Fees, Refunds and Reconciliation

Why fee detail matters

Oakline separates platform fees from Stripe processing costs so providers can see why gross revenue and net value differ.

Oakline platform fees

For an online payment, the Oakline fee is the application-fee portion attributed to the booking payment.

For an eligible cash booking, the fee is recorded in Fee Bank. When that debt is later recovered through an online transaction, Financial Reports keeps the fee against the original cash booking and removes the recovered amount from the later online Oakline-fee figure. This avoids counting the same platform fee twice.

Stripe processing fees

Stripe can provide a breakdown including processing and other Stripe fees.

Reconciled fee

When Oakline has synchronised the exact fee breakdown, Financial Reports uses the recorded Stripe values.

Estimated fee

When exact fee data is not yet available, Oakline can estimate processing cost from the payment amount. The Monthly Session Report displays a notice if any included row uses an estimate.

An estimate is useful for an early operational view but should not replace the exact Stripe transaction when reconciling accounts.

Cash payments

Cash rows show:

• The cash amount recorded as received.
• The Oakline platform fee associated with the cash booking.
• No Stripe processing fee.
• Net value after the Oakline fee.

Fee Bank controls when eligible cash fees become available to recover and records later recovery activity separately.

Refunds

When a booking has a stored refunded amount, Financial Reports reduces the revenue attributed to that booking by the recorded refund, up to the original booking value.

For historical refunded rows without a stored amount, the report treats the booking as fully refunded.

Payment processing and application fees already charged can remain costs after a refund. As a result:

• Gross revenue can reduce to zero.
• Fee values can remain above zero.
• Net value can become negative for the affected payment or period.

That result does not necessarily indicate a calculation error; it can represent real non-refundable or already-incurred fees.

Cancellations without refunds

Cancelling a booking does not automatically mean the money was returned. If payment was received and no refund was recorded, the financial payment remains part of the cash-basis report.

Families Activity separately identifies paid allocations attached to cancelled, refunded or hidden bookings as Excluded Cancelled.

Account credits

If a booking is paid completely with previously issued account credit, no new money is collected and there may be no new payment row in Financial Reports.

If credit covers only part of a booking and the remainder is paid online or by another recorded method, the report follows the new payment amount rather than treating the reused credit as new revenue.

Reconciliation checklist

1. Confirm the payment status and payment date.
2. Identify every booking linked to the payment.
3. Check explicit booking-payment allocations.
4. Check recorded refund amounts and refund timing.
5. Check whether Stripe fee synchronisation has completed.
6. For cash, inspect the Fee Bank debit and any recovery credit.
7. Compare the individual Stripe transaction before comparing a batched payout.

For definitions of the headline totals, read Financial Reports: Complete Guide.