Overview
In this article, we will outline why you may have a negative balance, and what you can do to correct it. You may also find the video example attached below for further references.
Contents
This article includes:
What is Overcharge?
- An “overcharge” is defined as any instance where you have charged Agoda more than what was supposed to be paid and therefore Agoda needs to recover the surplus amount back.
- Overcharge includes but not limited to:
| Overcharge Reason | Scenario |
| Cancellations / Amendments outside policy | If your payment terms are before check-in date, you have charged an Agoda UPC and there is a cancellation / amendment by customer outside policy, this will result in an overcharge, requiring collection. |
| Cancellations / Amendments inside policy | When you agree to refund the customer on a non-refundable booking, it can result in an overcharge. |
| Others | Fraud, force-charges, manual entry errors etc. |
Reasons why you may have a negative balance?
An overcharge is when you have charged more than the total amount that is due to you and this can result in your account having a negative balance.
ePass will only allow you to submit positive batches, and you will receive an error message if you try to submit a batch with a negative balance.
You may see a manual adjustment posted by our Finance team, which could be due to:
- Overcharging related to multi-currency transactions
- Outdated tax rate on bookings
- Agreements to allow customer to cancel with different cancellation policy than on original booking
- Cancelled or No Show Booking is charged with full payment before status updated on YCS
Have you recently changed Payment Method?
If you have recently migrated to ePass from another payment method, there may be some payments that cannot be migrated to ePass. This is due to a system limitation and if this happens, our Finance team will post an adjustment to reflect the missing balance. You will be able to include this in your next payment batch.
Have you submitted payment for a booking before the status is finalized?
When booking status changed to canceled or no show, the payment that eligible for you to charge will be updated depending on the cancellation policy setup. If you have charged the booking before the status updated, Agoda may adjust by posting a negative amount to balance the amount.
You may check headlines “How will an Overcharge be cleared?” if you are not on ePass.
If you are on ePass, you can check on YCS if you receive the negative amount to balance by following the steps below:
- When you receive the negative amount, find your Booking ID and keep it in mind.
- Go to ePass > All Transactions
- Search the booking transaction (can be based on check-in, check-out, or booking date), click Search
- Find the specific Booking ID.
- When you find on the Booking ID has more than 1 posted amount, and 1 of them is negative it means Agoda has balanced out the payment. Check the article “How do I review past payments?” to check detail on previously submitted payments.
How will an Overcharge be cleared?
Our Finance team will contact you and will arrange for the overcharge to be cleared by manually amending the system, or if you are on UPC payment method, amending the UPC batch or issuing a new UPC to charge.
Collection Process for UPC Payment Method
- Every Monday, the system pulls overcharges report at a booking level, generates a PDF invoice on Hotel ID (HID) level, and emails an invoice to all contact details for the hotel ID available in YCS.
- The invoice will request you to refund the overcharges detailed at a booking level onto the same UPCs you have charged, and specifically mentioned a 2-week timeline to refund to avoid a chargeback by Agoda.
Collection Process on UPC on ePass Payment Method
- Only when the overcharge remaining more than 60 days in Epass. Every Monday, the system pulls overcharges at a batch level, it generates a PDF invoice on Hotel ID level, and emails an invoice to all contact details for your hotel available in YCS.
- The invoice will request property to refund the overcharges detailed at a booking level onto the same UPCs you have charged, and specifically mentioned a 2-week timeline to refund to avoid a chargeback by Agoda.
In any case at this stage we recommend you to respond back to original email or contact at: Collections@agoda.com
Chargeback
- If you did not refund in 2-weeks and collection agents do not have information to show the relevant overcharges were due to internal errors, an auto-chargeback is initiated.
- Upon chargeback, Agoda gets the money back within 1-2 days through your acquiring bank. You then has the right to dispute the chargeback (through your acquiring bank) if you believe that money was not owed to Agoda but you have to provide some documentary evidence proving this to your acquiring bank. If you dispute chargeback, you will receive the money back through your bank until such time as Agoda decides to counter your dispute.
- In the event Agoda gets a dispute from you which is routed to Agoda through our issuing bank, Agoda also has the right to counter your dispute if the chargeback team believes there is sufficient evidence to show Agoda has the right to recover the money. If neither Agoda nor you agree, the final stage is arbitration where the relevant card scheme gets involved to resolve dispute.
- Chargeback process has costs for both Agoda and properties which increase with disputes. We prefer not charging back, but having properties to refund voluntarily when they receive an invoice.
In any case after you received chargeback from the bank, please contact us at AC-Chargeback@agoda.com
Resuming payment processing
If you have a negative balance, you can submit a batch to make your balance positive again. There may be cases when the batch decreases the negative amount but the overall balance remains negative. In the example below, no UPC will be issued as the balance remains negative
In the example below, you can see a case where the batch does not fully clear the outstanding balance
After you have cleared this negative balance, you will be able to charge future bookings as per usual process.
In the example below, you can see an example of a negative balance being cleared
Current transactions screen - Booking transactions list:
Current transactions screen - Summary transactions list:
Frequently Asked Questions
My property is under ePass, Can I pay the overcharge amount via bank transfer and remove the negative amount in ePass?
Sorry, due to financial restrictions, the overcharge amount has to be balanced out via the same payment method.
I have a negative balance but I don't have issues mentioned above.
In this case, please reach out to Agoda accommodation support via the Support widget in YCS. We will do a further investigation with relevant teams.
Can Agoda cancel a chargeback once initiated?
Sorry, but there is no option to cancel a chargeback. Once a chargeback is initiated, it will result in Agoda getting the money back immediately within 1-2 days.
I have received chargeback but its overcharges are already recovered through Epass. What can I do?
There is a slim possibility where you received bookings offsetting the overcharge just before chargeback was raised (timing lag) or there is a data issue, resulting in a double charge from Agoda. There are 2 options in this case:
- You can dispute the chargeback and inform Collections@agoda.com and AC-Chargeback@agoda.com that you have finalized and receives a chargeback
- You can let chargeback done and please informed to Collections@agoda.com and AC-Chargeback@agoda.com for an adjustment on Epass to claim back payment