Understanding transaction statuses

This page explains the different payment statuses you might see in your dashboard and what they mean.

Succeeded

A "Succeeded" status indicates that a payment was successfully approved by the donor's banking institution. It signifies that the payment has been received on Zeffy's end and will appear in your available balance on the payouts page.

Failed

A "Failed" status means the transaction could not be completed. For bank transfer (ACH/PAD) payments, this typically happens when there are insufficient funds, an invalid account number, or the donor's bank declined the transaction.

Both you and your donor will be notified via email when a payment fails.

Processing

The "Processing" status applies to ACH/PAD (bank transfer) payments. It means the payment is still being processed by the donor's bank and can take anywhere between 5–10 business days to complete.

For more details on ACH/PAD processing timelines and what to expect, see Understanding ACH/PAD Payments.

Disputed

A "Disputed" status means the cardholder has asked their bank to reverse the charge. Zeffy will email you when a dispute is opened and submit evidence on your behalf.

For more information on how disputes work and how to respond, see Disputes and Chargebacks.

Refunded

A "Refunded" status means the transaction amount has been fully returned to the donor. If you see "$XX Refunded," this indicates a partial refund — the amount refunded will be specified in the status.

Stopped

A "Stopped" status applies only to recurring payments. It indicates that a recurring donation or membership has been canceled. The most recent transaction was still successful, but the donor will not be charged again in the future.

Recurring payments can be stopped for several reasons:

• The donor canceled the recurring payment from their account

• The recurring payment was canceled from your nonprofit dashboard

• All attempts to charge the donor's card failed after multiple retries

Incomplete

An "Incomplete" status means that a payment was started but not completed. This can happen if a user encountered an error, but more commonly, it simply means they began the process and didn't finish it.

This is completely normal — no online form has a 100% conversion rate, so it's expected that some visitors won't complete their payment.

If you notice an incomplete entry, a good approach is to follow up with the person via the little envelope + heart emoji to the right of their payment status. That way, you can thank them for their interest and offer help in case they ran into any issues.