Cancelling and refunding

A visitor falls ill. A performance is not going ahead. Somebody ordered the same thing twice. You then want to be able to do two things: make the ticket invalid and pay the money back.

This article explains that those are two separate actions, how you carry out both, where the money comes from and when a gift voucher is a better idea than a refund. For finding and reading an order itself: Following up orders.

Cancelling and refunding are not the same thing

This is the most important point in this whole article, so it comes first.

Cancelling affects the ticket. The QR code becomes invalid, the scanner refuses it at the entrance, and the seat comes free again in the capacity of your time slot or your event. Not a euro moves.

Refunding affects the money. An instruction goes to your payment provider to pay an amount back into your visitor's account or card. The ticket simply stays valid.

Two things do make it easier. With a full refund, you can cancel the tickets in the same window straight away; that is switched on by default (see step 1). And a ticket that has already been scanned keeps its place: that visitor was already inside, and selling their seat again would overbook your venue.

Cancel   ->  the ticket becomes invalid, the money stays with you
Refund   ->  the money goes back, the ticket stays valid

You do them independently of each other, and that is deliberate. There are, in fact, real cases for all four combinations:

Situation	Cancel?	Refund?
Visitor drops out, you are lenient	Yes	Yes
Visitor drops out too late, your terms do not allow a refund	Yes	No
Visitor comes anyway, but paid too much	No	Yes, the difference
Visitor passes their ticket on to a friend	No	No

Whoever mixes the two up gets the story back on the phone. So deliberately do both, or deliberately do only one of the two.

What you need beforehand

• The Owner or Administrator role. The Desk role may view orders but not refund; see Staff and roles.
• A connected payment provider with a sufficient balance, see Payout and costs.
• The order in question, and the amount you want to pay back.
• Five minutes, plus the patience to let the money be on its way for a few working days.

Step 1 — The money: refunding in full

1. Go to Orders and open the order.
2. Click the red Refund button at the top right.
3. A window appears with two fields:

Field	What you fill in
Amount	In euros. It is already filled in with everything that can still be refunded. Leave it as it is to refund the whole order
Reason	Your own note, "performance cancelled" for instance. Keep it short

4. Confirm. You get a green message. If your provider confirms straight away, it says … has been refunded. If the provider puts the refund in its queue first, it says The refund of … has been passed on to your payment provider.

If you refund the full amount, there is one more switch below the reason: Cancel the tickets and release their places. It is on by default. The tickets that have not been scanned yet then become invalid (status Refunded) and their places come free again straight away in your time slot or your event, so that someone else can buy them. If your visitor is still coming, for example because you are refunding as a gesture, turn the switch off. With a partial refund, it does not appear.

The status of the order does not always jump to Refunded straight away. That is not a fault. We only write that status once your provider has confirmed the refund; with one provider that is immediate, with another it takes a few minutes. If the screen noted "refunded" straight away and your provider then refused it, your system would say that something had been arranged that never happened — and you would only come across that when the complaint arrives.

Refresh the screen after a few minutes. If the order is set to Refunded or Partially refunded, it has left.

Step 2 — The money: refunding in part

The same button, a different amount.

1. Open the order and click Refund.
2. Overwrite the amount with the part you want to pay back, 12 of an order of 36 euros for instance.
3. Fill in why under Reason, and confirm.

The order then goes to Partially refunded. The tickets of that order stay scannable: with a partial refund, the switch from step 1 does not appear. Someone who got one of four tickets refunded simply comes in with the other three. The ticket they handed back, you cancel yourself (step 3).

You can repeat this. With every refund the Amount field is already filled in with what is left, so you can never accidentally refund more than came in. If you do try too high an amount, you get a red message with the maximum in it.

Note: you always refund against the payment that came in. If your visitor paid partly with a gift voucher, you can only pay back the part that was really paid with money. The voucher amount does not go back onto the voucher by itself; you put it back yourself with Adjust balance, see Gift vouchers.

Two things do happen automatically as soon as your provider confirms the refund:

• If your buyer had an invoice, Passavo creates a credit note for it. See Invoices to your buyers.
• If a UiTPAS or museumPASSmusées was used on the order, that use is withdrawn, for all passes on that order — even with a partial refund. See UiTPAS and the social tariff.

