Manage Cancellations and Refunds

Sometimes you need to cancel and/or refund orders. Here you will learn how to:

• Cancel an order
• Give partial or full refund
• Find an order to issue the refund
• Give account credits
• Common questions about refunds

Cancel an order

Once an order has been canceled, the seats are released and made available to be booked again, and the customer will receive an email notifying them of the cancellation.

1. After logging into your workspace, click on Reports from the sidebar menu and then click on the “Orders” tile or click on "Order List" from the toolbar on your dashboard workspace.
2. Find the order you wish to change.
3. Click “Edit Order”. This should open a new window.
4. Scroll down on the new window and click the “Cancel Order” button.

If you also wish to give a refund please read the section below.

Give partial or full refund

With Occasion, you can give your customers a full or partial refund on an order they made with you. Please note, that giving a refund without canceling an order will not release the seat for booking again. Read the section above on how to cancel an order.

Paid with a credit card

1. Seller gives a partial or full refund to the Customer
2. Seller gives a partial or full refund as an account credit to the Customer
3. The customer wants a credit card refund instead:
   1. Scenario 1: Account credit was not used: Seller can revert the account credit issued on the booking, and give the Customer a credit card refund.
   2. Scenario 2: Account credit was used: Seller cannot revert the account credit used.

Paid with a credit (gift card, account credit, or referral reward)

1. Seller can issue a partial or full refund back to the original credit; to re-top the Customer's original credit.

Paid with cash

1. Seller gives a partial or full refund to the Customer (best practice for reporting purposes)
2. Seller gives a partial or full refund as an account credit to the Customer   
3. The Customer wants a cash refund instead
   1. Scenario 1: Account credit was not used: Seller can revert the account credit used on the booking, and give the Customer a cash refund.
   2. Scenario 2: Account credit was used: Seller cannot revert the account credit issued.

Find an order to issue the refund

1. After logging into your workspace, click on Reports from the sidebar menu and then click on the “Orders” tile or click on "Order List" from the toolbar on your dashboard workspace.
2. Find the order you wish to cancel.
3. Click “Edit Order”. This should open a new window.
4. Scroll down to the transaction section and click the “Issue Refund” button.
5. Select if you want to refund to credit card, cash, or give customers an account credit.
6. Enter the amount you wish to refund.
7. Click "Finalize Refund". Wait for the screen to refresh and confirm that the refund was processed successfully.
8. When refunding to a credit card, the customer will receive the full credit within 2-3 business days.

Give account credits

Instead of refunding a customer, you may choose to give them account credit valid towards a future purchase. An account credit is nothing but a "gift card amount" sent to customers that can be used in the future to re-book with your business.

1. Make sure you have canceled the customer's order first. Read the section on the top to see how you can cancel an order.
2. Click the "Refund" button.
3. Select "Refund as Account Credit" and enter the credit amount.
4. The customer will receive an email informing them that they have received an account credit from you.

Setting Expiration Date for Account Credits

You can set the number of days after which a credit expires in your Account Settings.

Common questions about refunds

One of the common reasons for not being able to refund an order is if you have made changes to your payment gateway. Below we listed some common problems with refunds. If they do not answer your question, feel free to reach out to us at help@getoccasion.com.

Can I convert cash transactions into account credit when refunding?

You can do the following:

1. Convert a "cash" transaction into an account credit when refunding.
2. Convert a "credit card" transaction into an account credit when refunding.

Is there a report on account credits?

Account credits are a modified version of gift cards. A list of all account credits is available in the Gift Card page when you click on "Gift Cards" from the sidebar menu.

Why can't I refund a customer?

If you did the following, you will not be able to refund customers who completed orders while the prior gateway was connected. Think of it like a two-way connection that is now broken.

1. Switching a gateway - for example, if you switched recently from Stripe to Square.
2. Changing the login information on a gateway

Why can't I issue a refund to a customer's credit card?

If your customer used a gift card or account credit for their order, you can revert the charge as a refund back to the original credit card upon customer request by clicking on the "Revert" button. However, if the gift card was already used on an additional order, you won't be able to revert the charge as a refund back to the credit card.

How do I refund customers on the prior gateway then?

The best thing to do is to process a refund via some other method - check, cash or if you have access to the gateway portal.

Does this mean I cannot refund anymore?

You can still process refunds on orders that were completed on the new gateway without any problems, but not on past orders completed on the old gateway.