How do you reconcile reserved, spent and returned credits for one task?

Start with a task-specific accounting question

Choose one generation and record its identifier, operation, submission time and quoted credits. In an illustrative bottle project, a product image and a script were requested close together. Looking only at the later total balance can mix their costs with a credit expiry or unrelated purchase. The useful question is what happened to this image's allowance, not why every balance changed that afternoon.

Keep the quote associated with the submitted operation. An estimate captured before settings changed may not identify the eventual amount. Image generation, script planning and video generation are separate operations even when they serve one creative idea. This guide follows the allowance attached to one request; acceptance-adjusted creative cost is a later calculation.

Distinguish reservation from an additional deduction

The current generation workflow reserves applicable credits when accepting a request. That reduces allowance available to spend elsewhere. When the same recorded reservation starts processing, it should not be counted by the reviewer as a second independent charge merely because the task status changed from waiting to running.

This is an accounting distinction, not a promise that every internal ledger stage is visible as a separate row in the workspace. Use the task and account information actually shown. If a detail is missing, mark it unknown and ask support to reconcile it. Do not invent a visible reserved-credit panel or ask users to read the account database. The balance display alone cannot supply the full task history.

Build a one-task reconciliation sheet

Keep the sheet outside Itemlume as your own investigation record. Screenshots should capture the relevant amount and state without unrelated private data. A sequence of observations is more useful than subtracting one total from another and labeling the difference a duplicate charge. Include other known purchases, expiries or jobs when they affect the comparison, while keeping this task's question explicit.

Treat confirmed failure and uncertainty differently

Photoroom distinguishes technical generation failure from dissatisfaction with a delivered result in its AI-credit guidance.

For Itemlume, a confirmed failed generation returns its reserved credits through the failure path. The return preserves the original source and expiry. If that source has already expired, restoring its amount does not create a fresh future spending period. A returned reservation and an increase in currently usable balance therefore need not be the same observation.

Pending or uncertain provider work is not automatically treated as a confirmed failure. Keep the original task under reconciliation and avoid a duplicate submission. A completed image rejected for a wrong label is also different from a failed technical task; do not presume a quality refund. Where an uncertain-task abandonment option is available, read its consequence: abandonment does not promise returned credits.

Ask for a specific reconciliation, then close the record

Send Feedback the task identifier, quoted operation, submission time, recorded state and the precise amount or timing question. Ask whether the original reservation remains in use, was returned, or needs investigation. Do not include payment credentials or claim a second charge solely because the job changed status.

After the outcome is clear, record the actual credits retained for this operation and any confirmed return. Then use that amount in the approved-asset cost calculation, if the output passes creative review. If no output is acceptable, retain the spend and defect record without inventing a cost per approved asset. Accounting closure and publication approval answer different questions, and both need an explicit result.