Step 3 — Cancelling the tickets

A partial refund, or a full one with the switch turned off, does not make the tickets invalid. If you want that too, you do it separately:

1. Stay on the order and scroll to the Tickets table at the bottom.
2. Click Cancel the ticket next to the ticket.
3. Confirm. The ticket gets the Cancelled status.

Do this per ticket. With an order of six tickets of which two are given back, you cancel exactly two. Cancelling tickets is allowed for the Owner or Administrator role.

This frees up the place again. A cancelled ticket no longer counts in the capacity of your time slot or your event, and that place can be sold again straight away. A ticket that has already been scanned can no longer be cancelled: that visitor was already inside.

The ticket does not disappear from the list. It stays as Cancelled, so that the scan app at the door can say Cancelled instead of Invalid, as if the ticket had never existed. If the ticket was in your visitor's wallet, that pass stops working too — otherwise somebody would be walking around with a valid-looking code and their money back. See Wallet passes.

Where does that money come from?

From you. Not from us.

A refund runs through your own payment provider — Mollie, Stripe or Bancontact Pro, whichever the visitor paid through. We send them the instruction; they take the money from your balance with them and send it to your visitor. We never come between you and your money. See What is a payment provider?

How long that takes is down to that provider and to your visitor's bank. With most providers you are looking at a few working days, sometimes longer when it concerns a card payment. That is normal and you cannot speed it up. Say so to your visitor straight away, then they will not ring after two days.

Watch out for the transaction fee. Your provider charged a fee on the original payment. With most providers you do not get that back when you refund. So your visitor gets their full amount, and you keep the fee. At a few euros per ticket you hardly notice it; with a cancelled festival it adds up. Exactly what your provider does is in their own list of rates — see Payout and costs.

And money paid in cash you give back in cash. The Refund button sends an instruction to your payment provider, and a twenty-euro note from your cash drawer has never been past there. That is why the button is not there for a cash sale at the desk either. With such a sale you give the money out of your drawer, book it in the till under Drawer → Out with the order number as the reason, and cancel the tickets here. If the buyer had an invoice, create a credit note yourself. See The counter till.

When a gift voucher is better than money back

With a cancelled or moved event a gift voucher is often the better proposal. For you the money stays within your association, and for your visitor it is often even more pleasant: they get something in their hands straight away instead of waiting for a transfer.

The rule is simple and it is not negotiable: you ask, you do not choose it for them.

A visitor who asks for a refund and has a voucher forced on them feels robbed, and quite right too: they paid for something that did not go ahead. So send an email with two clear choices and let them answer:

The performance of 14 March is not going ahead. You can choose: we pay your 36.00 euros back, or you get a gift voucher for 36.00 euros that you can use with us all year. Reply to this email with your choice.

Whoever chooses the voucher gets one; whoever answers nothing or asks for money gets their money. How you create a gift voucher is in Gift vouchers.

A cancelled event: the list in order

Do not go on feel for a moment, but work in this order. It saves you a week of phone calls.

1. Stop the sale. Set the event to inactive, or use the Cancel action under Time slots, so that nobody else joins while you are clearing up. See Events.
2. Make the list. Under Events or Time slots the Sold column shows how many places it is. In Tickets you sort on Valid on; for each ticket you see the product and the order number. Now you know what you are starting on.
3. Notify everybody, in one email, with the choice in it. Voucher or money back, with a reply date. This is the step most people skip and the one that saves the most work.
4. Wait until your reply date. Then process it all in one movement.
5. Refund whoever wants money, and create a voucher for whoever wants a voucher.
6. Cancel the tickets. All of them, including those of the people who took a voucher — otherwise there are valid QR codes for an evening that does not exist. Those you refunded in full with the switch on are already sorted: their tickets are on Refunded.
7. Check your balance at your provider halfway through. See below.

Common mistakes

Cancelling and thinking the money has gone back. The most common mistake, and the dearest in goodwill. Cancelling a ticket pays nothing back.

