A wedding party rents your garden pavilion, pays a damage deposit, and leaves the place spotless. Now you owe them their money back. If they paid by card a few weeks ago, refunding in Altru is usually simple. The trouble starts when the card has been canceled, the deposit came in by check or wire, or your finance office insists that every deposit goes back as a check cut from accounts payable. In those cases you need the refund recorded in Altru, but the money actually leaves through a different door.
This guide covers how to think about that gap, the options you have, and how to keep Altru and your books agreeing with each other.
Why deposits are awkward in Altru
Altru is built around sales and revenue. A ticket, a membership, or a donation is money you earned or received for good. A security deposit is different: it’s money you’re holding and expect to give back. Unless your organization set it up deliberately, a deposit usually gets entered the same way as everything else, as an item or fee on a group sales reservation, event registration, or sales order. That means it posts to revenue like any other sale, and getting it back out means processing a refund against that transaction.
Refunds in Altru are designed to reverse the original payment. When the original payment was a card that still works, that’s exactly what you want. When it isn’t, you’re working around the design.
Option 1: Refund to the original payment when you can
This is the cleanest path. Find the original order or reservation, process a refund for the deposit line only, and send it back to the same card. The revenue reverses in Altru, the processor handles the money, and your deposit report reconciles on its own.
Do it promptly. Card processors limit how long after a charge a refund can go back to the card, and the longer you wait, the more likely the card has been replaced. If deposits are routinely held for months (common with annual rental contracts), this option may simply not be available by the time you need it.
Option 2: Record the refund in Altru, pay it outside Altru
When the money has to go back by check, ACH, or some other method your processor doesn’t handle, you have two jobs: make Altru show the refund, and make sure the payment is issued only once.
Whether Altru lets you choose a non-card refund method (such as check or “other”) on that specific transaction depends on how the original payment was taken and how your payment methods are configured. We can’t promise how your database will behave. Before you build a process around it, test the exact scenario in a sandbox or on a small test transaction, and ask Blackbaud support if the option you need isn’t showing up.
If you can record a non-card refund, a dependable routine looks like this:
- Finance approves the refund first. Someone confirms the space was inspected and the full deposit (or a partial amount) is owed.
- AP issues the check or transfer from your accounting system.
- Altru staff record the refund against the original transaction, using the non-card method, and put the check number or AP reference in a note on the transaction or constituent record.
- The refund goes into a batch that finance reviews, so the GL entries line up with the AP disbursement instead of doubling it.
If Altru won’t let you record a non-card refund on that transaction, talk to finance about an adjusting entry instead. The goal is the same either way: one record showing the money went back, with a reference that links Altru to the accounting system.
Partial refunds and damage charges
When you keep part of a deposit for cleaning or damage, refund only the amount owed and keep the retained portion as earned revenue. Note on the record what the deduction covered. A renter who disputes the charge six months later will ask, and “it says $150 on the record” isn’t a satisfying answer for anyone.
Fix the setup so the next refund is easier
If deposits come up often, it’s worth an hour with your finance lead to set things up deliberately:
- Give deposits their own item or fee instead of folding them into the rental price. That makes them easy to find and refund on their own.
- Map that item to a liability account (often called deposits held or refundable deposits) rather than a revenue account, if your GL mapping supports it. Your auditor will likely prefer it, and refunds no longer look like lost income.
- Build a query of open deposits: deposit items sold, minus deposit refunds, by constituent and event date. Review it monthly so deposits don’t sit forgotten for a year.
- Write the refund policy into the rental contract, including how the deposit will be returned (to the original card if possible, by check otherwise) and how long it takes.
Quick answers
Can I refund a deposit to a different card than the one used?
Generally treat that as risky and avoid it. Refunding to a different card is a common fraud pattern, and your processor may block it anyway. Use the original card or a check.
What if the renter paid by check in the first place?
Then the refund will almost always go out as a check from AP. Record it in Altru against the original transaction so the deposit doesn’t stay on your open deposits list.
Who should be allowed to process deposit refunds?
Keep it to a small group with finance sign-off. Deposits are larger than typical admissions refunds, and a clear approval trail protects both staff and renters.
