When a cardholder disputes a settled sale, your processor pulls the money back out of your bank account. The chargeback feature in Automatic Batch Reconciliation (ABR) records that reality in your books, tracks whether you are fighting the dispute, and rebuilds the receivable if you lose but still intend to collect from your customer.
Bookkeeping only. Recording a chargeback in Biller Genie keeps your ledger in agreement with your bank. It does not dispute, represent, or arbitrate anything, and nothing is sent to your gateway or processor. You still manage the actual dispute process (evidence, representment, arbitration) directly with your payment processor.
When to record a chargeback
Record a chargeback when your processor notifies you that a cardholder has disputed a settled credit card sale and the funds have been (or will be) withdrawn from your bank account. ABR assumes the standard model: the chargeback leaves your bank as its own separate withdrawal, not as a reduction of your daily deposit. If your processor nets chargebacks out of the daily deposit instead, see Reconciling When Chargebacks Are Netted From Your Deposit.
The Record Chargeback button
Open the transaction's detail page. The Record Chargeback button is available on any settled credit card sale when ABR is enabled and the required accounts are mapped and synced. The button works regardless of which gateway processed the sale. If the transaction has not settled, or the required accounts are not synced yet, the button shows but stays disabled.
If the payment covered multiple invoices in one bulk transaction, the chargeback attaches to all of the underlying transactions.
Choosing: Do not arbitrate vs Arbitrate
Clicking Record Chargeback gives you two choices, each with a hover tooltip explaining what it does. Both ask "Are you sure?" before continuing, and the decision is final.
- Do not arbitrate. Accept the loss. The chargeback closes immediately and the amount is written off. In QuickBooks: a journal entry debits your Returned Payments account and credits your settlement (bank) account, matching the withdrawal your processor made.
- Arbitrate. Dispute it. The case stays open on the Chargebacks page, where you resolve it later. If you win, the funds return to you; if you lose, the loss is recorded then. In QuickBooks: a journal entry parks the disputed amount in your Chargeback Sweep account and credits your settlement (bank) account.
Record chargeback modal with the arbitrate and do-not-arbitrate choices
When you choose Arbitrate, the confirmation screen reminds you: "Don't forget to complete this chargeback dispute with your payment processor — recording it here does not submit it to them."
To support that dispute, you can download a Proof of Authorization (POA) form from the transaction details page and send it to your processor as evidence.
Resolving a pending chargeback
Arbitrated chargebacks appear on the Chargebacks page with a Pending status (the page filters to Pending by default). When your processor tells you how the dispute ended, click Resolve Pending Chargeback, from either the Chargebacks page or the transaction's detail page, and pick the outcome. Each outcome asks for a final confirmation.
A pending chargeback on the Chargebacks page with the Resolve action
The three resolution options: Won, Leave Lost, and Rebill Invoice
| Outcome | What it means | What happens in QuickBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Won | You won the dispute; the funds are returned to you. | The parking entry reverses: your settlement (bank) account is debited and the Chargeback Sweep is credited. No loss is recorded. |
| Lost, Leave Lost | You lost and will not pursue the amount. | The loss is recognized: Returned Payments is debited and the Chargeback Sweep is credited. |
| Lost, Rebill Invoice | You lost the dispute but still intend to collect from your customer. | The same loss entry posts, and then a new rebill invoice is pushed to QuickBooks so the receivable exists again. |
Journal entry memos in QuickBooks read "Invoice #… was returned due to a chargeback," so the entries are easy to trace later. For a bulk payment, the resolution entry carries one debit and credit pair per underlying transaction. Entry dates use the moment you recorded and resolved the chargeback.
The journal entry in the Chargeback Sweep account while a chargeback is pending
The rebill invoice
When you choose Rebill Invoice, Biller Genie creates a new invoice in QuickBooks with one line per transaction, using your Returned Payment item, for the amount net of any processing fee. The line memo reads "Rebill for Transaction #…". The invoice posts after the loss entry has synced, then syncs back into Biller Genie as a normal open invoice, connected to the same customer, ready for them to pay.
The rebill invoice, connected to the same customer with a memo referencing the original invoice
The rebill invoice synced back to Biller Genie, ready for payment
After the flow completes
Once a transaction has been through the full chargeback flow, it cannot be initiated again. The transaction detail page shows a View Chargeback action instead, which takes you to the record on the Chargebacks page.
