Refund an order in full or in part

Give a customer money back for a whole order, part of it, or chosen items. This article walks through the refund card on the order page, explains every figure in its preview, covers orders paid partly or wholly with a gift card or loyalty points, and shows what is left on an order you have partly refunded.

When there is something to refund

Every order has a Refund payment card on its Operations tab. The card offers a refund when the order has a payment that was actually taken and still has money left on it, or when a gift card and loyalty points paid for the whole order and something of it is still to give back.

When there is nothing to refund, the card says No refundable payment and This order has no captured payment with a balance left to refund. You see this when:

• the customer has not paid yet, for example a card order still Awaiting payment;
• the order is cash on delivery and the cash has not been collected and recorded yet — see How do I refund a cash on delivery order?;
• the order has already been refunded in full, or everything it was paid with has been given back;
• the payment failed.

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Refunding needs the Refund orders permission. The Store owner, Store manager and Sales staff roles all have it; a custom role has it only if you gave it. Refund return on a received return needs it too, as well as Update order status to handle the return. See roles and permissions.

A team member whose role does not have it still sees the card, but the preview cannot be worked out, so the refund cannot go ahead. In place of the figures, the preview says Refunding needs the permission to refund orders. Ask the store owner to add it to your role.

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Refund an amount, or selected items

You can refund in two ways. Refund an amount when you are giving money back for a reason that is not about particular items, such as a late delivery or a goodwill gesture. Refund selected items when the money is for specific pieces, such as one dress out of three.

Refund an amount

1. In the sidebar, open Orders and open the order. You can open your orders list (opens in a new tab) from here.
2. Select the Operations tab.
3. Scroll to the Refund payment card. Refundable amount at the top shows the most you can give back.
4. In Refund amount, keep the full amount we filled in, or type a smaller one. It must be more than zero and no more than the refundable amount; outside that, the preview shows — in place of its figures and the refund cannot go ahead.

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5. Type why you are refunding in Refund reason, then carry on from The reason, and the confirmation.

Refund selected items

1. On the order’s Operations tab, scroll to the Refund payment card.
2. Tick Refund selected items. The amount field gives way to a list of the order’s items.
3. Next to each item you are refunding, type how many units. Each line shows its SKU, its variant and Refundable — the units not refunded yet. You cannot type more than that.

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4. Check the preview: we price the items for you. When your prices include tax, it is already inside the item price, so no separate tax line shows; when tax is added on top, a Tax line shows the items’ share.
5. Type why you are refunding in Refund reason, then carry on from The reason, and the confirmation.

Untick Refund selected items to go back to refunding an amount. The quantities you typed are cleared.

The refund preview: tax, shipping and stock

Under the reason, the preview shows how the refund splits. We work every figure out on the server from what the customer actually paid, so the amount in the preview is exactly the amount that is refunded. While you type, the figures show a dash until the new amount is worked out.

A tax, shipping or discount line that would be zero is not shown, and neither is a gift card or points line with nothing in it. The split is for your records: the customer receives the Refund amount, as one sum.

How each way of refunding splits:

• An amount is spread across goods, shipping, tax and discount in the same proportions as the order. Refunding the full amount gives everything back, shipping included.
• Selected items pay back the items and the tax charged on them, never shipping. The customer was charged for one delivery, not one per item. When your selection clears the last units on the order, the refund also sweeps up any tax still owed on the goods.

Whether stock comes back

The preview tells you, in a line under the figures, whether the refund puts items back in stock:

• This refund puts the items back in stock. The order has not reached the delivery provider yet, and you are refunding either selected items or the whole amount. Selected items go back; a full amount refund puts the whole order back. A full refund before shipping also gives back the use of any discount code on the order.
• This refund does not put items back in stock. Receiving a return does. The parcel has already left with the delivery provider, and you are refunding selected items. If the items are coming back to you, create a return and mark it received; that is what restocks them.

When neither line shows, the refund does not change stock. A partial amount refund never does.

Stock never comes back twice. On a cancelled order, the stock already came back when you cancelled; on an order whose parcel was returned to sender, it came back with the parcel. A refund does not add it again, whether you refund an amount or selected items, even if the preview says it puts the items back.

Gift cards and loyalty points

An order can be paid partly with a gift card or with loyalty points, and the rest by card or cash. A refund gives each of them back in proportion: refund half of the payment and half of what the gift card paid goes back onto the card, and half of the points the customer spent go back to them. The preview shows these lines, and the dialog repeats them before you confirm.

On such an order, Line items and Refund amount are the payment’s share only. Refunding one of two items on an order the gift card paid half of gives back half the item’s price from the payment, and the other half onto the gift card. The order page shows the split under the total: Gift card, Loyalty points with the number of points, and then Payment amount, or Amount to collect for cash on delivery. See Read an order page.

