If you've spotted a cancelled transaction in your Stripe dashboard, don't worry. This doesn't mean a sale was lost or that something's gone wrong with your account - it's normal to have some failed transactions for anyone selling tickets online.

When a customer starts to check out, Stripe creates something called a PaymentIntent. This is Stripe's way of tracking a payment attempt from start to finish. Here are a few common reasons you might see one cancelled:

They paid a different way. Sometimes a customer will start checking out with a card, then change their mind and pay a different way instead, for example through PayPal, Square, or an offline payment. When they complete the purchase using a different method, Stripe automatically cancels the original PaymentIntent, since it's no longer needed.

They didn't finish checking out. If a customer starts the payment process but closes the tab, navigates away, or simply doesn't complete their purchase, Stripe will cancel the PaymentIntent once the checkout session times out.

They started over. If a customer's card is declined, or they hit an error and try again, this can create a new PaymentIntent while the original one is cancelled.

A cancelled transaction just means that particular payment attempt didn't go through, for one of the reasons above. If the customer paid another way, you'll see the successful payment recorded against whichever method they used instead. If they abandoned checkout or their card was declined, no order will have been placed.

Either way, there's no action needed on your end. The cancelled entry itself doesn't affect any tickets, orders, or funds.

If you're seeing a cancelled transaction with no matching successful payment elsewhere, or a customer's telling you they've paid but you can't find their order, get in touch with our support team and we'll take a look with you.