Transactions

To manually add a new charge or discount on a family's account, open the "Financial" tab of the family's profile page.

From the Transactions tab, click the "New charge" or "New discount" button.

The following steps are the same, whether you're creating a charge or discount:

Provide the transaction details for the charge or discount.

1. Select the date when the charge or discount occurred.
2. Select one of the family's payment schedules if you want this charge to be paid through a future invoice. The charge or discount will then be added to their invoice(s) on that schedule. Be sure to add this charge to an invoice if it is to be paid later! If you do not want this charge to be paid at a later time, you can select "none" to not add this to a future payment date. Choosing "none" is typically done when a charge is paid in full at the time of enrollment. This payment would then need to be added to the "payments" side of the family profile financial page just as this charge is being added.
3. Choose which camper the charge or discount is for.
4. Select which session the charge or discount relates to, for accrual accounting purposes. Additional sessions can be selected afterwards.
5. Select which transaction category to assign the charge to (for reporting purposes).
6. Enter a description for the charge or discount (this is optional). Note that both admins and parents can see the description.
7. Enter a fixed amount for the charge or discount.
8. Or, click "use a percentage..." to create a percentage-based charge instead of a fixed amount.

Learn how to edit an existing charge or discount transaction via our Editing a Transaction article.

Reversing or deleting a charge or discount will remove that particular transaction from calculating towards the family's balance in CampSite, for example when a camper cancels a purchase (or in the case that an admin user applied a transaction incorrectly).

To learn how to reverse or delete a transaction, please click here.

1. Choose the correct enrollment year that should be credited.
2. Click the New credit button.

1. Apply a date for the credit.
2. Select one of the family's payment schedules to assign the credit towards. * The invoices for the selected payment schedule will then reflect the credit (to reduce the amount that must be paid).
3. Select a transaction category to assign the credit towards.
4. Optional: Apply a description to the credit transaction. Descriptions will show to parents on their statement, and can also be useful to admins when running financial reports.
5. Specify the amount of the credit.
6. Click Submit to create the credit.

* If you apply a credit to the family's account before they've enrolled for camp, the family will not be on a payment schedule for you to apply the credit towards. If they later sign up for a payment schedule, an admin will then have to edit the credit transaction to associate the credit to the family's payment schedule, in order for the family's invoices to reflect the credit. If the credit is not updated as such, the family will end up being invoiced to pay more than they should. Click here to learn how to edit a credit transaction.

Reversing or deleting a payment allows you to remove the credit from calculating towards the family's account balance.

To learn how to reverse or delete a transaction, please click here.

No, credits do not automatically roll over to the next year during the rollover process. Credits do not roll over at any point at all. A family's balance, whether positive (due to unpaid amounts) or negative (due to a credit), is considered a value specific to that year, so balances are not rolled over to next year during the rollover process. For example: In order to apply a family's payment in 2026 as a credit for 2027, an admin user needs to manually credit the family's 2027 balance and then reverse the original payment under 2026.

To credit a family's balance:

• Access the Financial Transactions tab of the family's profile page.
• Select the 2027 year, and then click to create a new credit. For the amount, enter the amount of payment the family wishes to rollover from 2026.
  • Note that families will not have a 2027 financial record until you have completed at least Step 1 of the Rollover Wizard.
• Next, access the family's 2026 transactions and reverse (not refund!) the payment(s) that were credited to 2027.

Note that if you apply a credit before the family enrolls, and the family goes onto a payment schedule upon enrolling, the credit will not be applied to their payment schedule automatically. With that, an admin will then need to edit the credit after the family enrolls and place it onto the family's payment schedule so that the family's future invoices reflect the credit. If the credit is not added to the family's payment schedule by an admin, the family's invoices will be too high. Click here to learn how to edit a transaction.

After you've reversed the camper's previous years charges but kept the family's payments on their account, the family will be left with a negative balance. That said, you can generate a report of families with a negative balance for a previous year to identify those who should receive a credit for the new year.

You can generate a list of all families with a negative balance by running the Family Summary report from the Financial Dashboard. Make sure to select the previous year, and filter only "Zero/negative" Balances. Once the report populates, look for families with a negative amount under the "Balance" column.

No, parents can not use credits/credited balances to “pay” for a new enrollment. A family's current account balance does not impact the camper's enrollment form balance, meaning that having a credit/negative account balance will not reduce the regular costs of enrollment. A credit/negative balance will only reduce the camper's remaining balance that they still need to pay after they've been enrolled. The camper will still be subject to the regular fees and required to pay the standard minimum (whether that's a minimum deposit or payment in full). 

Keep in mind that payment is not debited until the camper's enrollment is approved, and campers are either approved manually or automatically depending on your camp's enrollment form processing mode. 

Camps using Manual Enrollment Processing**

• Though parents are asked for payment information before submitting the enrollment form, payment is not debited until you approve the camper's request. At that time, you also control how much payment is debited.
• So, although they'll still see the full enrollment balance/minimum deposit when they checkout, you can reassure them that you'll adjust how much they're actually debited when you process their request.
• Debit them less than the usual amount (or, nothing at all) via the "Payment amount" section of the enrollment wizard when approving that camper's enrollment.
• You could also create a custom payment method for parents to select when checking out on the enrollment form (e.g. "Pay with account credit") so they can indicate that they want to pay using their credit as opposed to their credit card etc. The admin approving the camper's request would then adjust the payment amount accordingly before finalizing the camper's enrollment.

