when a guardian payment fails or an online refund is issued by an administrator.
Although rare, sometimes payments fail after brightwheel has already fronted the funds and deposited them into the program’s account. When this happens, brightwheel will need to deduct those fronted funds from the deposit account to reconcile the failed or refunded payment.
This results in a withdrawal from your deposit account. It’s important to note that this doesn’t mean money was lost—rather, the amount we fronted is no longer being deposited because the original payment failed or was refunded.
You can see any negative deposits from the Deposit Details Report.
Note: In most cases, this will appear as a negative amount withdrawn from your account. However, sometimes the negative amount is grouped with an incoming deposit, reducing the total amount delivered. This typically happens when the payment failure coincides with the timing of the deposit.
If you notice a deposit is less than expected, it's likely due to fronted funds being returned.