Void vs refund, the one distinction
- Void kills a payment from today, before the money has really gone anywhere, the charge disappears rather than being paid back. Rang up the wrong order, customer changed their mind at the counter, test sale: Void Payment.
- Refund returns money that has actually moved, yesterday's sale, an online order, anything already settled: Refund.
Rule of thumb: same day and caught quickly → void. Everything else → refund. A void never shows on the customer's statement at all, which is the cleaner outcome when it's available.
Issue a refund
Find the order, today's list or order history, and open it.
Choose Refund for the whole thing, or Partial Refund to give back only part (one bad item out of five, a goodwill discount after the fact).
Watch for the Return items to stock after refund checkbox if you track inventory: tick it when the item physically came back, leave it when the item is gone (eaten, damaged, never returned). This is the step everyone misses, and it's why counts drift.
Confirm. The order's status updates and the refund shows in your records, nothing to write down.
Where the money goes, and when
- Card and online payments go back to the card that paid. It leaves your side immediately but takes a few business days to show on the customer's statement, up to ten with slow banks. Tell them that upfront and you'll skip the "where's my money" call.
- Cash, hand it back from the drawer; record the refund in the app so your day still reconciles.
- The platform fees from that sale are reversed along with it, fee reversals show as their own line (Fee Refund) in your money records.
Partial refunds are your friend
The angry-customer math: a full refund costs you the whole sale; a fair partial refund often saves the relationship for a fraction. One melted cupcake in a dozen is a one-cupcake refund plus an apology, not a twelve-cupcake surrender. Partial Refund takes an exact amount, so match it to the actual harm.
If something's off
- The refund option is grayed out for a team member. That's the refund permission doing its job, an owner or a role with refund rights has to do it.
- Customer says the refund never arrived after two weeks. Have them check the exact card the order was paid with (people forget), then their bank. The refund record in the order is your receipt that it was sent.
- You refunded the wrong order. There's no un-refund. Ring the sale again, charge the customer again if that's honest, and slow down by one breath before the next confirm.