how does deal with refunds?

[sandys]

this is for long-running jobs: lets say ai video generation. what i was thinking of doing was debit upfront, refund difference:

I’d debit upfront for requested seconds, then if the job fails or outputs shorter than requested, write a refund entry (+ credits). is this something that is possible ?

[pgr0ss]

Sure, you can do it like that. pgledger isn't prescriptive on how you model your flows or which accounts you use, so you can model your flows however you like.

[sandys]

Hi Thanks for replying. Totally get that - just wondering if you had a suggestion for the most pgledgery way of doing refunds, etc. How would you have done it in pgledger, if you had to - so many possibilities (refund table, field to confirm transactions, rollback transactions, etc etc)

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On Sat, 10 Jan, 2026, 00:03 Paul Gross, ***@***.***> wrote: *pgr0ss* left a comment (pgr0ss/pgledger#137) <#137 (comment)> Sure, you can do it like that. pgledger isn't prescriptive on how you model your flows or which accounts you use, so you can model your flows however you like. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#137 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAASYU7LQT2LCBEYO6Q6DVT4F7X57AVCNFSM6AAAAACQ62JCVGVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZTOMZQGEYDKOBVGI> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[pgr0ss]

Personally, I would probably use a pending account of some sort for things in-flight. And then when I knew the final amount, I'd move that from pending to final and any refunds from pending back to where they came from. But I think it depends if you are actually debiting an external account or just tracking amount.

For example, tracking virtual funds:

user1.receivable -> user1.pending - $100
user1.pending -> user1.final - $97 (job finished early)
user1.pending -> user1.receivable - $3 (so now both the receivable and final are $97, but you have a history of the original $100)