How do I find and record credit-card refunds and credits?

Where refunds and credits live

ExpenseBot keeps card refunds and credits in a review list so money returned to your card does not disappear — and so a card payment is never mistaken for a refund.

Go to My Reports → Review expenses → Match card activity. If ExpenseBot's latest card check found unresolved refunds or credits, you will see a Credits & Refunds (N) button. Open it and review each item — you'll see the date, description, amount, institution, and card ending.

ℹ️ Older accounts that don't yet show Review expenses will find the same thing under the collapsed Reconcile & Spreadsheet Tools section on My Reports, labelled Reconcile card transactions.

For each item you choose one of two actions:

• Add to Spreadsheet — for a real merchant refund, card reward, or statement credit. ExpenseBot records it as a negative expense, so it offsets the related spending instead of increasing your expenses.
• Ignore — for a credit-card payment, account transfer, or anything else that should not become a spreadsheet row. Your choice is remembered, so the same transaction does not reappear on the next check.

Nothing is added automatically. ExpenseBot filters obvious card payments, transfers, loan payments, and funding movements before showing the list, and deliberately leaves ambiguous credits for you to decide — you are always the final decision-maker.

Find past refunds and credits

You do not need to enter older credits one by one. Open Credits & Refunds, choose Check another period, then select either a recent window or a calendar year such as Calendar year 2025. ExpenseBot checks that period across every card currently connected and adds unresolved refunds, rewards, and statement credits to the same review list. It still does not write anything to your spreadsheet until you choose Add to Spreadsheet.

Adding or reconnecting a card does not automatically search its older activity. After the connection succeeds, choose the period you want ExpenseBot to check. If you added a card during the current year but also need last year's activity, select the prior calendar year instead of Last 12 months so January through June are not missed.

Connected-card history is limited to roughly two years and can vary by institution. For older transactions, upload the relevant card statement and review its Credits & Refunds tab.

Examples

Add to Spreadsheet (real money back — recorded as negative expenses):

• BLUE BOTTLE REFUND
• AMEX DINING CREDIT
• ANNUAL FEE REFUND
• CASH BACK REWARD

Ignore (moving money between your own accounts — not refunds):

• AUTOMATIC PAYMENT - THANK YOU
• PAYMENT RECEIVED
• TRANSFER FROM CHECKING
• CREDIT CARD PAYMENT

Good to know

• The Credits & Refunds (N) count comes from the latest completed card check — it is not a live bank feed. Use Check another period to run a fresh reconciliation for a recent period or calendar year; simply opening the pending list does not contact your bank.
• Pending transactions are not shown until they post. Card providers can change a transaction's identifiers while it is pending, so ExpenseBot waits for it to post. If today's refund isn't listed yet, check again after it posts.
• Partial results are labeled honestly. If one of your connected institutions could not be checked (for example, the connection needs attention), ExpenseBot tells you which one — the items shown are valid, but the count may not cover every account until the connection is restored.
• Adding a credit uses the same deduplicated spreadsheet-write path as the rest of ExpenseBot — repeating the action will not create a duplicate row.
• This feature is available to paid users with a supported bank or credit-card connection.
• Uploading credit-card statements instead of connecting the card? Refunds from uploaded statements appear in the same Credits & Refunds tab of the reconciliation flow — the same principles apply (credits are never added as expenses automatically).