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• Points the order earned are taken back in the same proportion — all of them on a full refund — and so is the referral bonus it paid, from the customer and from the friend who referred them. If the customer has already spent those points, their balance goes below zero and their next earnings make it up.
• Each share moves once. Cancelling an order already gives back all of the gift card and points, so refunding the payment of that order afterwards gives the card and the points nothing more.

An order paid entirely by gift card and points

When a gift card and loyalty points covered the whole total, no money was paid, so no money goes back. The card says This order was paid entirely by gift card and points, so no money goes back. The customer gets back the same share of their gift card and points as the items you choose, or all of it for the whole order. It has no amount box.

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You see Gift card and points given back. The order becomes Refunded, or Partially refunded if items are left. No refund email goes to the customer for these, because no money moves; tell them yourself. Once everything has been given back, the card shows No refundable payment.

The reason, and the confirmation

1. In Refund reason, type why you are giving the money back, up to 500 characters. Issue refund stays greyed out until you do. The box does not stop you at 500: longer text is refused when you confirm, with an error message. On a card refund the customer sees this reason in the refund email, so write it for them.
2. Select Issue refund. A dialog asks you to confirm.

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3. Select Issue refund in the dialog. You see Refund issued.

After the refund:

• The order’s Order stage and Payment change to Refunded, or to Partially refunded if money is still left on the payment. The stage reads The refund has been recorded.
• The Overview tab’s Activity timeline gains Refund recorded by staff, with who did it, and two payment lines: Payment refunded for the payment, and Payment refunded or Payment partially refunded for the order’s new status. On a card refund, Customer email sent follows once the refund email goes, usually within a minute.
• The payment under Order total & payments shows Refunded with the amount, the date and your reason.

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A card order whose parcel came back to you waits in Needs attention until you refund it. Any refund made after the parcel came back, in full or keeping the delivery fee, moves it on. See Refused at the door: returned to sender.

Card payments: the money goes back through HyperPay

When the customer paid by card, Issue refund sends the refund to HyperPay, your card payment provider, which returns the money to the card the customer paid with. We do not hold the money at any point. Card payments are on Growth and up; see plans and what each includes.

• The customer is told. They get an email with the order number, the amount, your reason and a link to their order. It says refunds usually appear on their card within 5–10 business days, depending on their bank.
• Keep HyperPay connected. A refund uses the same keys as the payment. Pausing card payments does not stop refunds, but if your HyperPay keys were removed or no longer work, the refund is refused. See connect HyperPay.
• If HyperPay refuses the refund, nothing is refunded and the order does not change. HyperPay’s message appears at the top of the Operations tab, and the payment shows it as Payment error. Fix what it says, then try again.
• This payment has no payment provider reference, so it cannot be refunded here. The payment has no HyperPay transaction to refund against. Open a support ticket and we will look into it with you.

A partly refunded order: what is left

You can refund an order more than once, until nothing is left on its payment. Each time, the card starts again from what is still owed:

• Refundable amount and Refund amount show only what is left, and the points line only the points not taken back yet.
• Under Refund selected items, Refundable counts only units not refunded yet. An item refunded in full shows Refundable 0.

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On the Overview tab, Order stage and Payment read Partially refunded, and the last step of the progress bar says Partially refunded.

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Open Order total & payments to see the payment itself. It shows the amount taken, Refunded with the running total of every refund so far, the date of the latest refund and its reason.

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When the last of the money goes back, the order becomes Refunded and the card shows No refundable payment.

If the amount could not be worked out

Sometimes the preview shows a message instead of figures. The refund cannot go ahead until the preview shows figures again. Issue refund is not greyed out for this reason alone: selecting it works the amount out once more, and if that fails no dialog opens and an error message pops up instead. Read the message in the preview and fix what it says before you try again.

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• Could not load data. The connection or our server did not answer in time. Check your connection, then change the amount or the quantities again, or reload the page.
• Refunding needs the permission to refund orders. Ask the store owner to add it to your role. Your role does not include Refund orders; see above.
• Select the remaining item quantities so inventory is not restored twice. The order has not reached the delivery provider, some items were already refunded, and you are refunding everything that is left as an amount. Tick Refund selected items and select the remaining units instead, so their stock comes back once.
• Refund amount must be greater than zero and no more than the remaining payment amount. The items you selected are worth nothing that is still owed, usually because earlier refunds already gave back what they cost. Check Refundable amount before refunding again.

These last two messages appear in English for now, whatever language the console is in.

What to do next

• Items coming back to you? Handle a return to receive them and refund them in one go.
• Paid in cash? Read How do I refund a cash on delivery order?
• The customer changed their mind before the parcel left? Cancel the order instead.