Camps Using Automatic Enrollment Processing

• Payment is debited at the time the enrollment form is submitted. The amount that must be paid is based on your standard settings that apply to all campers (i.e. whether you require payment in full or a minimum deposit).
• You can't make an exception to those standard settings for certain families. However, a few workarounds include:
  • Create a coupon code worth the family's credit amount and provide the code to the family to enter at checkout.
  • Manually process the camper’s enrollment instead. This way, you can specify the payment amount that's debited at the time of enrollment.
  • Configure a $0 deposit to allow all families to enroll without paying anything up front. Families with a credit would then get to "use" that credit towards their remaining balance.

**Enable Manual enrollment processing by navigating to Admin>Campers>Setup wizard>Step 8: Enrollment form setup. Read our Enrollment Requests article to learn more about processing enrollment manually.

To watch a short tutorial video on how to issue a refund, click here.

Refunds are created within the Financial tab of the family's profile page (under the Transactions sub-tab, below the "Payments, Credits, and Refunds" section).

Please note: If a family is receiving a refund because they're no longer responsible for paying certain charges, note that those charges (and discounts) must also be reversed from the family's account. Click here to learn how to reverse charges and discounts in addition to refunding payment.

To refund a credit card or checking account payment that the family previously made, locate the payment and open the transaction details by double clicking the info icon.

A pop-up window will open with the full transaction details. At the bottom of the pop-up window, click the "Refund the full ... payment" button.

Next, click "OK" to confirm the refund. This will initiate a refund transaction for the full payment amount back to the original payment method.

To transact a custom/"partial" credit card refund, or to record that a refund already occurred without transacting a new one, click to create a "New refund."

Please note:

• You cannot issue a partial ACH refund. To refund via ACH, you must return the original payment in full following the steps above.
• Camps using Authorize.net as their payment gateway cannot issue credit card refunds using the "New refund" button; they must issue a partial refund within the original credit card payment. Scroll down for details.

In the pop-up window, provide the transaction details for the refund.

1. Assign a date to the transaction.
2. Choose a payment schedule to refund (select the same schedule that their original payment was towards).
3. Choose a method for the refund. 
   • Choosing 'credit card' will transact this refund via your payment gateway to the credit card selected, once you submit this window. If you do not see 'credit card' as an option, you need to enable partial credit card refunds in your database financial settings.
   • Choosing a non-electronic method will record this refund in CampSite without transacting it via your gateway.
4. Type the amount of the refund.
5. Determine the (transaction) category breakdown for the refund:
6. Select a transaction category (this should be the same category assigned to the payment(s) being refunded).
7. Enter how much should be allocated towards the category selected. If you're only selecting one category, enter the full refund amount here.
8. Optional: Enter a description.
9. Optional: Add another breakdown (to allocate the refund towards multiple transaction categories).
10. Specify how to allocate the refund towards the payment schedule selected above:
11. To apply the refund towards an open invoice, enter the refund amount in the 'Amount' box next to that invoice date.
12. If the family does not have an open invoice, enter the refund amount in the 'Amount' box next to 'No invoice.' The refund will be evenly applied across all invoices when they're generated in the future.
13. Click Submit to create the refund transaction.

For electronic refunds, the refund transaction will be initiated as soon as the "submit" button is clicked.

Reversing or deleting a refund allows you to remove the refund from calculating towards the family's account balance in CampSite, in the case that the transaction did not actually occur.

Voiding a credit card/ACH refund will cancel the refund before it's settled by your payment gateway.

To learn how to reverse or delete a transaction, please click here. To learn how to void, click here.

CampSite does not charge for processing transactions, but your payment gateway typically does. To confirm the amount of those processing fees, please contact your payment gateway provider directly.

To begin, double click the "i" info icon for a specific transaction to open the transaction details. A pop-up window will open.

Note that the process for editing certain details depends on the type of transaction that you're editing.

Learn how to edit:

• Charge and discount transactions
• Payment and credit transactions
• Refund transactions

The process for editing the details on a payment transaction differs for electronic payments that were transacted via CampSite vs. non-electronic payments that an admin recorded in CampSite.

For refund transactions, admins may edit the payment schedule, transaction category, and description assigned to the transaction.

Note that refund transactions cannot be assigned to additional payment schedules or transaction categories after the transaction has been created. The additional payment schedules/transaction categories must be assigned to the refund transaction when it's initially created in CampSite.

To edit one of these 3 pieces of information, double click the current value and the value will become editable.

Enter a new value, and click OK to save your changes.

It's possible that occasionally family plans need to change for certain situations. Sometimes a family could have made payments for camp but then they end up needing to cancel their enrollment for some reason and they could request to donate their payments to the camp instead of getting a refund or a credit for the following year. If you come accross a situation where a family has made payments, and wishes to donate those payments to your camp instead of attending camp, follow these instructions:

When a family wants to donate all of their previous year payments:

• Reverse all of their original previous year charges.
• Add a new charge worth the amount the family wants to donate to your camp this year.

When a family wants to donate some of their previous year payments, then get a refund for the rest:

• Reverse all of their original previous year charges.
• Add a new charge worth the amount the family wants to donate to your camp this year.
• Issue a refund for the exact amount they want returned.

When a family wants to donate some of their previous year payments, then credit the rest to the following year:

• Reverse all of their original previous year charges.
• Add a new charge worth the amount the family wants to donate to your camp this year.
• Create a new credit towards next year, worth the exact amount they want to roll over. For instructions, read the article on "How do I credit a family’s balance to the following year?"