Refunding and leaving the tickets in place. The opposite mistake. Your visitor has their money back and a valid QR code, and they are standing at the door. With a full refund, the switch from step 1 takes care of it; with a partial one, you have to remember it yourself.

Forcing a voucher instead of offering one. Ask. Always.

Refunding one by one in a panic as soon as the news is out. First notify everybody with a choice in it and then process it all in one movement. Otherwise you refund people who would rather have had a voucher, and you pay transaction fees twice for nothing.

Leaving the reason empty. You fill it in for yourself six months from now, or for the treasurer who asks why 36.00 euros went out.

What if …

What if there is not enough money in my provider balance?

A refund comes out of your balance at your provider, and that balance is paid out to your bank account regularly. So just after a payout it can be almost empty, while you have enough in your own account.

Your refund is then refused and you get a red message with your provider's error message in it. That is no disaster and nothing is broken.

What you do: pay money back into your provider (most allow you to top up an amount yourself, look in their panel under the balance), or wait until sales come in again. With a cancelled event with many refunds, topping up is usually the only way, because no more sales are coming in. Then simply try again with the same button: a failed refund does not count as refunded.

What if the visitor's card has expired in the meantime?

That happens more often than you think with an event sold a year ahead. Mostly it resolves itself: banks and card companies pass a refund on to the successor of an expired card, as long as it is the same account.

If it goes wrong, you get a message from your provider, often only a few days later. Then look at your provider itself in the overview of that refund. If it really has been refused, you still have two routes: an ordinary bank transfer to your visitor's account number (ask them for it in writing and keep that email), or a gift voucher if they agree to that.

What if the visitor has lost their ticket but does not want money back?

Then you do not have to do anything here. Their ticket has not disappeared, only their email. Resend the ticket email from the order — see Following up orders. Same code, same QR code, no refund, no cancellation.

Certainly do not cancel "to be able to start again". You would be breaking a valid ticket for somebody who simply cannot find their post.

What if I cannot see the Refund button?

Four possible reasons:

1. Your role. Only Owner and Administrator may refund.
2. The status of the order. The button only appears with Paid and Partially refunded. With Pending no money has come in yet, and with Expired or Cancelled there is nothing to give back.
3. Everything has already gone back. If the full amount has been refunded, the button disappears. Look at the status.
4. The payment did not go through your payment provider. Cash at the desk, with a gift voucher, with the balance on the pass or a free order: there is nothing to pay back through a provider there. Cash you give back from your drawer.

What if I have refunded too much?

Reversing it is not possible: money that has left does not come back at the press of a button. Ask your visitor politely for the difference, or let it go when it is small change. Prevent it by reading the amount out loud before you confirm — it is not filled in already for nothing.

What if I have not connected a payment provider?

Then you get the message This organisation has no payment provider connected. and nothing happens.

A refund always runs through the provider the payment came in through, even if you now use a different provider for your shop. That old connection must then still be connected. If you have disconnected it, you get the same message. In that case connect it again, or refund in that provider's own dashboard, and cancel the tickets here.

If there was never a provider, no money ever came in this way either. In that case arrange the refund outside the system, with a bank transfer, and cancel the tickets here.

Frequently asked questions

Should I refund first and then cancel, or the other way round? Technically it makes no difference; they are two separate actions. In practice refunding first is safest: the money then stays the trail you follow and you are less likely to forget the second step.

Does my visitor automatically get an email with a refund? Do not count on it. Some providers notify people themselves, others do not, and your visitor's bank certainly does not. Write them an email yourself with the amount and the notice that it may take a few working days. That is one email that saves you ten phone calls.

Can I cancel a refund after I have confirmed it? No. The instruction leaves for your provider straight away. Read the amount over before you confirm.

Does a refunded order stay visible in my overviews? Yes. Nothing is ever deleted. You see the order, the original amount and what went back. That is precisely what your bookkeeping needs.

I have refunded in cash at the till. Do I still have to do anything here? Yes: book the money under Drawer → Out and cancel the tickets, otherwise they stay valid. The Refund button is not there for such a sale: it sends money through your payment provider, and you have already given that money out of your drawer.